Archive for the 'Solving Performance Problems' topic

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

The definition of performance and performance management is a fundamental 20^th century enterprise management problem

Since the 15^th century, performance has been defined as both the capital utilized in action executed and the results accomplished. The definition prevents management of results separate from performance and restricts enterprise management to one confused performance dimension. Performance management is a big part of 20^th century management, with a variety of structures like processes, dashboards, and scorecards laid over the business. Key performance indicators (KPI) mix result volumes, capital utilized, and performance levels. Business process re-engineering focuses on business process management and performance quality to produce a process output. Many performance and productivity methods and consultants redefine costs out of the process and into other capital utilized in the business.

Separate results and capital from performance to enable 21^st century business management

The performance management problem is eliminated by separating results and capital solutions from performance to organize the enterprise business in results produced, capital solutioins utilized, and the performance of a solution to produce a result. The enterprise business changes each time management decides to produce a new result, close a finished result, or utilize a different capital solution. Capital management acquires, develops, improves, and supports capital solution investments that have the potential and are qualified to produce results. [more...]

Many Governments want new Best Business Practices that provide transparent business management and reporting

The current financial crisis and economic recession is also a crisis in the management of the corporations involved. Many governments seek new best business practices to prevent future problems from arising within corporations and financial institutions. They want proper business management and control, so that management is aware of what is happening in the business and government is aware of what is happening in the economy to prevent problems from arising. They want transparent reporting of the actual business, so that regulators gain an accurate picture.

The barrier faced by governments is the unknown problems and solutions

The obvious barrier to these efforts is that no one knows what specific best business management practices will actually solve the problems and prevent future crises. Measures taken in past crises strengthened government regulations and compliance reporting, but did nothing to solve the fundamental business management problems. We can see that the measures taken so far to address the current crisis are guesswork, in hopes of improving the situation. The fundamental problem is that 20^th century management used by all enterprises today prevents organization and management of the actual business.

Fortunately the real answer is available today in Result-performance Management (R-pM) to organize and manage the actual business to provide a firm foundation for business, financial, and economic management and stability. R-pM has set out a Business Management Program that can be led by a government, with business and industry cooperation, to encourage and support local enterprises to organize the business for breakthrough competitive advantage to prosper in the eventual recovery.  These governments are supported by a free 36-page download “A Government Business Management Program to Answer the Economic Crisis”. The download, which is available at result-performance-management.com, is explained further in the recent article of October 28, 2008.

Many arbitrary practices have been contrived over the years, but none are best business practices

Throughout the 20^th century, various practices and structures for organizing, developing, operating, and managing the enterprise have been contrived and refined, becoming the conventional practices and structures used today. The problem is that the structures do not organize and manage the business, so none are best business practices. [more...].

Many enterprises have persistent performance problems. Maybe its gaining real benefit from new solutions, reorganizing to another unresponsive organization, or precisely managing what people are doing. Enterprises are not able to plan and manage their capital investments to determine or manage the return. They are unable to utilize tangible and intangible capital effectively in performance to produce results. They are not able to determine all costs incurred in enterprise performance against the value created by performance. They cannot manage value chains or value added along a chain. They can not determine the worth of their human or other capital investments or the worth of their business. Enterprises are sold one solution after another, but the fundamental problems remain unsolved.

Corporations face fundamental management and business change problems

Many enterprises want to go back to the drawing board to solve business change and management problems. Their problems are fundamental to the way they do business, and need new fundamental solutions. [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.

Conventional business change methods do not plan and manage the individual costs and benefits of change. Costs may be captured against major capital items or the change project. Benefits are invariably stated expectations of performance improvements or estimated increases in sales or revenue results.

Result-performance Management (R-pM) manages the value created in specific new results for benefit and the costs incurred in specific performance solution investments.

Business change projects change overlaid structures to align with the actual business

The business changes continually with each new result produced, result completed, and performance solution redeployed. Conventional business change does not change the actual business, but periodically aligns overlaid organization and management structures, such as processes and accounts, closer to the business. The overlaid structures prevent the actual business from being organized and managed.

The costs and benefits of change do not build up from the business, but estimate the impact of change on the business

Since the actual business performance and results produced are hidden under overlaid structures, the costs and benefits of change cannot be managed. The impact of change on business performance, such as productivity and costs, and results, such as production and profits, must be estimated. The invested capital is lumped together producing unknown costs and intangible assets. The results produced are not defined as a set preventing value and benefit measurement.

R-pM organizes and manages the business to change naturally

Change to the business cannot be managed, if the business is not managed. R-pM organizes and manages performance and results so the business organization changes naturally, eliminating reorganizations and use of overlaid management structures.

With R-pM, business change is actual business change

Actual business change implements new or improved performance solutions to produce new or improved results. New or improved performance solutions and results are managed in the planned business structure to manage change to the business.

R-pM plans and manages the cost and benefits of change

Specific performance solution investments must be managed in development and operations to manage the real costs of change. Results that contain the value to be created must be planned to manage the benefits of change. R-pM organizes and manages the business as one integrated structure to plan and manage the costs and benefits of change to the business structure.

To learn more about R-pM visit result-performance-management.com and download “How to Manage Business Change” to take the mystery out of business change and “How to Manage Projects in the 21^st Century” to manage the business change project properly.

As R-pM gains in popularity, there is a growing need for people with R-pM capabilities. This provides new career opportunities for those who want to be at the vanguard of 21^st century management.

R-pM offers opportunities within the enterprise or as an R-pM Consultant, Solution Developer, or Educator

The opportunities available through R-pM are detailed in the article “R-pM Creates new Career Opportunities” in the 21st Century Management Magazine. Read the article for insights on how you might benefit by starting now to learn and apply R-pM.

The R-pM Toolkit is the key for learning and applying R-pM

The R-pM Toolkit provides R-pM learning and procedures for implementing and using R-pM. Remember the R-pM Toolkit, plus perpetual updates, is low-priced so everybody can take advantage of R-pM. Join the R-pM Community at Result-performance-Management.com to download your R-pM Toolkit, and learn how to eliminate the 20th Century problems discussed at the Business Change Forum.

How do you define performance?

A recent article in 21^st Century Management magazine “Years of Management Problems because of the flawed Definition of Performance“ expands on a problem that we have discussed several times. The article explains how the flawed definition of performance prevents us from following the first rule of 21^st century management: organize and manage the business.

The accepted definition of performance, to include results, prevents organizing and managing the business

The generally accepted definition of “Business” is “the activity of providing goods and services”. The problem is that the generally accepted definition of “Performance” labels not only execution of actions in business activity, but also business accomplishments or results, such as goods and services, as performance.

In order to organize and manage the business, we must split business activity apart from business goods and services to organize and manage performance separate from results. [more...].

Conventional enterprises develop arbitrary organization structures that are overlaid on their businesses. Then, the enterprises overlay structures on the organization for strategy development, planning and budgeting, performance management, business processes, costing, quality management, management reporting, accounting, corporate governance compliance, etc. Each of these methods uses its own set of entities and definitions, which must be interfaced with the entities and definitions used by other methods. These overlays complicate the business and prevent transparent management of the business.

There is a big need for one method that replaces all the methods that management now uses, and provides a simple and clear definition to organize and manage the business.

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

Result-performance Management (R-pM) is now launched to provide one simple integrated management method. R-pM organizes the actual business results produced and performance solutions utilized. R-pM standardizes the definitions of five basic entities to manage the business directly, as summarized in the R-pM community download “R-pM Explained”.

The corporation overlays organization structures, strategic plans, chart of accounts, performance management reports, and other methods on the business

We see the problem every day, when we cannot relate what we are doing directly to our strategy, our information reporting to organizational responsibilities, our money and costs to what our money and costs are producing, our symptoms of poor performance to the actual poor performance, the cost of improvement to the benefit of the improvement, etc. We see the unsolvable alignment problems between our systems and the business, outsourced solutions and internal solutions, capital development and operations, etc. [more...]

The Business Performance Problem

Businesses develop traditional ways of operations and administration over the years. Practices and methods are installed to meet the preferences of a certain manager at a certain time. They then become the set way to operate. Successive processes and systems are implemented and adapted so that people do not change the way they do things.

The fundamental problem is that business performance structures are overlaid on the business, rather than directly managing business performance in the performance solutions utilized to produce business results.

Business processes are re-engineered to improve business performance and performance quality. Business process re-engineering focuses on defining the process that is overlaid on the business to produce an output result from the process, but does not organize the business to produce output results from the business. Business process management manages quality checkpoint or other contrived methods to manage performance quality, but does not manage the performance of capital utilized within the process.

Enterprise information systems are implemented through conversions as additional overlays on the business, without positive business change. Some transactions are still performed manually or on PCs and the database is not authoritative for the enterprise. [more...]-management.com.

Recently, I alluded to my basic problem with business process reengineering (BPR). Before BPR, I used to think of the business in terms of business inputs and outputs, particularly for justifying information system development. The objective of solution development or implementation was to improve business outputs, which I now call results.

Business process re-engineering solved some problems, but created others

Then BPR came along and said that the important thing was the business process leading to one output at the end of the process. The process is overlaid over the results and performance that describe the business. Results and performance within the process are mixed together. The process crosses organization units, which are expected to manage performance and performance quality to produce a final output result to go to the customer. This made it difficult to manage value and quality of the results produced within the process leading to the final output.

The problems with business process management show the superiority of Result-performance Management

Experience with BPR did convince me of superiority of organizing and managing the actual business. This is now formalized as Result-performance Management (R-pM), which has just been launched to provide one integrated  business structure for 21^st Century Management. R-pM organizes and manages the business to replace business processes with result value-quality chains and uses business process as one type of performance solution, as summarized in the R-pM community download “How to Build Result Value-quality Chains”.

Business process re-engineering rearranged conventional methods and made value and quality harder to manage

The good thing about BPR in the mid 1990’s was that it made business change the thing to do, to overcome some problems. The bad thing was that BPR became a matter of following methodologies, rather than thinking and using the good parts of BPR to make beneficial business change. To me the benefit of business change always came from improving the business outputs or results. But, this suggestion was always criticized as contrary to the BPR methodology. [more...]