As we continue the discussion on the business process management perspective, let us look at this perspective from a business analysis point of view.
There are some stakeholders who are important to this perspective and they include :
1 Change Sponsor: business process management initiatives are usually initiated by senior executives who are focused on enhancing the business value and are searching for ways to link strategic objectives to the business processes.
2 Change Targets : The potential primary change targets for a business process management initiative include the following people :
a. Customer: this is a vital stakeholder in any business process management initiative. The customer should be involved in the initiative to reduce the risk of failure by ensuring that the objectives of the process delivery are aligned to the customer’s expectations.
b. Regulator: this stakeholder is important to the business process management initiative because they ensure that the initiative is complying with regulatory guidelines.
c. Process Owner: this important stakeholder has the authority to make the final decisions on changes to the affected processes. The process owner is also responsible for assessing the process performance.
d. Process Participants: these are stakeholders who are direct or indirect actors in the process. The process owner should engage the process participants early in the initiative to ensure that the interests of process participants are met.
e. Project Manager: this stakeholder manages the business process management initiative and is responsible for its delivery. The project manager is also responsible for the planning, scheduling and risk management of the initiative.
The project manager works with a project management team that includes process analysts, process owners, and process designers.
• Implementation Team: these stakeholders use the business process management initiative to improve the business processes. The business process management initiative success is dependent on the team’s ability to fulfill the customer’s need.
3 Business Analysis : the business analysts working in a business process management environment may have a range of roles, including the following :
a. Process Architect: this person is in charge of modelling, analyzing, monitoring, and continuously improving business processes.
A process architect has expertise in business processes designs and improvements. They improve and change business processes into technically enhanced and executable process templates.
b. Process Analyst: this role is held by someone who is experienced in documenting process designs and optimization. They perform analysis and evaluation of processes, assess different process design options, and make solution recommendations.
c. Process Modeller: this person is in charge of documenting processes. The process modeller is usually a process analyst who records a process for implementation in an information technology system.
4 Business Analysis Outcomes : The outcomes for business analysts working in the business process management initiative include the following :
- Business process models.
- Business rules.
- Process performance measures.
- Business decisions.
- Process performance assessment.
a. Business Process Models : Business process models include both the current state and future state models.
Current state models represents the current functions in the organization while the future state model represents what the process would look like if all improvement options are added.
Transition models represent the temporary states needed to move from the current state process to the future state process.
b. Business Rules: Business rules are used to guide business processes. Business rules are identified during requirements elicitation and process analysis and are often focused on business calculations, access control issues, and policies of an organization.
The business analysts should analyse the reasons for the business rule and examine its effect on the business process before enhancing it.
Process Performance Measures: Process performance measures are criteria that are used to identify process improvement opportunities.
Process performance measures are used to ensure that processes are aligned to the business needs and strategic objectives of the organization.
Process performance measures are used to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the process.
Process performance measures can address many features of a process including quality, time, cost, agility, efficiency, effectiveness, responsiveness, adaptability, flexibility, customer satisfaction, velocity, variability, visibility, variety, rework, and volume.
Business Decisions: Business decisions are an activity in a business process that describe which of the options will be chosen by the process. These decisions may be manual or automated, are modelled independently, and are best described using business rules.
Process Performance Assessment: The business process management’s success is dependent on its ability to continuously measure and monitor the performance of targeted business processes.
The business process assessment can be documented with assessment reports and scorecards and reported through dashboards. The documented information is used by decision makers to make changes that would help the organization meet its process performance goals.