Change or Die

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Glossary

is glossary is provided as a service to the business process improvement com-

munity. e business process improvement vocabulary is a critical tool in

commun icating the consensual purpose, means, and results of your eorts.

We have built the following vocabulary and use it ourselves. Many of the terms

have been thrashed about repeatedly. We believe the following glossary provides a

solid foundation for executives, managers, and other stakeholders. Instructions

for linking to the glossary are at the bottom of this page. We invite you to link

to this page and help establish a common vocabulary among your community,

provided as a service by Morgan Madison and Company and eink Global.

For the most current glossary, navigate to the websites www.einkglobal.com

and MGRush.com and download or link to the most current and up-to-date

version.

Action plan: A matrix that matches actions leading to a required outcome

including the who, the what, and the when.

Activity: A series of steps carried out in response to a business event such as

receiving an invoice. Activities have denite starts and stops. Activities

describe what needs to happen rather than how it may happen. Paying

bills or accelerating are examples of what, while writing checks or push-

ing the gas pedal with your foot are examples of how. What items are

abstract and hard to visualize, while how items are concrete and more

easily visualized.

Alignment: Matching of goals, objectives, and vision to ensure that the achieve-

ment of any does not promote conict in the use of resources or curtail

the achievement of the others. e forming of relationships between

activities and objectives to note any inconsistencies or gaps that may

require a modication or addition to a plan. Mutual agreement and

consensus among the project team and key stakeholders on the direc-

tion of a project, the options, and other factors. Without alignment, the

change process often stalls or fails.

328  ◾  Glossary

Assumptions: e unstated beliefs about how and why the process is designed;

governs who does what in the process.

Audit: Independent and neutral test of the eciency and eectiveness of a

stated process.

Audit team: Group of people responsible for conducting the audit. May be

internal or external to the process.

Benchmark: Comparative ranking of the process and its outputs, measure-

ments, and outcome to similar processes in other organizations.

Bottleneck: Any point in the process where activities are slowed.

BPI plan: Document presented to the executive team to get approval for the

BPI (ie, business process improvement) project. Includes the reason for

the selected process and how the team intends to improve the process.

Business process improvement: e simplication and clarication of the way

that people interact with (other) processes, people, and technology to

achieve an organization’s vision.

Champion: Member of the management team who is supportive of the busi-

ness process improvement team and its eorts. Someone who takes a

passionate interest in promoting a particular solution such as a new

process or product.

Change management: e recognition that the unknown changes to the

selected process will generate dierent levels of unease among stake-

holders and the conscious implementation of mitigation strategies to

resolve the issues that may evolve from their discomfort. Change man-

agement is a planned process, with a set of tools and key questions for

managing the people side of change so that project goals are achieved on

time and on budget, safely implemented, and accepted by stakeholders.

Communications plan: Identies exactly how and when the business process

improvement teams will interact with the target audience over the life

of the project. Usually far more extensive than e-mails, the commu-

nications plan uses several channels to update, inform, and request

feedback from stakeholders. e communications plan identies the

messages about the changes that need to be spread through the organi-

zation. ese include both the business messages (why the organization

is undertaking the changes, risks of not making the changes, etc.) and

the personal messages (how the project impacts a person’s day-to-day

work). e channels may include e-postcards, e-magazines, updates,

surveys, posters, and websites.

Concurrent activities: Activities in the timetable that can occur at the same time

as other activities without compromising the outcome of each other.