PM ADVISORY:

Driving Business Efficiency: The Fusion of Business Process and Project Management

By Buffy Schnurbusch, PMP
USA

Webster’s dictionary defines “fusion” as a merging of diverse, distinct or separate elements into a unified whole. While in the past the word fusion was often used with regard to energy, most recently it has been associated with food and music. “Asian fusion” restaurants offer an “East meets West” culinary experience; popular music offers a fusion of styles, combining jazz with rock, classical music or ethnic elements.

Technology has also “created” fusion with the merging of product offerings. Whereas telephone and cable providers once provided those specific services only, they now compete against each other with product offerings that have “fused” voice, internet, television and cellular coverage into a single “communications” package. This fusion of services clearly has separated the companies that can offer it all from those providers that can’t, leaving the single service providers looking for ways to re-capture the lost business.

With the current economic condition, companies need to be innovative to drive new business. Improvements to a company’s business processes have the capacity to transform businesses, leading to innovation and new opportunities. In his book Management Challenges for the 21st Century, theorist Peter Drucker states that “Continuous process improvements ... transform the business. They lead to innovation. They lead to new processes. They lead to new business.”

However, not all business processes are the same. Structured business processes often exist alongside ad-hoc, activity-based processes that more closely resemble projects…

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About the Author Buffy Schnurbusch Author Buffy Schnurbusch, PMP, is a senior project manager at BP Logix, in San Diego, California, USA. She has more than 25 years of experience including project management and development. Buffy can be reached at Buffy.S@bplogix.com. BP Logix Process Director, an innovative technology that enables business users to predict, measure and adjust the performance of each activity within a given process is available through BP Logix (www.bplogix.com)