How can you create a process management roadmap that aligns with your long-term goals?

I will answer this in the context of a retail supermarket, that seek my consultation. This chain is profitable. They have had a healthy growth in the last 5 years, through the pandemic. They have known limitations. The visual merchandizing happens based on the aesthetic value of the local store manager. Our customers like the way we manage our stores. We plan to expand this business to 4 other states. To make this happen, we plan to implement a Planogramming software to make sure we provide our customers a unique, unifying experience.

To plan for the future, it's essential to assess your current state thoroughly. This involves documenting core and supporting processes, their inputs and outputs, owners and stakeholders, performance indicators, and strengths and weaknesses. Utilize methods like process mapping, value stream mapping, SIPOC diagrams, gap analysis, SWOT analysis, and benchmarking to gain a comprehensive understanding of your current organizational state.

What does your firm want to achieve in the next 3-5 years? Clearly defined goals serve as a North Star for your process management. Prioritize your processes based on their impact on your long term goals. Map processes in detail, outline all stakeholder, and tech used. Brainstorm ways to optimize these processes. Integrate tech and AI for repetitive tasks. Make your action plan aligned with your available resources and your vision. Set measurable short term goals and measure KPIs.

Alinea tus procesos revisados con tus objetivos a largo plazo, asegurándote de que cada paso contribuya directamente a la visión general. Además, incorpora flexibilidad para adaptarte a cambios y evolucionar con el tiempo. La comunicación constante y la retroalimentación son cruciales para mantener el alineamiento y garantizar la efectividad del mapa de gestión.

As a Product Owner/Manager, my approach to developing an effective technology roadmap involves a multi-faceted strategy: - Start with a thorough assessment of the current technological and process landscape, identifying technical debt and the functionality of legacy systems. - Next, deeply understand the business’s objectives and strategic direction. This knowledge is crucial for ensuring the roadmap supports the company's overarching goals. - Finally, conduct a formal assessment to develop the roadmap, focusing on optimizing current processes and integrating new technologies to achieve efficiency and strategic alignment. This approach ensures a tailored, forward-looking roadmap.

No veo factible tener una hoja de ruta de gestión de procesos que se alineen a los objetivos de largo plazo sino tenemos clara la visión del Negocio, es importante tener un ejercicio de visioning del negocio que determine esa visión, esta debe tener mucho de aspiración y realismo, es decir, si bien debe ser ambiciosa, también debe ser factible. A partir de esta definición de negocio, los procesos deben buscar hacerla posible, esa es la manera de alinear tus procesos a tus objetivos de largo plazo. El error típico, aunque parezca mentira, es la pobre definición de la visión de negocio y por tanto no es entendida por las áreas de soporte, por ello cada unidad opera de acuerdo a su mejor parecer. Esta situación genera desorden y desenfoque.

We aim to develop efficient, unified shelf layouts. They apply chainwide to each store. These designs will be strictly based on hard sales data. And observed customer preferences. This implementation will give a simple, reliable, predictable shopping experience. So customers know what to expect when they walk into any store. They can easily find what they want in a familiar spot. This makes the shopping trip much easier and frustration-free.

After assessing your current state, the next step is to define your desired state. This involves establishing a vision, mission, values, and goals for your process management program. Align these with your business strategy and customer expectations. Utilize methods such as SMART goals, OKRs, KPIs, balanced scorecard, and customer journey mapping to clearly articulate your desired state.

Your goals should be acutely defined and after it is defined, break it down into bits and pieces. Breaking your goals down makes it not too feel humongous and easily achieveable

Defining the desirable state entails imagining an ideal yet feasible future for an organization's activities that is closely connected with its strategic goals. This entails developing processes that are streamlined, efficient, and lean, with a focus on providing added value to your customers and the business. Integrating cutting-edge technologies, including artificial intelligence, data analytics, and cloud computing, is a critical component that enables a digital transformation that remains abreast of technological progress.

The main gap is we have no centralized planogram software or data-driven layout process. Fixing this with smart systems is essential. It's the foundation we need before rapid expansion across the whole country. We also lack the skilled head office team to design and analyze the planograms. We also need standard fixtures to enable consistent displays.

Following the definition of your desired state, identify and prioritize the gaps between your current and desired states. These gaps represent opportunities for improvement in achieving your process management goals. Methods like root cause analysis, Pareto analysis, risk analysis, cost-benefit analysis, and impact-effort matrix can be employed to systematically identify and prioritize these gaps.

Business Development 1. Apply Pareto analysis to the Top 20% of ongoing customers which generate 80% of revenue & profit. 2. Determine common characteristics of the Top 20%. These characteristics are the fusion of customer strategic needs which match up with your core strengths. 3. Once Top 20% common characteristics are identified, focus business development initiatives on the following actions: A. Increase allotted share of existing & new products with the Top 20% B. Research Bottom 80% to determine if they posses the same common characteristics. Prioritize highly in selling efforts. C. Prospect only those potentials which possess the same common characteristics. D. Avoid prospects which don’t possess common characteristics.

The process of identifying and prioritizing the gaps between the current and desired state is essential to driving significant improvements in our process management. These gaps represent valuable opportunities to align our objectives and goals, and achieve a desired state more aligned with our strategic vision. We use methods such as root cause analysis, Pareto, risks, cost-benefit and the impact-effort matrix to comprehensively identify and classify these gaps. These approaches help us understand the source of discrepancies, prioritize areas that require immediate attention, and assess the potential impact of proposed improvements.

First, we select and implement advanced planogram software. We hire analysts to pore over sales data and design ideal layouts. These planograms get tested in established stores first. We can manage any issues that may arise due to these changes since we know our customers at a personal level. Their feedback becomes crucial. We refine them based on in-store learnings. When finalized, we roll out the optimized layouts chainwide. All stores get upgraded standard shelving too. The budget provisions are made. This change will be spread over 5 months. Changes will be in terms of software, headcount, analysis, and new modular fixtures.

Once gaps are identified and prioritized, the next step is to plan actions and allocate resources for closure. This involves defining the scope, schedule, budget, roles, and responsibilities for each improvement project or initiative. Align these plans with your process management roadmap. Methods like project charters, Gantt charts, RACI matrices, stakeholder analysis, and resource allocation tools are valuable for effectively planning actions and resources.

When making a plan, know the difference between a goal, strategy, and plan to evaluate your actions effectively. Say your goal is to increase sales by 20%, what needs to happen? What insights, specific observations or knowledge do you have on the obstacles preventing this goal? With a hypothesis for why the goal hasn't been achieved, an approach can be created to address the challenges. For instance: "Our 20% growth was hindered by losing big ticket enterprise accounts in our sales process. Our approach is to improve our sales process for these accounts." Now it's much easier to evaluate if your list of individual actions - your plan - aligns with the challenge and approach above. Put all these together and now you have a strategy!

Our executive team tracks key progress metrics. - Sales per square foot. - Month by month per store. If layout issues arise, we quickly adjust configurations. Store managers also provide ongoing qualitative feedback about what layout elements work or don't.

Execution of plan is often the most difficult part of the process. Once the execution guidelines are defined and communicated to the team, ensure to schedule planned meetings with your team to review progress at regular frequency. It helps Management to take overview and monitor of the progress, ensure that necessary resources are deployed and give feedback on the quality and speed of work. It helps the team to seek support guidance and confirm that they are on the right track. It helps everyone to be on the same page with regular and pre-defined meeting schedules!

Following the planning phase, it's crucial to execute and monitor your plan to ensure it stays on course and achieves anticipated outcomes. Implement best practices in project management, change management, and communication management. Utilize methods and tools like the PDCA cycle, DMAIC cycle, agile methodology, dashboards, and feedback loops for effective execution and ongoing monitoring.

In the final step, evaluate and enhance your outcomes to ensure alignment with process management goals. Measure and analyze the performance and impact of improvement projects using methods and tools such as audits, reviews, surveys, lessons learned, and best practices. This ensures sustainability and scalability of achieved results.

On a yearly basis, we review overall sales performance results. And customer feedback scores related to layout. We dig into the data to find successes and pain points. These learnings feed into the next round of layout upgrades. So we constantly keep improving.

This article seems to follow a waterfall approach. If we were to evaluate and improve long-term goals at the end of the process, can we imagine addressing the issue of facing the wrong outcome? We would have to start right from the beginning. This is not cost and resource efficient. Evaluation and improvement have to be done throughout the whole process of getting to achieve a long-term goal. Not just at the very end, close to the final output.

As we expand nationally, we tailor parts of the planograms regionally. To account for local taste differences. But keep things mostly uniform. We also review and refine layouts once per year. To incorporate new products. And respond to shifting consumer shopping trends.