You can attend every meeting and still leave business process implementation unfinished. Showing up is participation, not completed work. Confuse the two and the operating problems you discussed may remain while agreed changes sit unfinished.
Participation Is Only One Condition
BDM does not do “it” for you with cookie-cutter services. The work happens in a working “with” you methodology. The owner participates in understanding the business and the changes required. Presence does not make the work complete.
Ask the harder question: are you participating in conversations, or are you committing to the decisions and actions those conversations produce? If the answer stops at attendance, you have mistaken contact with the process for execution of the process.
Completeness Is the Standard
The BDM approach includes a diagnostic phase and an implementation phase. The diagnostic looks through your eyes at what works, what does not, and the opportunities. The implementation uses that understanding to move toward defined goals, established controls, and effective deployment of strategic resources.
Those conditions belong together. On PDF page 6, the playbook expressly makes correct implementation in its entirety a condition of BDM’s approach. That is BDM’s stated position, not a guarantee that one process solves every business problem. Treat the diagnostic and implementation as connected work; do not mistake agreement with a recommendation for completion of it.
Put Your Commitment on the Process
Do not measure your commitment by how often you discuss change. Measure it by whether the agreed process is being installed, used, and checked. Can you point to the goal? Are the controls in place? Is the business applying the process rather than merely approving it?
This is the owner’s decision: participate in a conversation, or take responsibility for the complete implementation. Attendance can build awareness. Following through on the agreed work is the next responsibility. Keep the owner’s involvement tied to the actions, controls, and results being examined, not merely to time spent in meetings.
Before your next discussion, write down the specific process you intend to implement and the condition that would prove it is being used. Then decide whether you are prepared to complete it, not simply endorse it.
Download The Purpose-Built Playbook and examine the BDM approach through that standard.
