Topic 3 - Getting Started With BPM
Topic 3 - Getting Started With BPM
Topic 3 - Getting Started With BPM
Business Process Management (BPM) is the art and science of overseeing how
work is performed in an organization to ensure consistent outcomes and to take
advantage of improvement opportunities. In this context, the term
“improvement” may take different meanings depending on the objectives of the
organization.
Typical examples of improvement objectives include reducing costs,
reducing execution times, and reducing error rates, but also gaining competitive
advantage through innovation. Improvement initiatives may be one-off or of a
continuous nature; they may be incremental or radical. Importantly, BPM is not
about improving the way individual activities are performed. Rather, it is about
managing entire chains of events, activities, and decisions that ultimately add
value to the organization, and its customers. These chains of events, activities,
and decisions are called processes.
Processes Everywhere
Each organization—be it a governmental agency, a non-profit organization, or
an enterprise—has to manage a number of processes. Typical examples of
processes that can be found in most organizations include:
When an activity is rather simple and can be seen as one single unit of work,
we call it a task. For example, if the equipment inspection is simple—e.g., just
checking that the equipment received corresponds to what was ordered—we
can say that the equipment inspection is a task. If on the other hand the
equipment inspection involves several checks—such as checking that the
equipment fulfills the specification included in the purchase order, checking that
the equipment is in working order, and checking the equipment comes with all
the required accessories and safety devices—we will call it an activity instead
of a task. In other words, the term task refers to a fine-grained unit of work
performed by a single process participant, while the term activity is used to refer
to both fine-grained or coarse-grained units of work.
For example, the equipment rental process involves three human actors (clerk,
site engineer, and works engineer) and two organizational actors (BuildIT and
the equipment supplier). The process also involves a physical object (the rented
equipment), electronic documents (equipment rental requests, POs, invoices),
and electronic records (equipment engagement records maintained in a
spreadsheet).
Actors can be internal or external. The internal actors are those who
operate inside the organization where the process is executed. These actors
are called process participants. In the example at hand, the clerk, the site
engineer, and the works engineer are process participants. On the other hand,
external actors operate outside the organization where the process is executed.
For example, the equipment supplier is an external actor (a.k.a. business party).
Among the actors involved in a process, the one who consumes the output is
called the customer. In the above process, the customer is the site engineer,
since it is the site engineer who puts the rented equipment to use. It is also the
site engineer who is dissatisfied if the outcome of the process is unsatisfactory
(negative outcome) or if the execution of the process is delayed. In this
example, the customer is an employee of the organization (internal customer).
In other processes, such as an order-to-cash process, the customer is external
to the organization. Sometimes, there are multiple customers in a process. For
example, in a process for selling a house, there is a buyer, a seller, a real estate
agent, one or multiple mortgage providers, and at least one notary. The
outcome of the process is a sales transaction. This outcome provides value
both to the buyer who gets the house and to the seller who monetizes the
house. Therefore, both the buyer and the seller are customers in this process,
while the remaining actors provide various services.
But how do you evaluate your company’s needs? Clearly, your evaluation must
begin with an understanding of your business. Ask yourself the following
questions:
Success with BPM begins with being able to document the current
processes. After all, you can’t manage what you can’t measure.
Process Analysis
Discovery and design are the first steps in understanding your business
processes. In this stage of the project, you visualize, document, and model
current or new processes. In some instances, you may want to rework existing
processes, while in others you may need to create new processes from scratch.
After you understand the current processes, you have a baseline against which
you can measure progress and improvement. With BPM you can make
continuous improvement instead of attempting to reach the ideal state with
one huge jump. Essentially, a BPM project follows an iterative approach that
allows this continuous improvement.
As a part of your process analysis, look for suboptimal and broken processes
that cause bottlenecks in your current system. Although pretty much every
process in the company could be optimized, during the process analysis, it’s
extremely important to first locate any current processes that cause big
problems. Remember, because BPM allows continuous improvement,
optimization is possible at any time.
Clearly, your goal is to win the game. But a series of processes contribute to
that goal. For example, when the opposing team is up to bat, your team needs
to field a pitcher, a catcher, infielders, and outfielders. But when your team is
up to bat, you need to concentrate your efforts on hitting the ball and going
around the bases. Already we’ve broken down the game into two large
processes. However, even these two large processes can and should be
broken down even further to concentrate on the specific processes each player
needs to perform.
Suppose, for example, you’ve identified a problem area with your base runners
not being able to get further than first base. You may define a process called
“running around the bases to home plate.” Although this single process is only
a part of the game, making improvements to this specific process could have a
major impact in your team’s ability to win the game.
Your business probably isn’t a baseball team, but the lesson is the same. You
can start into BPM with a small but important process, which can have a large
influence on your business’s success. Later, you can scale up and start using
BPM to tackle additional processes.
Functionality options
A BPM solution must offer the functionality to help you reduce costs by
streamlining and automating processes effectively. Further, this functionality
must include the ability to correctly model the business processes, translate
those processes into implementation, and iteratively improve the process.
In addition, the BPM solution must offer an advanced user interface generation
functionality so the user productivity can be increased. Along with this
functionality is the need to use business rules that govern process operations.
Time to Value
When working on your first BPM project, consider the payback time. With all
eyes in the company on your project, you want to choose a BPM solution that
offers ease‐of‐use and rapid turnaround.
BPM vendor with wide experience across many different industries is able to
offer you solutions based on that experience.
REFERENCES:
Dumas, M., La Rosa, M., Mendling, J., & H.A Reijers. (2018). Fundamentals of
Business Process Management. Springer-Verlag GmBH. 2nd Edition
Business Process Management for Dummies. (2017). John Wiley & Sons Inc.
4th Edition