Modelling Processes Flashcards
What is a process?
Set off related activities or tasks that together transform inputs to outputs which being value to the customer.
Why do businesses model processes?
To train.
To find improvements or efficiency gains.
To find opportunities to automate.
To find problems or bottlenecks.
To ensure consistency.
To satisfy a regulator.
Aids communication and understanding.
Part of business architecture.
What is the hierarchy of business processes?
Enterprise level - often shown as a value stream. Shows processes relationship to each other (Inc dependencies) and how they interconnect to create the final product or service the customer sees.
Event-response level - what most people think of. Series of tasks. Each is one person one place one time .
Actor-task level - expands on the detail of each task. Steps taken.
What does an organisational chart show and not show?
Shows: Roles and reporting lines.
Doesn’t show: Interactions between depts, how the organisation responds to an event.
Why is an enterprise level diagram helpful?
Helps show lie of land.
Establishes boundaries.
Establishes dependencies and associations.
What framework is helpful for building an enterprise level diagram?
SIPOC - suppliers, inputs, processes, outputs, customers.
Expanded by Harmon to include external environment and competitors.
Porters value chain.
What is the value proposition?
The definition of an organisations products or services, which demonstrates that we understand what our customers need and can provide that. It is what differentiates us from our competitions. It can include features of the product, cusometer relationship aspects, and reputational aspects.
What types of business event are there?
Internal
External
Time bound
Why are business rules needed, and where do they come from?
To enable decisions to be made and to guide the execution of the process.
Best practice, experience, business policy, external constraints.
Why is it useful to use a standard notation?
More easily understood
Ensures consistency
Supports integration across different departments
Supports unambiguous communication
What is the key notation in a UML process map?
Actors and swimlanes
Initial node - circle
Tasks - rounded rectangle
Flows and handoffs
Decisions - diamond with guard conditions
Forks and joins
Final node - bullseye
Flow finals - crossed circle
Why measure process performance?
Time spent analysing, creating and managing processes is wasted if no one monitors them.
If we don’t, how do we know if we’re meeting customers needs in a way that is sustainable to the organisation.
On what basis do we monitor processes?
Time, cost, quality.
Remember, customers may not apply the same measures you do.
eg. Time from queueing vs time from front of the queue.
What is a task?
Something done by one actor in one place at one time.
What information do we need to know about a task?
Name of the task
Actor
Business event
Inputs
Outputs
Costs
Measures
Standards - define best practice (internal or external)
Business rules - constrains (restrict) and operational guidance
Steps
How might one document the steps in a task?
Activity diagrams (without swimlanes)
Use case descriptions
Structured English
Simple text
What are use case descriptions?
They supplement the use case diagram by specifying the details of the interaction between the agent and the system.
They require:
Use case name
Actor
Goal
Event
Preconditions
Postconditions
Main flow
Alternative flows
What are some generic process improvement strategies?
Simplification
Redesign
Bottleneck removal
Change sequence
Redefine boundary - inc outsource (third party or customer)
Automate
Staff performance issues - eg. skills, ownership, resources
Out of date business rules
What are some generic process problems?
Lots of hand offs creates delays/errors
Value time percentage - real work on process goal a small percentage (vs. cycle time)
Queues/bottlenecks
Unnecessary looping - error checking too late
Sequential tasks
IT problems - lack of integration or IT at all.
What are some examples of non-value add activities?
Copying, checking, approving, searching
What are the 7 wastes common to processes?
TIMWOODS
Transportation
Inventory
Motion
Waiting
Overproduction
Over-processing
Defects
Why is scenario analysis helpful?
Most processes look at the happy path. This encourages us to think of alternative paths and how we might address those.
How do business process improvement and business process reengineering differ?
BPI works forwards from the existing situation and aims for gradual incremental change. It is often done of a task by task level.
BPR works backwards from the desired objective and aims for radical revolutionary change. It often begins at an enterprise level.
What are the 5 steps to six sigma?
DMAIC
Define the problem
Measure the data
Analyse the problem
Improve the process
Control
What are the typical approaches to implementing business change?
Big Bang - quick and risky
Pilot - safer but more expensive
Parallel run - safer but more expensive
Phased - safer but more expensive
