Business Process Modeling
Business Process thinking is at the heart of the management of modern Enterprises. The configuration of business has evolved considerably from the hierarchical, integrated and comprehensive structure of major corporations in the twentieth century to today’s more globalized and virtual network of partnering companies which create value for the end Customer.
Nowadays, many managers think and talk about their business in terms of Business Processes. Extensive literature is available on Business Process Management, very often influenced by software vendors. We describe the Business Process lifecycle and provide a global set of definitions to position the various terms and acronyms that are frequently used, such as: Business Process Management (BPM), Business Process Modeling (also BPM!), Analysis, Design, Simulation, Automation, Business Activity Monitoring…
This white paper also explains how Business Processes can be described and what benefits can be derived from Business Process Modeling, such as:
• Understanding how the Enterprise Operates
• Measuring how the Enterprise performs
• Designing the future Operations of the Enterprise (Transforming the Enterprise)
One of our key objectives is to provide a standard way of discovering and describing existing Business Processes, which should reconcile and serve the objectives of all parties in the Enterprise (Business Analysts, QA experts, Risk managers, IT developers…). That is why we have developed a minimal set of terms to define Business Processes such as Enterprise, Action, Actor, end to end Process, organized Process, Function and Activity. For instance, we will define a Business Process as “a coordinated suite of Actions triggered by an independent Event to bring Value to a Process Client”.
We advise separating the core business (what has to be done), from the Organization (who does what). The Core business is mostly made up of stable and invariant Activities while the Organization can frequently vary.
Then, we explain how to define a good Process Model. The scope of a Business Process Modeling project can vary:
• If the scope is the whole Enterprise, the objective is to list and map all the Processes of the Enterprise. This approach usually aims at getting a broad picture of all the Processes, but not necessarily a detailed description of each Process.
• If the scope is one specific Business Process, the aim is usually to document or Transform the Process, which requires a detailed analysis and design of the Process.
• If the scope is intermediary, like a whole Business Domain, the Process Modeling project will require a mix of the two approaches described above with the following deliverables:
o A map of the Business Processes in this Business Domain and
o A detailed description of one or several Processes in this Business Domain
We first describe how to discover a list of Processes across a broad scope (like a Business Domain or an Enterprise). We recommend using an Entity-based approach and we provide the example of the “Arpege” method developed by Air France KLM.
Then we give some tips on how to design a single new Process including the following key steps:
• Start from a clean baseline, scope definition and business strategy understanding
• Use properly skilled resources
• Identify the relevant Business Entities and their basic Functions
• Break down the Process into Functions at the right level of granularity
• Reuse Process patterns and develop variants rather than new Processes
• Isolate Business Rules
• Assign Actions to Actors at the end only
o Split end to end Processes into Organized Processes
o Group Actions into Activities to optimize Resource utilization
• Check the Process design and iterate
We suggest some simple criteria to assess the Process design.
After applying this approach to a simple example, we explain how Process design can be linked to software design, and especially how reuse is possible using Process design patterns.
Then, we describe briefly some existing modeling standards (like UML or BPMN) and map our concepts against these approaches.
Finally, we go beyond Process modeling and introduce Process automation and monitoring as the next steps in the management of the full life cycle of a Business Process, which would deserve a full white paper in its own right.
Most of the concepts developped on this website are further developped in our white papers. You can download any white paper freely. Please do not re-use without explicit permission.
Contact
Please contact us at contact@ceisar.com if you would like to know more about the CEISAR and our work. We welcome any feed-back and contribution to our research.
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