BPMN Flashcards

1
Q

BPM Definition

A

BPM is about managing entire chains of events, activities, and decisions, i.e. processes.

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2
Q

BPM

A
  • inherits from the continuous improvement philosophy of Total Quality Management (TQM),
  • embraces the principles and techniques of operations management, Lean and Six Sigma, and combines them with capabilities offered by modern IT, in order to optimally align business process with the performance objectives of an organization.
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3
Q

BPR is a management concept urging managers to look at entire, end-to-end processes when trying to improve the operations of their businesses:

A
  • Who are the actors in the process?
  • Which actors can be considered as customers in the process?
  • What value does the process deliver to its customers?
  • What are possible outcomes of the process?
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4
Q

The BPM lifecycle

A
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5
Q

Management Team:

A
  • Chiefs of departments ( CEOS, CFO, COO, etc..)
  • Human Resources
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6
Q

Process Owners:

A
  • Responsible for efficient and effective operation of a given process, including
    • Planning and organizing, i.e. defining performance measures and objectives as well as initiating and leading improvement projects.
  • Monitoring, i.e. ensuring that performance objectives are met, and taking corrective actions.
  • Involved in process modeling, analysis, redesign, implementation, monitoring.
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7
Q

Process Participants:

A
  • Perform activities of the business process on day-to-day basis.
  • Conduct routine work according to the standards and guidelines of the company.
  • Are coordinated by the process owner, who is responsible for non-routine aspects of the process.
  • Are involved as domain experts during process discovery / analysis.
  • Support redesign activities and implementation.
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8
Q

Process Analyst:

A
  • Conduct process identification, discovery, analysis, and redesign.
  • Coordinate implementation and monitoring.
  • Report to management and process owners
  • have business or IT background.
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9
Q

Process Identification:

A
  • Process identification refers to systematically defining the set of business processes of an organization and establishing clear criteria to select specific processes for improvement.
    • Output: process architecture representing processes and their interrelations
      • Process architecture: framework for defining priorities and scope of projects
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10
Q

Process Architecture

A

In order to define a process architecture one should start always from the core processes.

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11
Q

Process Architecture by levels:

A
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12
Q

How to define a process landscape model:

A

1. Clarify terminology:

1. Define key terms by use of organizational glossary and/or reference models.
2. Ensure that stakeholders have a consistent understanding of process landscape

model.

  1. Identify end-to-end processes:
    1. Processes interface with customers and suppliers.
    2. Goods and services that organization provides are good starting point.
    3. Properties help to distinguish processes, including: Product type, Service type,

Channel, Customer type.

  1. For each end-to-end process, identify its sequential processes:
    1. Identify the internal, intermediate outcomes of end-to-end process.
  2. For each business process, identify its major management and

support processes:

  1. What is required to execute the previously identified processes.
  2. Typical support processes are management of personnel, financials,

information, and materials.

  1. However, these can be core processes if they are integral part of business model.
  2. Management processes are usually generic.
  3. Compile process profile
    1. Each of the identified processes should be described using process profile.
    2. Process profile supports definition of boundaries, vision performance indicators,

resources, etc.

  1. Check completeness and consistency
    1. Reference models can be used to check whether all major processes are included.
    2. Reference models can help to check consistency of terminology.
    3. Check whether all processes can be associated with functional units of organization chart and vice versa.
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13
Q

Process performance measures:

A
  • Time: (cycle/throughput time, processing/service time, waiting time)
  • Cost: (fixed and variable cost, operational cost, labor cost, maintenance cost)
  • Quality: (external quality = clients’ satisfaction, internal quality from process participants’ point of view)
  • Flexibility = ability to react to changes: (runtime flexibility, build-time flexibility)
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14
Q

Process discovery ( as/is process modeling)

A
  • “aims at documenting the current state of each of the relevant processes.”
    • Output: as-is process model(s) of the relevant process(es)
      • Discovery Methods: evidence-based (document analysis, observation, automatic discovery)
      • Interview
      • Workshop
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15
Q

How to discover a Process (Procedure)

A
  1. Define the setting: assemble a team that will be responsible for managing the process
  2. Gather information: build an understanding of the process. Different discovery methods available
  3. Conduct the modeling: do the actual modeling
  4. Assure model quality: guarantee that the resulting model meets different quality criteria
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16
Q

Discovery Methods:

A

Document Analysis: Documents point to existing roles, activities and business objects E.g.:

  • Process descriptions (ideal scenario)
  • Internal policies
  • Organization charts
  • Work instructions
  • Etc.

Potential Disadvantages(-):

  • May not be process-oriented and trustworthy
  • May require abstraction or refinement

Observation: Follow directly the execution of individual process instances, then abstract from instance to process level:

  • Active (Customer perspective) and Passive roles (External observation from participants and their environment)

Potential Disadvantages(-):

  • Active role: no big picture
  • Passive role: participants’ bias
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17
Q

Automatic discovery: based heavy on data collected and no interpretation at all.

A
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18
Q

Summary of Methods by Strengths and Weaknesses

A
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19
Q

Process Analysis

A

“Focuses on identification, documentation and (whenever possible) quantification (using performance measures) of the as-is process(es).”

  • Output: structured collection of prioritized issues
    • Prioritization: based on potential impact of issues and estimated effort required to resolve them (Issues with the highest impact and the lowest efforts to resolve. Quick big wins make the highest impact on decisions)
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20
Q

Issue register and Pareto chart

A
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21
Q

Value-added analysis (VA):

A

Decompose the process into steps :

  • Steps performed before the task
  • The task itself, if it can be decomposed into smaller steps
  • Steps performed after the task

Classify each step:

  • Value Adding Task(VAT)
  • Business value-adding (BVA) -→ No direct value to a process, but is necessary to execute the task.
  • Non-value adding (NVA)
22
Q

Value adding tasks:

A

Criteria:

  • Is the customer willing to pay for this step?
  • Would the customer agree that this step is necessary to achieve their goals?
  • If the step is removed, would the customer perceive that the end product or service is less valuable?
23
Q

Business value-adding activities (BVA):

A

Criteria:

  • Is this step required in order to collect revenue, to improve or grow the business?
  • Would the business (potentially) suffer in the long-term if this step was removed? Does it reduce risk of business losses?
  • Is this step required in order to comply with regulatory

requirements?

WE TRY TO MINIMIZE THIS ACTIVITIES TYPE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE

24
Q

Non-value-adding activities (NVA):

A

Criteria:

  • hand offs, context switches
  • waiting times, delays
  • rework or defect correction

Non value adding activities can be seen as Waste. This “Waste” can be analyzed with all the well-known waste reduction techniques. E.g “ The 7 Mudas”

25
Q

Waste Types

A
26
Q

Calculating KPI, and others

A
27
Q

Complete calculation from a process

A
28
Q

Process redesign

A

(also called process improvement) aims to identify changes to the process helping the organization to address issues and to meet its performance objectives.

Output: to-be process model after changes were introduced

Process redesign and process analysis go hand-in-hand: multiple change options are analyzed and compared in terms of chosen performance measures - the most promising ones are retained and combined into a redesigned process

29
Q

Product versus process innovation

A

Why to redesign a process:

  • Positive motive: The urge of organizations to innovate
  • Reactive motive: Fight organizational entropy

Product innovation:

  • development of new products or addition of new features to existing ones
  • limited opportunities to attract new clients and retain existing ones

Process innovation:

  • redesign of business processes such that customers are drawn to them to acquire the products or services that they generate
  • “second wave of innovation”
30
Q

Elements of Redesign

A
  1. the internal or external customers of the business process
  2. the business process operation view

(How is a business process implemented? How many activities and what is the

nature of them?)

  1. the business process behavior view

(How is a business process executed? In which order activities are executed and

how they are scheduled and assigned for execution?)

  1. the organization and the participants in the business process,

captured at two levels:

a) organization structure (elements: roles, users, groups, departments, etc.)
b) organization population (individuals: agents which can have activities assigned

for execution and the relationships between them)

  1. the information that the business process uses or creates
  2. the technology the business process uses
  3. the external environment the process is situated in
31
Q

The Devil’s Quadrangle

A

Time: Reduce Lead Time

Cost: Reduce costs

Flexibility: How can we handle situations in different ways. E.G Do we accept different document types, can we handle just information etc.

Quality: Related to the outcome of the process. E.G do we make mistakes?

“improving a process along one dimension may very well weaken its performance along another”

32
Q

Transactional methods

Transformational methods

A

Transactional methods

  • seek to identify problems and resolve them incrementally, one step at a time
  • do not challenge the current process structure Transformational methods

Transformational methods

  • aim to achieve breakthrough innovation
  • put into question fundamental assumptions and principles of the existing process structure
33
Q

Analytical methods - Transactional

Creative methods - Transactional

A

Analytical methods - Transactional

  • have a strong mathematical and quantitative focus
  • embrace tools and technology
  • employ all kinds of tools, involve statistics, are strongly rationalized

Inward-looking

  • Six Sigma
  • Theory of Constraints
  • TRIZ
  • Positive Deviance
  • Heuristic Process Redesign

Outward-looking

  • Benchmarking
  • ERP-driven Redesign
  • Lean

Creative methods - Transactional

  • rely on human creativity and ingenuity
  • embrace group dynamics
  • unleashing the creativity of people

Inward-looking

  • 7FE
  • BPTrends

Outward-looking

• Crowdsourcing

34
Q

Inward-looking methods

Outward-looking methods

A

Inward-looking methods

  • consider the process from the perspective of the internal organization
  • draw from objectives and performance measurement

Outward-looking methods

  • consider the process from an outsider’s perspective
  • are driven by external opportunities / developments
35
Q

Transformational methods

A

Design-led innovation: - Transformational

  • aims to provide organizations with an understanding of the deep emotional ties that consumers develop with their products
  • People are not only served by the form and function of a product, but also through the experience its usage invokes.
  • Organizations may pursue innovations that customers do not expect, but which they eventually grow passionate about.

Process Model Canvas: - Transformational

  • allows firms to reason about the value proposition behind their business processes

Business Process Reengineering: -Transformational

  • No successful organization relies on piecemeal improvement of what was already carried out. Rather, strong ambition leads to huge rewards
  • While information technology is a crucial asset in redesigning business processes, it is necessary to go beyond pure automation of what is already being done
  • Organizations need to break away from a set of ingrained patterns of organizing work that prevent business processes from being carried out in an integrated, cross-functional way
36
Q

Business Process Reengineering- Properties

A
  • The objective is to completely overhaul a process, which puts it in the transformative sphere.
  • It is analytical because it relies on such a set of clearly defined principles, in contrast to what a group of people comes up with
  • It is mostly inward-looking since it still operates within the scope and context of the existing process it aims to overhaul.
37
Q

Product-Based Design – properties:

A
  • The objective is to completely overhaul a process, which puts it in the transformative sphere.
  • It is analytical in nature since it relies on a formal, almost purely algorithmic way of developing a new business process.
  • It is outward-looking because of the artifact that takes center stage in this method:
38
Q

Complete Picture of the orbit (just for checking)

A
39
Q

Process Implementation definition

A

Process implementation prepares and performs changes required to move from the as-is process to the to-be process covering organizational change management and process automation.

Output:

  • executable process model

Aspects covered:

  • Organizational change management ( set of activities to change the way of working of all process participants)
  • Process automation ( development and deployment of IT systems that support the to-be process)
40
Q

Change Management:

A
  • Process automation is a larger transformation initiative, often taking dozens of months –> change process

Factors that influence the change are DICE:

  • – Duration of initiative,
  • – Integrity of the project team,
  • – Commitment of top management,
  • – Effort demanded from employees

• Risk of resistance:

  • – Potential lack of support from employees
  • – Hidden competing commitment

• Matters of caution:

  • – Avoid premature victory celebration
  • – Programmatic change fallacy
41
Q

Process automation

A

refers to the intent to automate any conceivable part of routine work that is contained within a business process, from single operations that are part of a single process activity up to the automated coordination of entire, complex processes.

42
Q

Automated business process:

A

(also known as workflow): A process that is automated in whole or in part by a software system which passes information from one participant to another for action according to temporal and logical dependencies set in the underlying process model.

  • Technology suitable to achieve process automation:
  • – Process-Aware Information Systems (PAISs)
  • – Business Process Management Systems (BPMSs)
43
Q

Business Process Management systems

A
44
Q

Architecture of BPMS

A
45
Q

dvantages of introducing a BPMS

A

Workload reduction

  • Straight-through processing
  • Less coordination
  • Less gathering of relevant information

Flexible system integration

  • Generic functionality of process layer
  • Easier to change process logic
  • Island automation

Execution transparency

  • Transparency of operational information
  • Transparency of historic information

Rule enforcement

  • Reducing freedom of executing process
  • Enforce separation of duties
  • Implement control tasks
46
Q

How to turn conceptual models into executable models

A
  • Executable models can be used by a process-aware information system to coordinate a business process
  • aim:
    • to let a conceptual model incrementally become less abstract and more IT-oriented
  • two standards complementary to BPMN are used:
    • the Case Management Model and Notation (CMMN)
    • the Decision Model and Notation (DMN)

Five steps of model transformation:

  • Identify automation boundaries
  • Review manual tasks
  • Complete process model
  • adjust level of granularity
  • Specify execution properties
47
Q

Process Monitoring

A

Process monitoring collects and analyzes relevant data from the redesigned process to determine process performances with respect to performance measures and objectives.

Output:

  • bottlenecks, recurrent errors, deviations with respect to intended behavior

Initiation of a new Business Process Management cycle:

  • corrective actions may lead to new issues requiring the BPM cycle to be repeated on a continuous basis
48
Q

Business process monitoring techniques

A
49
Q

Process dashboards

A
50
Q

Process mining techniques and their inputs/output

A
51
Q
A