Designing a Business Process

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Process (re)engineering / Process improvement

The need for the best process:

1.       The customer demands/expects it.

2.       Have minimum running cost and better ROI.

3.       Deliver the product/service in quickest time.

4.       Adhere to regulation and company policies

5.       Reduce the risk of breach

6.       Quality of the deliverable

7.       Beat the competition

What do you need to know before you start?

1.       Why do we need ‘the’ process?

2.       What is the objective?

3.       What are we trying to deliver? Is it a service? Is it a goods?

4.       What is the scope/boundary of the process?

5.       How is the process going to be measured? What are the KPIs?

6.       What are the constraints? (cost, time, resources, tech, geo, regulatory, company policy, risk management).

7.       Stakeholders (would also come from the constraints)

Initial thought process before you start drawing the process:

1.       Go with an open mind first. Forget that you have any constraints. Think about all the options that could be used irrespective of any constraints (but keep it sensible). This may give you new requirements which may impact putting new things in place; modify existing process, eliminating existing process.

2.       Forget the as-is process if there is one. This may blinker the thought process. Start afresh.

3.       Keep the building blocks to a minimum to start with. Keep it as simple as possible before you start complicating the process to address the constraints.

4.       At each step, the important question to ask is ‘why’ and the other ‘Ws’ (when, where, who) and ‘how’ may come later.

5.       How will probably answer the tools, resources required to complete the step.

Designing the process (Process skeleton)

1.       Identify all the triggering events for this process. It could be another process, a regulatory event, company rule. The triggering event may have the incoming inputs for the new process.

2.       Think about the next step which is required to deliver the objective. Keep in mind how efficiently and effectively the end step could be achieved. Think about ‘what’ is required next and ‘why’ it is required. Do not think about ‘how’ now. Personally, I find it easy to work through the key steps to achieve the end goal and then think about ways to execute the step.

3.       Repeat the above step until the last step is reached.

Adding flesh to the skeleton

1.       Think about the ‘how’ for each step of the process.  What will be the best way to achieve the step. It may be a specific resource that may be required or it may be a system that can do the job.

2.       While going through the ‘how’ of each step, keep in mind the KPIs of of the process. The choice of ‘how’ may impact the KPIs. Eg of how could be – the step may be executed manually or it could be automated, it may be done on simple spreadsheet or it may be a system.

3.       Check why you chose the specific option in the above step and how it impacts the KPI. There may be more than one option and all may have a positive impact on the KPI. In such scenario, think about cost, complexity, ease of maintenance, risk for the different options and select the best.

4.       Check if the process has been designed as per the constraints. Ensure that the process has the necessary steps to meet the constraints placed on it.

Capacity Management:

1.       Understand the demand placed on the process

2.       Know the capacity of each activity

3.       Know the processing times for each step in the process

4.       Focus on the activity with the highest processing times (least capacity) as this will impact the time related KPI. This is the bottleneck activity.

5.       Increase the capacity of the bottleneck to meet the demand. If this is a system, ensure that it has enough capacity (or processing capability). If it is manually managed, ensure it has enough FTEs to manage the demand.

6.       Increase the capacity of the other activity steps proportionally.

Prepare the Process Matrix

1.       Prepare a matrix for the process and add the ‘Ws’ and the ‘how’ to meet the objectives of each step. You may use a spreadsheet to list all the activities in the first column and all the Ws and the How in the adjacent columns.

2.       The How and the Ws columns should capture the following at the least

a.       How the step will be executed, eg system, manual or mix. This should be the best/ideal way to do the process. This may trigger a new requirement or modify the existing process. If it is a new requirement, a business case (cost benefit analysis) may be required to carry out the new changes..

b.      How long it could/should take (check the time constraints, if any. However, the time constraint would be for the end to end process. The sum of all the activities needs to be compared with the constraint. You might have to go back to the process to adjust the time so that the total processing time is within the constraint).

c.       If it is a manual process, check expertise is required to execute the process.

d.      Check if there is any cost implication for each step. Once all the steps have been captured, it will help in the estimation of the total cost of one time implementation and possibly the operational cost.

3.       After the skeleton is drawn, check what is reusable (or what exists), what are the new requirements and what can be dropped.

Post process activities:

1.       Prepare cost benefit analysis / business case for the new requirements. It is suggested to keep in mind if the existing artefacts can be re-used.

2.       New requirements may be approved or may be rejected. In case of rejection, re-visit the process and go through the ‘how’ of the affected step and check for the best available option keeping in mind the process objective and the KPIs.

The above methodology may not capture the following needs directly:

1.       Infrastructure needs (desk, laptops etc)

2.       Selection the best IT solution to run the process.