Business Process Management Articles
Apr2009
Business Process Modeling Methodology - Part 1
I will be providing a two-part serious on business process modeling (BPMOD , notice the superscript “OD”) for the enterprise. The architecture of the presented business process modeling is based on the following enterprise elements:
The first part of the serious will examine the underlying foundation of the elements that create the modeling architecture and I will follow in the second segment of the series on the integrals of the elements. Let us take a moment to review the definition of BPMOD:
BPMod is normally conducted by the internal business analysts of the enterprise or by external business process architects. Their primary objectives are to improve or create efficient and quality processes throughout the enterprise based on the captured model. Tools that are commonly used to model an enterprise are:
Our Modeling Methodology A good BPM (Business Process Management) architecture uses methods of divide-and-conquer to reduce inefficiencies, remove obsolete processes and to improve agility through refined or new processes. This is our 50,000-foot approach to business process modeling which are concentrated in four defined Business Process Patterns (BPP’s) that are:
The execution processes BPP1 encompasses the “Value Chain” processes. In most enterprises, the value chain processes manage incoming logistics to produce/provide an outgoing product/service. Incoming logistics consist of entities such as raw materials, documents, capital, etc. that passes in order through the enterprise. In each stage of the processing of raw materials, it gains “value” hence the term “Value Chain.” The result of this processing is the transformation of the stated materials into value added products and/or services of the enterprise. BPP2 affords the enterprise the means of growth. The “Expansion” business patterns are those that provide new development and capabilities that are required to enhance its competitiveness, such as new products, new services, new infrastructure, and new processes. As products or services, diminish in usability, value or demand from the market, an enterprise with well-developed expansion processes will keep abreast of market change. Expansion processes are tuned to provide agility to market changes. BPP3 - “Business Architecture\Renovation” is the business planning processes that defines and implements the vision of the enterprise through strategies, plans, and programs. Every enterprise begins their journey through a vision. That vision is translated into strategies of what type of widget to create, where to seek resources to build the widget, how to distribute the widget to market, and when to design a new widget. This [BPP3 ] business pattern can be considered the fundamental root of all processes. If this pattern is not well defined and implemented then the entirety of the enterprise will render futile results. BPP4 is the provider to the structure of the enterprise. It manages and guides the “Resources” of the enterprise. Resources of the enterprise include everything from the pencils to human capital that use them, from CD-ROM’s to the Network infrastructure that stores data to them and much more. Now let us descend to 25,000 feet and review the internals of the BPP’s. Each of the aforementioned BPP’s contains two specific processes that manage and executes the activities, tasks, and events of the defined BBP. There is a third process that provides state and status information for the business patterns. These processes are:
The execution processes contains tactical methods to receive inputs such as raw material, documents, messages, etc. that are output as “product(s)” and/or “service(s)” to other execution or management processes, which are, communicate through and to the BPP’s. An example of flow through an execution process is the receipt (input) of an insurance claim form from a customer with a claim for an automobile accident. This form is than converted into a request (output) for Claims Adjuster verification of the customer claim. The management component contains methodology that direct the execution processes by means of goals, plans, strategies, programs, resource assignments and other enterprise management directives that will produced required results. The state and status operatives give the methodology current operation conditions and feedback to key points of interest. They are the lower levels of a Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) scheme. We will continue in Part 2 with the functionality of individual BPP’s. |
Jan2007
In a business which has a market driven agile product development process, who ideally owns the long-term roadmap?
In a business which has a market driven agile product development process, who ideally owns the long-term roadmap? “Ideally” is the key word given in your question. Regardless of what type of business, a properly defined Enterprise Architecture plan will provide the roadmap driver or in the case of the question, owner, which is top management. If a company seeks consultation of developing an EA plan the following MUST happen: 1. Top management MUST buy-in, fully direct, monitor and enhance the plan 2. Top management must involve ALL stakeholders within the company that drive Lines-of-businesses (LOB’s) 3. Top management and IT MUST speak the same language The “roadmap” as directed by the EA plan will provide top management (the owners) a view/forecast of the targeted market(s). The EA plan also should have a BPM element that defines and monitors the “development” of the product and/or services. That element has a “stakeholder” who over see’s, [not owns] the process. The EA plan will ensure that the process maintains its agility based upon the ‘future view’ that is created through the plan. Now I must present the danger of top management ownership as reference to your question. If top management implements the EA plan they MUST ensure that the plan does not become shelved because it was the “thing-to-do” or “business fashion” of the moment. Top management must allow the EA plan to govern the business based upon the vision of the company. Alignment of all LOB’s, IT and stakeholders is essential to move from the single thought ownership to a strategic ownership based upon the derived EA plan. Contact dotNet Framework Solutions for your EA consultation. |
May2007
What Gives Business Processes Intelligence?
First of all what is a business process? A business process consists of one or more functions or events. Let’s focus on business process events within this article. An event is a message that denotes that a real-world business action has occurred. Events may be high-level, without a software application or procedure dependencies, such as a request for a customer’s billing address; or they may be low-level and software application specific, such as creating an updated billing address in an accounting application. They may be fire-and-forget notifications that a business event has occurred. Or, as is typically the case for process-driven Business Intelligence (BI), to which responses are expected and needed to complete the process. As an event occurs and travels through the enterprise processes, an intelligent business process will generate many possible outputs to each event, enabling stakeholders, resources or other processes to take action as required. An intelligent business process is the result of combining BI with Enterprise Architecture (EA) process design. This type of design is able to anticipate the need for decision-making and supplies just the right information to support those decisions during real-time operations. To make a business process intelligent, you simply embed the following key BI elements into it at design time, which can then be triggered by operational event(s): Information Reporting and Presentation At many points in a process, stakeholders may need to see information in the form of a summary. For example, what view should be produced and in what format? Who needs to see the report, or presentation? How will the information be delivered and at what frequency? With careful architecture this all can be designed into the business process. Decision-Making (Analytics) When event conditions call for a decision(s) to be made, process-driven BI lets you determine the analytics that should be produced along with the possible actions to take depending upon the desire results. These functions can be architected directly into the process for faster, more informed decision-making results. Alerting When an event contains certain information or when analytics produce certain results, process-driven BI enables you to define the stakeholders, resources or processes that should be notified for actions to take. This creates real-time operational business intelligence by letting users resolve issues as they occur – without ever leaving their service application (this is a gateway for SOA operations). Reporting Process-driven BI takes reporting to a higher level by aligning business intelligence with decision- making more tightly than ever before. Now you can define the precise events or conditions that trigger the need for a report right into the business process and to flow through required processes to complete the event. In addition, you can specify data values, report formats, report recipients, delivery method, and frequency. Visit dotNet Framework Solutions for more information. |
Nov2009
Performance Architecture a BPM Subset
Review this case scenario and determine if you have observed the same within your Enterprise: At the start of a meeting about the declining performance of the Customer Care Managers of enterprise XYZ, the attending top management team “knew” that the Customer Care Managers lacked skills and knowledge and required additional training. By the meeting’s end, they were not so sure. During discussions several concerns unrelated to skills and knowledge surfaced about the processes of the Customer Care Managers. The presenting problem was that the Customer Care Managers could not delegate certain tasks, which caused time constraints in handling customer complaints. As the case scenario indicates, it was thought the declining performance of the Customer Care Managers was contributed to lack of skills and knowledge, which can truly hinder performance in an Enterprise. However, as we can see the roles of the Customer Care Managers are limited by lack of delegation of certain tasks. When one delegates within an Enterprise, he or she will direct elements such as – “tasks,” “events,” and/or “activities” to be performed by another entity: Technology or Human. Business Process Management (BPM) enables an Enterprise to efficiently manage its processes to serve an end-result with input-perform work-output methodologies. So you can see how “Performance Architecture” is a key and integral part of a Business Process Management (BPM) projects. It provides the efficiencies to “tasks,” “events,” and/or “activities.” Performance ArchitecturePerformance Architecture in terms of BPM can be defined as the design principles required to optimize efficiencies in – tasks, events, and/or activities of the underlying Enterprise. Let’s use our case scenario as an example to illustrated through a Business Process Management Notation (BPMN) diagram the performance bottleneck of a Customer Care Manager. Task = Determine if product is under warranty from a customer inquiry As you can determine from the diagram, the Customer Care Manager must conduct the research to determine if the customer’s product is under warranty thus reducing the time to focus on “customer complaints” which SHOULD be a high priority task within the business process for “customer care.” In another segment of the Enterprise, we have a Product Specialist that handles research and updates of product information as illustrated below. As you can determine from the diagram, the Product Specialist manages the return method and warranty information to name a few. If you recall, it was discovered the Customer Care Managers were conducting their own research on product warranty information. Hence, this is one root cause of performance derogation to customer satisfaction. Now let us examine the two processes after a Performance Architecture intervention. As you can now see, we have increase the performance efficiency of the Customer Care Manager by delegating certain customer inquiries to the Product Specialist. The Customer Care Manager’s primary task now is “handling complaints” which enhances the Enterprise’s perceived customer services as extraordinary, which in turn increases customer loyalty. In SummaryPerformance Architecture is a subset of BPM in that it optimizes – tasks, events, and/or activities of the underlying Enterprise. The design methodology of Performance Architecture is to seek out inefficiencies in processes tasks, events, and/or activities. These inefficiencies can include but are not limited to the following:
One should be very mindful not to over architect processes for performance for it may decrease or hamper scalability of the underlying processes which in itself will create performance issues. Contact dotNet Framework Solutions for an evaluation of your enterprise! |
Have you as a “Stakeholder” ever taken the moment to step back and think about the performance of your Enterprise?
Mar2007
Managing Your Business Processes to Create a Competitive Advantage
Ensuring Process Consistency Most companies have great difficulties in defining their business processes. One group could define it one way while others may define it very differently. If you could come up with a single definition, each group would likely handle exceptions differently. If those processes are not consistent, it is hard to know how to be more efficient. Companies that have been successful defining their processes have had a strong champion for the project and a dedicated project manager to make sure the definition gets written properly. Assuming your processes are defined, the next step is to begin using them. With use, you will be able to spot inconsistencies and make adjustments. When you are satisfied that your process is well defined, it is important to measure the time it takes to complete them. Now that you have a baseline, you are in a position to improve them. You can make changes to the process and see the impact of those changes. Assuming that you have a well defined process, you will be amazed at the impact automation can have on that process. Automating the process will produce shortened cycle times, lower management costs, increase quality, control access to critical data, and more. Automation will provide the biggest impact to your ROI. So how do you gain control of your business processes? By integrating and implementing a Business Process Management (BPM) solution. Visit dotNet Framework Solutions for more information. |