About BPM

For over a decade organizations have embraced the philosophy that the key to change lies in the radical transformation of business processes. In consequence, numerous business process reengineering methodologies and associated software solutions have emerged. The problem has been that although these systems subscribe to fundamental reengineering tenets, an over-reliance on complex mapping and analysis techniques has rendered the application of business process re-engineering onerous, impractical and overly expensive.

In addition, the advance of excessively sophisticated techniques has led business to isolate the very discipline that was intended to lead the way to efficiency and growth. Steelnet Solutions has tackled these issues head-on. What follows is a description of a very different approach to business process management and improvement. The new approach overcomes the inherent costs, complexity and isolation of business process improvement by incorporating its delivery within a complete process for change, as depicted in the model shown and described below:

Planning: This represents the standard but crucial aspect of project planning, preparation and management. Suffice to say that most transformation projects fail as a direct result of poor planning

Business Process Analysis and Measurement: Here a simplified approach to process mapping is employed. The approach utilizes ‘Event-driven Process Chains’ (EPC) to map the ‘As Is’ situation. Since EPCs use only two symbols to map ‘events’ and ‘functions’ the technique is easy to learn and simple to use. There is no requirement for expensive mapping software. Having mapped a process, a standard set of data is captured and input to a Business Process Analyzer (BPA). This is a spreadsheet tool that requires no programming skills. The entire analysis toolset has been designed for business people rather than technicians. The objective is to:

• Visualise and understand the current business through the analysis of standard efficiency measures e.g. time, cost, headcount etc.
• Identify and measure the root cause of problems rather than the symptoms.

Benchmark Best Practice: Having gained a real understanding of the current business issues and modeled the business processes it is necessary to articulate a vision of the future state. The advice is not to rely solely on internal inspiration. The requirement is to stimulate fresh, innovative ideas perhaps from different industries, the analysis of best practices or an examination of the potential of new technology. The outcome is a vision of what can be achieved.

Business Process Re-design: Now that a baseline has been established through the BPA and a vision of the future state articulated via benchmarking, it is necessary to redesign the current business to meet the emergent vision. Historically, this step has been notoriously complex and time-consuming. However, with the assistance of new generation modelling and simulation tools, many scenarios can be quickly evaluated and compared, providing the best possible outcome in terms of cost, efficiency and performance. The improvement is typically accomplished by a combination of the following changes:

• Total process elimination
• Streamlining of one or more processes
• Design of new processes

Business Requirements: Many reengineering projects are very successful in terms of identifying new and improved methods of doing business but ultimately fail simply because the vision that they represent is never actually achieved. The primary reason for this that the results of reengineering are rarely translated into specific business requirements that can be prioritized, costed and expressed to potential solution providers (e.g. software vendors) in a way that they can understand. By adopting a standard business requirement approach, the specifics of the process improvements are captured to support a Business Case and Request for Proposal.

Business Case: Executive endorsement is required in order to obtain the investment needed to implement significant change. Within the context of the overall approach to operational or corporate transition described, the Business Case is designed to draw upon all the prior components in order to justify the implementation of the new business processes.

Implementation: The endorsement of the Business Case represents the end of the beginning of a process improvement project. There is little point in expending time and effort in theoretically redesigning an organization. The only way to actually realize the vision and gain the benefits articulated in the Business Case is to implement the solutions. In doing this we follow a plan/do/check/act cycle to ensure that the envisioned changes meet the required performance measures. Thus risk is minimised, operational improvements are realised and quality is assured.