Business process automation projects can be a challenge to manage. They require a deep understanding of the business processes, a thorough understanding of your technology and data integration capabilities, and an eye for detail. You need to ensure that you get all areas right to take advantage of all opportunities for improvement or create inefficiencies.

It's essential to understand the importance of different roles for complex business process automation projects and how they fit into the BPA management lifecycle:

The Digital Transformation Leader

Complex business process automation projects are a unique beast. They require a diverse set of skills and leadership that can be difficult to find.

In a McKinsey survey, nearly 70 percent of respondents said their organizations' top teams had changed during transformation—usually when new leaders familiar with digital technologies joined the management team. The same survey also found that only about a third of the respondents had hired a chief digital officer to support their transformations. But they were significantly more likely (1.6 times) to succeed in the digital transformation.

It shows that the digital transformation leader is the key to success in these projects because a leader is the primary driver of a company's business process automation efforts.

The role is crucial as it ensures that everyone involved in a complex process automation project clearly understands what they're trying to accomplish. The digital transformation leader needs to communicate their vision, so everyone knows why they're working together and what they hope to achieve.

The digital transformation leader is able to manage people, budgets, and timelines while also keeping an eye on the big picture. He ensures the project stays on track and delivers its intended results.

Digital transformation leaders are usually Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Chief Digital Officers(CDOs), or Transformation officers with a well-rounded skill set—they are both tech and business experts—enabling them to see opportunities where others may not be able to.

The Enterprise Architects

A McKinsey survey found that more than 40 percent of respondents indicated that business leaders in their companies must be made aware of what enterprise architects do.

Enterprise architects are responsible for greenlighting the BPA platform that the company will use, assessing security and governance aspects, and ensuring the platform aligns well with the enterprise IT stack. 

EAs create a plan that outlines the specifics of technical projects and what they will look like when finished. They'll also be responsible for ensuring that everything works together seamlessly—from the software used to run the system to how employees will interact with it.

Enterprise architects have a unique perspective on how all aspects of a company interact, allowing them to identify problems before they happen and solve them proactively. They have a deep understanding of how each part of the organization works and its goals and objectives. They also understand how complex business process automation can help achieve those goals. It means that enterprise architects are vital to the success of complex business process automation projects.

Moreover, this role is crucial because of the responsibility to ensure that all teams are working toward a common goal: having a successful project! They work with business leaders, technology teams, and other stakeholders to ensure that the systems in place can support the company's mission and goals. 

The Citizen Developers

A citizen developer is any employee who uses the tools available to create software. The idea of citizen development is that all employees are citizens in the company and should be empowered to do what they can to help their company succeed—regardless of whether they're a developer by profession.

Yaniv Levi, Technical Services Director at AgilePoint, defines citizen developers as "Any employee who creates a software which is not a developer by its role or position". Traditionally, IT professionals have managed complex projects. But in today's world of increasing complexity and pace of change, some companies need additional help—from Citizen Developers who aren't necessarily full-time developers but share the same passion for technology as their colleagues.

Citizen developers can be crucial to the success of complex business process automation projects because they often have the most intimate knowledge of how a system works and what it needs, as they are usually also the end users but don't have formal training or experience in programming.

You can train your employees to become Citizen developers through courses like AgilePoint NX v8 Getting Started Training, where they'll learn an overview of the platform's enterprise-class low-code/no-code development automation capabilities. With AgilePoint's training and platform, citizen developers can learn the fundamentals of task automation and cross-functional automation and implement them within their organization.

Bonus: The Executive Sponsors

Executive sponsors are crucial to the success of complex business process automation projects because they are responsible for setting the vision, goals, and objectives of the business process automation project. They set the tone for the organization by deciding a BPA project's business goals, KPIs, and milestones. An excellent executive sponsor can inspire the team with their vision for success and motivate them to do their best work.

In addition, executive sponsors should understand what's involved in business process automation to provide guidance for their organizations and communicate effectively with other executives within the company who may need to become more familiar with such initiatives. They should be enthusiastic about the project, capable of communicating its benefits to other stakeholders, and able to make decisions about its progress.

Key Takeaway

Businesses across industries are turning to complex process automation projects to reduce costs, gather data and insights, and improve customer service.

The success of complex business process automation projects is directly linked to the skills and expertise of the people involved in them. The good news is that roles are crucial for the success of these projects: digital transformation leader, enterprise architect, citizen developer, and executive sponsor.

But these projects also require many resources, some of which take years to complete. That's where AgilePoint comes in!

AgilePoint is the right platform that organizations need for a successful digital transformation. It's a modern platform that helps enterprises transform how their company innovates and operates.

Discover how AgilePoint can help you automate your business workflows and processes at scale to build robust applications faster on a low-code development platform. Request a FREE personal demo today!