11.5.2 Business Analysis Scope
.1 Change Sponsor
Enterprise-wide BPM initiatives are typically started by executives focusing on value and outcomes and then linking these strategic objectives to the corresponding business processes which most closely support the objectives.
BPM initiatives are frequently triggered by an external situation which generates a business need. Enterprise business analysis practices are applied to develop a business case for a BPM initiative.
Process improvements are typically initiated or at least managed by a process manager at any level of the organization. The scope of the process or sub-process usually determines the authority of the process manager.
.2 Change Targets
The possible primary change targets for a BPM initiative include:
- Customer: the key stakeholder in any BPM initiative. The principal focus is on the external customer but internal customers are also considered. Since BPM is customer-centric by nature, the customer is part of BPM initiatives in order to validate the effectiveness of the process change. Involving the customer early in the initiative minimizes the risk of failure by ensuring the goals of process delivery are aligned to the customer’s expectations.
- Regulator: a stakeholder in any BPM initiative due to evolving requirements towards compliance and risk management by some organizations. Regulators may trigger a BPM initiative due to changes in
regulations on such concerns as public safety, transparency, equal opportunity, and non-discrimination. - Process Owner: the key stakeholder in any BPM initiative and has the responsibility and authority to make the final decision regarding any changes to the affected processes. The process owner is also responsible for measuring the process performance.
- Process Participants: stakeholders who directly or indirectly participate in the process being evaluated. These participants define the activities of the process. In order to ensure that the interests of process participants are met, the process owner engages them during design of the process.
- Project Manager: manages the BPM initiative and is accountable for its delivery and driving decisions. The project manager works with a team including process analysts, process owners, and process designers. The project manager is responsible for planning, scheduling, communication management, change management, and risk management.
- Implementation Team: converts the plans of the BPM initiative into functioning business processes. The success of a BPM initiative is the ability to integrate all the functions that meet the needs of the customer.
.3 Business Analysis Position
Business analysts working within the discipline of business process management may assume a variety of roles:
- Process Architect: responsible for modelling, analyzing, deploying, monitoring, and continuously improving business processes. A process architect knows how to design business processes and how to enhance those processes either manually or for automated business process execution on a BPM platform. Process architects address and guide the decisions around what process knowledge, methodology, and technology is required to meet the objectives of the organization with respect to a particular BPM initiative. Process architects enhance and transform business processes into technically enhanced and executable process templates. Depending on the BPM initiative, process architects may be focused on managing business performance or on mapping technology to business operations. Process architects are responsible for developing and maintaining standards and the repository of reference models for products and services, business processes, key performance indicators (KPIs), and
critical success factors (CSF). They are engaged in process analysis and transformation initiatives. - Process Analyst/Designer: has detailed process knowledge, skills, and interest. They are experts in documenting and understanding process design along with performance trends. Process analysts/designers have an interest in business process optimization to increase overall business performance. This goal requires an understanding of the detailed process and includes performing the necessary analysis for process optimization. They perform analysis and assessment of as-is processes, evaluate alternate process design options, and make recommendations for change based on various frameworks.
- Process Modeler: captures and documents business (both the as-is and to-be) processes. The process modeler is frequently a process analyst working to document a process for implementation or support by an information technology system.
The process analyst/designer and the process modeler functions frequently reside within a single position.
.4 Business Analysis Outcomes
Outcomes for business analysts working within the discipline of business process management include:
- business process models,
- business rules,
- process performance measures,
- business decisions, and
- process performance assessment.
Business Process Models
Business process models start at the highest level as an end-to-end model of the whole process and can become as specific as modelling specific work flow.
Business process models serve as both an output and a starting point for the analysis of the process. They are divided into current state (as-is) and future state (to-be) models. Current state models portray the process as it currently functions, without any improvements. The future state model envisions what the process would look like if all improvement options are incorporated. The benefit of developing the current state model is to justify the investment in the process by enabling the business analyst to measure the effect of the process improvements and prioritize changes to the process. Transition models describe the interim states required to move from the current state process to the future state process.
Business Rules
Business rules guide business processes and are intended to assert business structure or control the behavior of business. Business rules are identified during requirements elicitation and process analysis and often focus on business calculations, access control issues, and policies of an organization. Classifying business rules can help decide how they will be best implemented. Business rules analysis provides insight into how the business functions and how the processes contribute to meeting the business’ goals and objectives. Business analysts analyze the reasons for the existence of a business rule and study its impact on the business process before improving or redesigning it. Business rules may, where appropriate, be mapped to individual processes through the decisions they influence unless they are related strictly to the performance of the process.
Process Performance Measures
Process performance measures are parameters that are used to identify process improvement opportunities. Process performance measures are defined and deployed to ensure that processes are aligned to the business needs and strategic objectives of the organization. Process performance measures can address many aspects of a process including quality, time, cost, agility, efficiency, effectiveness, responsiveness, adaptability, flexibility, customer satisfaction, velocity, variability, visibility, variety, rework, and volume. Many of the process performance measures seek to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of the process as well as the degree to which the process goals are achieved. When deployed across the business, process performance measures can indicate the maturity level of process culture in an organization and generate a shared understanding of process performance across an organization. Performance measures are keys to defining service level agreements where an organization provides service to their customers.
Business Decisions
Business decisions are a specific kind of task or activity in a business process that determine which of a set of options will be acted upon by the process. Decisions must be made (using a task or activity) and then acted upon (often with a gateway or branch in the process). Decisions may be manual or automated, are modelled independently, and are best described using business rules. Decision rules, often implemented through a business rules engine, allow these business decisions to be automated.
Process Performance Assessment
The success of any BPM initiative rests on the intention and capability to continuously measure and monitor the performance of targeted business processes. The assessment can be static and be documented with assessment reports and scorecards, or dynamic and be delivered through dashboards. It provides necessary information to decision makers in an organization to redeploy and adjust resources in order to meet process performance goals.
