Why?

Organizational alignment is an essential part of getting results within an organization, and there are many elements that need to be brought, or kept, in alignment. There has been a great deal of comment and discussion in BPM literature about the need to align a BPM project or program of work with an organization s strategy, and rightly so. This is the purpose of this chapter.

The goal should be to ensure that BPM projects have a clear link to the organization s strategy and add value to it. Often BPM projects operate within pockets of the organization and appear to have no link to the organization s strategy. However, every organization and every project should spend some time to understand the organization strategy and ensure that the project is adding value towards defined strategic outcomes. The depth and extent of the review depends on the importance of the project to the organization and the management level you are dealing with. If a project cannot clearly demonstrate that it is adding value to an organization and its strategic direction, it should not be undertaken. Many projects are justified because they are of a tactical nature, but many tactical solutions become long-term solutions.

There are many books on strategy, and just as many methods and definitions. We like the approach of Hamel and Prahalad (1994), based on strategic intent. They wrote, if Strategic Architecture is the brain, then strategic intent is the heart . The three attributes that an organizational strategic intent will...