Is your organization looking to you to lead major change initiatives? Are you a senior leader in charge of reducing costs, streamlining operations, and improving organization performance?
Whether you have zero experience with business process improvement or are looking to take your business process management skills and abilities to the next level, there are multiple training options to choose from. The right business process improvement training program and provider will depend on your level of experience as well as your specific reason for mastering business process improvement. Shown here are four business process improvement training options.
ABPMP International Body of Knowledge
The Association of Business Process Management Professionals (ABPMP) International is an independent, non-profit professional organization dedicated to the advancement of business process management concepts and practices and the development of its practitioners. The ABPMP maintains the Business Process Management Common Body of Knowledge (BPM CBOK®), a practitioner-oriented reference document that formalizes and provides an overview of the knowledge areas generally recognized as good practice. The BPM CBOK is a great starting point for new business process management practitioners as well as a useful reference tool for more experienced professionals.
The ABPMP website is also an excellent source of articles and on-demand webinars that can help expand your understanding of both the theory and practice of business process improvement. On-demand webinars are only available to ABPMP members. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in business process management and includes the BPM CBOK, professional development opportunities, hands-on workshops, and more.
For practitioners looking for a professional credential in business process management, the ABPMP offers two level of certification:
- Certified Business Process Associate – The CBPA® recognizes broad, foundational-level skills and understanding of business process management concepts and practices. CBPA certification can be earned by having either 1,250 hours of documented BPM experience or a qualifying four-year university degree and passing a comprehensive 90-question examination.
- Certified Business Process Professional – The CBPP® credential is awarded to seasoned BPM professionals. In order to sit for the CBPP exam, you must have four years of documented, hands-on experience in process management, process improvement, or process transformation. Undergraduate degrees may not be substituted for experience, although approved graduate degrees may be substituted for up to six months of BPM experience.
MIT Dynamic Work Design Program
For senior organizational leaders who need a comprehensive introduction to continuous improvement strategies, MIT’s Sloan School of Management offers a two-day Dynamic Work Design program. Students learn how continuous improvement strategies affect core business metrics and contribute to organizational success from bottom-up and top-down perspectives. The program also teaches students to recognize their own roles as leaders in the culture of improvement. Most importantly, students will learn how to identify opportunities for improvement and use practical tools and methods to implement successful change initiatives.
Citing from the MIT Dynamic Work Design brochure, some of the specific program takeaways include:
- Understand the principles and approaches that drive improvement
- Implement improvement naturally in everyday work
- Recognize successful improvement initiatives already in place and build on them
- Identify the value-added aspects of work (individual employees and the entire organization)
- Ensure business targets and improvement activities are tightly linked at every level
- Learn how to design work (processes, workflows, etc.) correctly from the beginning
The two-day program is held on the MIT campus in Cambridge, MA. Tuition is $3,700, excluding accommodations.
Villanova University Business Process Management Program
Whether you’re in charge of implementing process improvements or leading an entire organization through a visionary top-down transformation, the key to successful business improvement efforts is first understanding proven process methodologies. IT professionals, quality control specialists, acquisition managers, business-line directors, and anyone else tasked with designing, implementing, and sustaining process change can learn the latest BPM skills with Villanova University’s online business process management program. The online Master Certificate in Business Process Management provides students with the knowledge and skills necessary to drive successful business improvement efforts.
This three-course program focuses on essential process concepts such as:
- Drivers of organizational change
- Identifying process opportunities
- Strategic business cases for improvement
- Process governance and Centers of Excellence (COE)
- Project management planning strategies
Villanova’s Master Certificate in Business Process Management is $5,995 for a three-course package. If courses are completed consecutively (as recommended) students can finish the program in 28 weeks.
Perigon Certification
Lack of workflow control is one of the leading causes of unsuccessful change initiatives. Business process mapping defines, improves, and aligns workflow to address one of the obstacles standing in the way of successful organizational transformation.
Business mapping also helps senior business leaders and BPM practitioners easily identify improvement opportunities that lie buried in broken processes. In other words, business mapping is a key component of improving organizational performance—and the Perigon Method® is the most comprehensive and effective business process and system mapping method available anywhere.
Business Enterprise Mapping offers individual Perigon Certification for professionals who want to learn the best mapping methodology. There are two levels of Perigon Certification:
- Perigon Process Mapping Certification – Perigon Professionals create current state process maps, capture process improvement opportunities, develop first pass customer value assessments, benchmark beginning performance, identify quick win improvements, and deliver 90-day process improvement plans.
- Perigon Process Knowledge Certification – Perigon Professionals add details that help process owners deploy improved processes and deliver plans for sustainable improvements through information matrix (IM), metrics matrix (MM), value matrix (VM), RACI matrix (RA), opportunity matrix (OM), deployment readiness (DR), and process improvement plan (PIP) analysis.