The ugly middle management?

I am sitting in a conference on Business Process Management right now. Including myself, there have have been four speakers that have proposed that, in many change initiatives, it is not middel management that hampers change. On the contrary, middle management often welcomes the attempt to improve things and is close enough to the operational business to know about shortcomings and improvement potentials.

Obviously, it seems to be between executive management and middle management where you can find the roadblocks. Senior managers, stating "This is a nice idea. Why don't you go ahead and work with it? And please, don't bother me too much with this stuff in the future!"

What is this supposed to mean? Is it rejection? Not really. Is it support? Hardly. In other words, it is worth nothing, but you are decoupled from executive management.

Grand Opening

Today, the new Nycomed was officially launched. The CEO delivered a short speech and removed the cover from the new "Welcome to Nycomed" sign at the entry to the Constance premises.

Formally, the new company has existed for about 2 weeks now and the integration activities have been initiated already in virtually all departments. So far, however, very little was actually communicated with regard to the future organization structure.

The integration and harmonization of the different business processes that exist within the two "old" departments is also going to be a considerable challenge. This is also outlined in this article in CIO Magazine.

Virtual BPM Conference

ebizQ has started a website and blog on Business Process Management to promote a virual BPM conference, taking place on March 6-7. I am curious how the concept of a 2-day virtual conference is going to work out.

New job as of April 1

It has been a long time since the last post. At the end of 2006, the take-over of my current employer was finalized. ALTANA Pharma is now a part of Nycomed.

Due to several reasons, I have decided to dis-embark from the new organization and to move back into the consulting world. As of April 1, I will join the consulting organization of GARTNER in Germany.