Process Visualization: An Executive Guide to Business Process Design

A step–by–step guide for designing and implementing the right initiatives every time
Process Visualization presents senior managers and executives with an innovative method for understanding, designing, and approving business processes. It offers readers a way to express their design ideas, test innovative approaches to solving problems, and be assured that their designs work–all before the start of a major initiative. This guide gives executives a step–by–step approach to simulate and experiment with new business models, emerging technologies, and marketplace relationships before going down the complex and expensive road of implementation. Results–oriented and successfully tested in the real world, Process Visualization will help managers and executives cut costs, improve return on investment, and increase effectiveness across the entire supply chain.

From the back cover:

Playing With Processes Is Serious Business

Executives often make huge investments in technology and change initiatives without truly knowing what they will be getting, or how new processes will impact the business. And if business processes are not right from the beginning, then the people and technologies involved in the change— perhaps even the business itself— risk failure.

Process Visualization provides a proven, effective, and step–by–step method for senior managers and executives to get change right from the beginning by visualizing the end–to–end business processes that drive supply chains and value chains. Using the methods of Participative Theatre, Process Visualization brings processes to life like a movie or a play.

Business–led and not technology–driven, this guide gives executives an innovative approach to "experiencing" processes that can‘t really be seen. It allows non–technical managers to simulate and experiment with new business models, emerging technologies, and marketplace relationships before going down the expensive road of implementation.

Process Visualization
– Offers a creative and innovative way to understand, design, and approve business process changes.
– Creates engaging experiences for all stakeholders and team members involved in change initiatives.
– Provides, through Process Thinking, a common language and a fresh method that enables readers to express their design ideas, test new approaches to solving problems, and be assured that the design is "right" for the business before implementation.
– Outlines a humanizing approach that brings business process design to life, and allows executives to see clearly the impact of their decisions on the business and the people involved.
– Presents a step–by–step, how–to approach for executives and senior managers that allows them to actively participate in, and better understand, the design and effects of major change initiatives.
– Features an in–depth case study of a major North American retailer that used Process Visualization to launch the business process design of their multi–million–dollar supply chain change initiative.
– Facilitates tangible results in any major change initiative: reduces costs, reduces failures, compresses the strategy–to–execution cycle, increases return on investment, and improves effectiveness across the entire supply/value chain.

About the Author:

Norman Lofts (Toronto, Ontario) Norman Lofts is a partner in Pragmatica, a consulting firm with its practices focused on clients that are undertaking major change initiatives in their supply chains. The firm provides services that include business process transformation, supply chain strategy, operational effectiveness, and information technology implementation. His clients include major multinational manufacturing, distribution, and retail organizations, such as Abitibi Consolidated, Baxter Corporation, Maple Leaf Foods, and Westburne.

Prior to founding Pragmatica, Norm was a founding partner of a systems integration firm that specialized in the implementation of integrated ERP business systems in Fortune 1000 companies. He has held senior executive supply chain positions in manufacturing and distribution organizations, and spent a number of years as a management consultant with A.T. Kearney and KPMG.

Norm is a sought–after speaker at industry conferences, and is on the faculty of the Executive Center for Supply Chain & Logistics Management at the Schulich School of Business, York University.