Archive for the 'Benefiting from Business Change' topic

Managers may prevent beneficial business change that is against their vested interest

We all know stories about managers who resist change to protect their own power and authority. How do we prevent damage from vested interests in the enterprise? Is it just up to the Board and CEO to know what is going on? How does the Board or CEO find out? Whom does the CEO listen to? Is there a way to support those with change ideas that are widely considered as good and to counteract those widely considered as bad? Whose head is on the line if profits suffer because beneficial change is delayed? Is it the lower-level manager responsible or the CEO?

Good corporate management and governance requires more than one reporting line

20^th century management methods provide only one reporting line. Responsibility for performance includes responsibility for capital invested, responsibility for utilization of capital as solutions, and responsibility for output results produced. [more...].

All capital development should develop capital, plus business results for return on investment

Every business enterprise must produce output results that lead to goods and service results to create value. An expanding enterprise must produce new results of increasing value. The enterprise needs additional capital in order to produce new results as part of the business. The capital must be acquired or developed, implemented as specific performance solutions, and then utilized to produce improved or new results of increased value. The value added to new business results must justify the capital expenditure to acquire or develop needed solutions and provide the return on investment.

All capital development is really result and capital development to develop capital as performance solutions to be utilized to create additional value in output results produced by the business. The additional value of output results provides the return on the capital development investment. If the performance solutions utilized and the results produced by the business are not managed, result and capital development cannot be managed properly and the return on investment cannot be measured. Even physical capital development, like a new building, produces performance solutions to produce results, be it the enterprise office facility solution or a facility solution to produce lease or rental income results.

20^th century management does not organize or manage results or performance

20^th century management does not manage the enterprise business, defined as “the utilization of capital of worth in performance to incur costs and produce value in results”. The business has three components: 1. capital available as performance solutions, 2. results required, and 3. performance in the utilization of a specific solution to incur costs and produce value in a specific result.

20^th century management does not define specific results produced and performance solutions utilized to be managed as sets. Added result value cannot be managed to provide benefits and specific performance solutions developed cannot be managed to know costs. Capital development is a difficult exercise separate from the business context to develop performance or tangible assets to produce some estimated return on investment. Much capital development and performance solution implementations fail to create the added result value needed for the return on investment.

R-pM manages result and capital development as part of the business for measured and managed return

The answer for all future result-capital development is Result-performance Management (R-pM) to organize the business for 21^st Century Management. R-pM manages performance solutions utilized and the business results produced to plan and manage the value added to results. R-pM provides 21^st century Result-performance Development to manage new performance solution development to produce new or improved results. R-pM manages each result-capital development project as part of the business with its own project business structure. R-pM manages implemented solution development and operating costs and the additional value-added to results to measure the actual return on investments. R-pM is the essential approach for any new result-capital development. It is all described in The R-pM Toolkit, your 21^st Century Management Manual

Result-capital development arises from the business requirements to improve results or produce new results

Result-performance Development is initiated by result symptoms in missing or deficient results. [more...].

Change Management is one of the top 10 problems of 20^th century management!

Business change cannot be managed directly because the business is not managed

Business change is a mystery to the 20^th century enterprise because the business, the activity of providing goods and services, is not organized and managed. The enterprise is organized and managed through organization and management structures laid over the business. 20^th century “business change” is not change to the business, but is change to structures laid over the business. Most “business change” lays new organization, process, or system structures over the business with little positive change to the business itself. Since the business is not managed, the value created by change cannot be planned or managed and the return on change investments cannot be measured.

Result-performance Management (R-pM) organizes the business for direct management of business change

Business change is a change to either an output result produced by the business or a performance solution utilized by the business. When the business is organized and managed, business change automatically reorganizes the business and can be managed as the routine. R-pM organizes results and performance solutions to change the business as the daily routine. Business change projects involve result-performance development to increase the value of results or to enable new results, by implementing new or improved performance solutions. If the enterprise does not manage results and performance, it is difficult to manage change to results and performance.

The Change Management Problem

20^th century business change is change to overlaid organization and management structures

Even accepting 20^th century management change to overlaid organization, process, information system, account, performance management, and other structures, there are another set of problems. [more...]

Information Technology is one of the top 10 problems of 20^th century management!

Information Technology incorporates a wide variety of unsolvable problems

Information Technology (IT) employed today has many inherent problems that many expensive solutions have never been able to solve:

• Information technology is managed as technology, rather than as capital preventing integration with the business
• Information technology employs large monolithic information systems that are laid over the business, instead of information processing solutions that are utilized by the business
• Information Technology defines different architectures to define and align the business, systems, hardware and networks, and data and information, rather than integrating each with the business
• Different categories of information capital are mixed in many systems using different entity names and definitions producing information complexity and preventing proper information capital management
• Since the business is not organized, information systems manage information related to structures laid over the business and do not capture, process, or report actual business data and management information
• Information Technology is difficult to manage because it mixes business, facility, and management capital that require diverse management and operating capabilities
• It is difficult to manage return on IT investments since the investments are lumped together and do not produce direct measured business improvements
• Information Technology has grown into a large expensive empire that involves much unnecessary processing, extensive overheads, and unsolvable problems

These problems can never be solved with 20^th century management that tries to improve the enterprise by laying new or improved structures over the business.

Information Technology problems disappear when using R-pM to organize the business for 21^st Century Management

The only way to eliminate the Information Technology problems is by organizing the business with Result-performance Management (R-pM) to enable 21^st Century Management. R-pM integrates information technology in the business as capital defined as specific performance solutions utilized to produce specific business results. R-pM provides the following measures to eliminate the unsolvable Information Technology problem:

• R-pM organizes the actual business as specific performance solutions, including IT solutions, to produce specific business results
• Information system solutions are defined and integrated with the business process as modules to produce a specific result or a chain of results
• Information systems focus on managing actual business data in result value and quality, performance cost and effectiveness, capital worth, and return on capital investments that is not processed today
• Information Technology is defined and organized as capital, with other capital of the same category, for proper capital management by those with the professional capability
• Information capital is defined and managed as business data, human knowledge, facility records, and management intelligence to produce information solutions needed by the business
• Enterprise information is integrated by performance solution utilized, result produced, supplier, customer, time period, business transaction, etc in an enterprise Business Information Base for one set of complete and accurate business information
• Information systems and processing devoted to managing arbitrary structures laid over the business and special systems to address problems in data reconciliation, information integration and extraction, and management reporting are discontinued, if not directly needed by the business
• New information system implementation integrates business and information processing with other performance solutions to produce specific output results needed by the business
• The business is organized for a new generation of 21^st Century Management systems and business-information process modules, to process the actual business result by result, and provide one set of consistently-defined management information

Using R-pM to manage information technology as capital utilized by the actual business eliminates the unsolvable IT problems in business alignment, information complexity, data reconciliation, unknown costs and value, unknown capital worth and returns, CIO and IT management capabilities, data integration and control, and on and on.

The Information Technology Problem

Enterprise information systems include a wide variety of systems that are laid over the business

Since the business is not organized, different management structures must by laid over the business to manage the enterprise. [more...]

Capital Development Project Management is one of the top 10 problems of 20^th century management

20^th century management cannot plan, manage, or repay capital development projects

We have unsolvable problems in 20^th century capital development project planning, management, and return on the project investment, so we cannot:

• Plan and manage operations and development as an integrated continuum that is part of the business
• Itemize, plan, and achieve specific benefits from development projects
• Clearly and systemically understand what we must be implementing from projects as part of the business for ongoing management and return on investment
• Planning the output results to be produced from the project in specific capital items to be implemented and utilized by the business
• Utilizing users and administrative staff in proper roles in the project
• Utilizing contractors and consultants as solutions in an enterprise-managed project
• Documenting and recording the project so that all capital developed is fully documented and that knowledge required for use is created
• Managing the capital to be consumed in the project
• Managing the capital development project as part of the business
• Recording accurate development costs by capital item developed
• Implementing project results as capital items for direct utilization by the business
• Measuring the actual return of capital development investments

The unsolvable 20^th century management problems hamper project management, particularly for enterprise internal capital development and management improvement.

R-pM plans, manages, and repays projects by separate management of results and performance

Result-performance Management (R-pM) provides new breakthroughs for planning and managing enterprise capital development and planning and managing the capital development project.

Capital development develops two things:

• The capital to be utilized as performance solutions that incur costs
• The results to be produced by the developed capital to provide benefit and return

When we plan and manage a capital development project, we must plan and manage two things:

• The results to be produced by project performance
• The capital to be consumed and performance solutions to be utilized to perform the project

R-pM provides the methods to do both. [more...]

Many capital development, business change, and management improvement projects involve management consultants. Each management consulting firm has their own approaches and methodologies that are not familiar to the enterprise client. 20^th century management consulting services tend to be led by the consultant, with limited client participation, and the client enterprise must await a deliverable. Misunderstandings often arise over the scope of the project and the responsibilities of the consultant and the enterprise.

Clients and management consultants need a framework to work together in partnership

An article on 24 May 2006, How Management Consultants and their clients can work in partnership, discussed the need for a framework for the consultant and the enterprise to work together. The article said that the enterprise and consultant need a way to define the development and improvements that will provide clear and measurable benefits to the enterprise, through a 21^st Century Management consulting model that:

• Is based on organizing and managing the actual enterprise business
• Provides services to help the enterprise organize, manage, improve and develop the actual business for measured value-added benefit
• Provides a method for clients to lead and participate properly in business improvement
• Provides a clear framework to understand scope and means of participation for both parties
• Provides the organization and approach that eliminates the fundamental problems in 20^th century business change and management consulting methods
• Provides methods and tools that both the client and consultant understand and use
• Provides a means to plan and measure the value the consultant provides and the value-added success the client achieves.
  

We cannot meet these needs with 20^th century structures and management consulting approaches, since the structures hide the business, and we have no framework to scope change and measure the value produced from the specific scope of change.

Result-performance Management (R-pM) organizes the actual business for 21^st Century Management

The answer is provided by Result-performance Management (R-pM), to organize and manage the actual enterprise business for new 21^st century business management and management consulting. All business organization and management projects are based on organizing and managing the actual business as one integrated and transparent business structure. The objective of every enterprise development project is planned and measured result value added.< [more...]

Business change today is not change to the business, but change to structures laid over the business

When people talk about business organization, business management, or business change they think they are talking about organizing, managing, or changing the actual business. But, the fact is that they are not talking about the actual business. The enterprise business, defined as ‘the activity of providing goods and services“, has never been organized or managed.

They are talking about enterprise structures laid over the business. The organization structure does not organize the business. A structure is laid over the business to organize the enterprise. The business changes while the organization structure remains rigid. Reorganization and related change management is not business change. It is change to the overlaid organization to align a new structure closer to the actual business. The organization structure is the fatal error of 20^th century management that prevents the business from being managed.< [more...].

Business change is not change to the business, but to structures laid over the business

We all have heard of business change problems and the need for change management to solve these problems. We assume that business change changes the actual business, and that business change management manages change to the business. We think of projects like reorganizations, systems implementation, business process re-engineering, etc as changes to the business. We think that the business never changes until there is a periodic business change project.

One problem with 20^th century management is that no one knows what the business is that is supposedly being organized, managed, and changed, because there has never been a precise identification and definition of the “business”. The fact is that 20^th century “business change” is not change to the business. The actual business is in a continual state of change that we are not aware of because the business has never been defined and organized. The most common 20^th century definition of the enterprise business is the “activity of providing goods and services”. The business changes with each change in business activity, which is the utilization of capital as performance solutions, and each change to goods and services, which are economic output results. 20^th century management has never precisely defined and organized the “activity of providing goods and services”, so actual business change has never been managed as business change.< [more...].

20^th century management does not provide a means to directly manage capital development or business change projects. The results enabled by development and the capital developed are mixed together as performance and are not managed properly. There is no way to itemize investment and business change benefits, plan and control actual development costs, plan the return on investment, or measure the actual return. There is no way to integrate the project and capital development with the actual business. There is no way to manage the enterprise properly as a business, or to manage projects properly as a subsidiary business.

These problems are eliminated by Result-performance Management (R-pM), a breakthrough to enable you to manage projects properly. It is all explained in the download “How to Manage Projects in the 21st Century”, available at result-performance-management.com. The download explains how to plan and manage the new performance to be developed and results of value to be produced by the enterprise business. The download also explains how to plan and manage project performance to produce project results, which are the solutions to improve and add value to enterprise results.

R-pM manages one integrated Enterprise Business Structure

R-pM is a significant breakthrough with one simple objective: to organize the enterprise business for 21^st Century Management, in an easy-to-manage Enterprise Business Structure, defined by only two entities:

• Results: Specific economic outputs that must be produced by business performance
• Performance Solutions: Specific capital that must be utilized in performance to produce results

Results are the inputs to and the outputs from performance. [more...]

The Result-performance Management Group at ma.gnolia.com contains bookmarks and a short synopsis of articles on R-pM posted at Business Change Forum, the 21st Century Management Magazine, and other internet sites. Browse the articles to read and print those of interest to assist you to get the most from your business change and improvements.

New R-pM articles will be appearing in on-line and print media and will be bookmarked in the Result-performance Management Group, so bookmark the group yourself for easy access to the latest on R-pM.