Business Process Management Taxonomy in Practice - IS MUNI

MASARYK UNIVERSITYFACULTY OF INFORMATICS

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Taxonomy in Practice

MASTER’S THESIS

Ivo Bek

Brno, Autumn 2014

Declaration

Hereby I declare, that this paper is my original authorial work, whichI have worked out by my own. All sources, references and literatureused or excerpted during elaboration of this work are properly citedand listed in complete reference to the due source.

Advisor: Mgr. Marek Grac, Ph.D.

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Acknowledgement

This work would not be done without a continuous support of myfamily, dear friends, and colleagues. Special thanks go to Jirı Pechanecfor valuable guidance and unique perception. And, thanks to myadvisor, Marek Grac.

I am immensely grateful to John Suire for the insight into the riskmanagement during the great conversations. I would like to thank toGang Li and Xuefeng Liu for the inspiring discussions about businessprocess automation.

My gratitude also goes to Marco Rietveld and Maciej Swiderskiwho answered my technical questions regarding the business processengine, jBPM.

And, finally, many thanks to all the interviewed colleagues whogladly contributed with their domain knowledge; namely KaterinaGabova, Marek Baluch, Igor Klimes, Daniela Frimlova, Martin Vecera,Josef Fridrich, Eva Kostrejova, Dana Doubkova, and others.

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Abstract

This thesis deals with business process management from a broaderperspective exploring the ways and recommended techniques of man-agement. From the times when the first thoughts about businessprocess management came out, new methodologies and proven tech-niques for work optimizations emerged. We will look at some of themin this work.

Since we want to understand the activities in business processmanagement, the work analyze a structure of business project or-ganization within a business group oriented on business processmanagement.

The main goal is to map chosen business process, create its docu-mentation including business process models and automate its partsin BPMS software tool which allows the automation.

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Shrnutı

Tato prace se zabyva procesnım rızenım z sirsıho hlediska zkoumajıcızpusoby a doporucene techniky takoveho rızenı. Od dob kdy seprvne objevily myslenky procesnıho rızenı, vznikajı metodologie aosvedcene techniky pro zvysenı efektivity prace. Na nektere z nich sezamerıme v nası praci.

Jelikoz chceme porozumnet samotnym cinnostem v procesnımrızenı, prace rozebıra i strukturu organizace podnikovych projektu vramci skupiny orientovane na procesnı rızenı.

Hlavnım cılem je ovsem zmapovat vybrany podnikovy proces,vytvorit jeho dokumentaci vcetne procesnıch modelu a automatizovatjeho casti v BPMS softwarovem nastroji, ktery nam takove automato-zovanı umoznı.

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Keywords

Business Process Management, Employee on-boarding process, BPMmethodologies, BPM Center of Excellence, Business project, Processmapping, Process modeling, Process automation, BPMS, Red HatJBoss BPM Suite

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Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41.2 Motivation and Scope of The Work . . . . . . . . . . . . 51.3 Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2 Business Process Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.1.1 What is Business Process? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.1.2 What is the Value Chain? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82.1.3 What is Business Rule? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.1.4 What is Business Process Management? . . . . . 9

2.2 Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.3 Life-cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132.4 Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152.5 Methodologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3 Center of Excellence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193.1 Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203.2 Process Catalogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203.3 Process Classification Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213.4 Change Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3.4.1 The 8-Step Process for Leading Change . . . . . 243.4.2 3-Phase Change Management Process . . . . . . 26

4 Business Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284.1 Strategic Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284.2 Project Integration Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294.3 Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304.4 Documentation Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324.5 Risk Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344.6 Pitfalls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

5 Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375.1 Types of Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

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5.2 Employee On-boarding Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395.3 Process Profile Worksheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405.4 Process Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425.5 Process Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

6 Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466.1 Process Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476.2 Gathering and Organizing Information . . . . . . . . . 486.3 Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506.4 Process Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

6.4.1 Offer Job Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516.4.2 Contract Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536.4.3 Conversion Ticket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546.4.4 Organize Employee On-boarding Day . . . . . . 556.4.5 Evaluate Effectiveness of Employee On-boarding

Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566.5 Risks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

7 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597.1 BPM Suite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

7.1.1 Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607.1.2 Process Automation Potential . . . . . . . . . . . 617.1.3 Aligning the PCF with BPMS Framework . . . . 62

7.2 Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657.2.1 Service Coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667.2.2 Testing Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

7.3 Automation of Peer and Help New Hire Process . . . . 688 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

8.1 Summary of the Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 738.2 Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

A Value Chain of Employee On-boarding Process . . . . . . . 78B Domain Expert Interview Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79C Zip Archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

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List of Figures

2.1 Michael Porter’s Value Chain 92.2 BPM Initiatives - Activities 122.3 Business Process Life-cycle 132.4 BPM Life-cycle 15

3.1 BPM Center of Excellence 193.2 Business Process Hierarchy PCF 223.3 Change Model 253.4 3-Phase Change Management Process 26

4.1 Project Integration Management 294.2 ERM Framework 35

5.1 Process Results 415.2 Process Architecture 435.3 Business Process Hierarchy 44

6.1 Offer Job Position Process Model 526.2 Contract Request Process Model 536.3 Conversion Ticket Process Model 546.4 Organize Employee On-boarding Day Process

Model 556.5 Evaluate Effectiveness of Employee On-boarding

Program Process Model 56

7.1 Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 607.2 Aligning the PCF with BPMS Framework 647.3 Architecture 657.4 Testing Architecture 677.5 BPM Project Structure 687.6 Peer and Help New Hire AS-IS Process Model 697.7 Peer and Help New Hire TO-BE L2 Process Model 707.8 Peer and Help New Hire TO-BE L3 Process Model 717.9 Review and Modify Permissions Form 72

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Chapter 1

Introduction

Throughout the history of mankind, we compete among each other. Itis about surviving, about power, and about love. We are humans andwe have needs, which may be represented by the Maslow’s hierarchy.To get the thing that we need, we find ways and do actions.

In business it is the same situation. The history repeats and wedo the same mistakes. The business which exists today may not existtomorrow, at least in the same form. Therefore, we, people, find prac-tices which mitigate these risks and make the work easier and easierfor us because we have been always searching for the ways how tomake things done with a minimum effort and costs.

1.1 Background

The business environment is continually and dramatically changingmore rapidly than ever. Companies face the challenges of increasingcompetition, expanding markets and rising customer expectations.As a result, companies have to lower costs, shorten throughput times,reduce inventories, expand product choice and provide more reliabledelivery dates, an improved customer service and quality improve-ments. The companies have to respond quickly as markets, customerneeds, and regulations change. Above all the companies have to man-age global demand, supply and production.

Going through books, articles, and web sites about business man-agement, we came across many interesting areas that were worth forevaluation. There are so many options and ways how it is possible tolead a company and manage its business processes that we wanted tohave a free hand and learn, understand, experience, and choose themethodologies, best practices, tools, and anything what would make

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1. INTRODUCTION

the business transparent, easy to change, and also scalable becausetoday’s start up companies are very rapidly growing.

1.2 Motivation and Scope of The Work

Sometimes managers are caught off guard when a change to a processoccurs in one area of the organization, and they are not aware of thatchange. Furthermore, some managers will attempt to develop a newprocess from scratch when it is already being used in another busi-ness unit. This issue is particularly common for larger organizationsthat have around 5,000 or more employees. By creating standardizedprocesses, an organization can simplify the steps required to completea business activity and thus streamline an end-to-end process.

This work has wide range of interest in business. We introducemany business terms, methodologies, and technologies that are putinto a context because they are rarely used alone. This approach helpsus to see their purpose and understand the results at the end. Toexperience, learn, and discover, we selected an end-to-end businessprocess which was complicated enough, where were places for im-provements, and possibilities of automation.

1.3 Outline

In the chapter 2, Business process management, we will begin withintroduction of the business terms used in this work. Furthermore,we will explain why business process management is important forus and will describe the methodologies.

From this part of the work, we will go in ”top-bottom” approach.It means that we will first describe the enterprise level of a com-pany from the view of a team which do the business changes andafterwards, we will focus on the business level and implementationlevel. Since the business changes need to be properly evaluated to seethe consequences of doing or not doing the changes, one section isdedicated just to the change management in the chapter 3, Center ofexcellence.

Doing business changes is a result of an effort for which we as-signed bounded resources, time, people, and costs under the specific

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1. INTRODUCTION

requirements, standards, and quality. Thus, we will look at projectsin the chapter 4, Business project, where we will discuss objectives,requirements, pitfalls, and risk management.

In the chapter 2, we introduce a life-cycle of a business processdevelopment, hence we will follow the life-cycle also in the furtherstructure of this work. As a result, the next chapter 5, Identification,contains the activities to find business processes for improvementsand optimizations. We will continue with the chapter 6, Discovery,describing business process mapping and modeling practices. At theend of the chapter we will show the business process models whichwere modelled to represent the end-to-end business process.

The last chapter 7, Implementation, focuses on software toolsand technical activities for automation of business processes. Withinthe chapter we will show an architecture of an automated systemintegrating various external systems and use of them in the automatedprocess running in Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite.

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Chapter 2

Business Process Management

To understand taxonomy and the practices in Business Process Man-agement (BPM), first, we need to see the context and set terminologywhich we will use within our work.

Process management refers to when an organization works withfocus on its processes in a structured way. The term “business” as usedin this work refers to individuals, interacting together, to perform a setof activities to deliver value to customers and a return on investmentto the stakeholders.

In recent years BPM techniques have helped reduce errors, reducecosts and increase productivity at organizations ranging from man-ufacturing companies to telecoms providers, insurance companiesand government departments. BPM’s successes stem from both moreprocess automation, and more repeatable, error-free manual processes[14].

2.1 Introduction

2.1.1 What is Business Process?

The term process was first described in 1776 when Adam Smith pub-lished his thoughts about work division. Today there are many differ-ent definitions of business processes in the literature. Still, the defini-tions have common core of understanding. According to Thomas H.Davenport, an American academic and author specializing in busi-ness process innovation, processes are defined as ”a structured setof activities designed to produce a specified output for a particularcustomer or market.”[25] Michael M. Hammer and James A. Champy,the two names most closely associated with re-engineering, declared

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2. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT

that ”a business process is a collection of activities that takes oneor more kinds of input and creates an output that is of value to thecustomer. A business process has a goal and is affected by eventsoccurring in the external world or in other processes” [5]. Here werealize that processes only exist to add value, achieve outcomes andmeet requirements of customer (and stakeholders). Otherwise, it is awaste.

From another perspective, business processes consist of a set ofrelated activities which are performed to achieve a specific businessgoal [12]. The processes are directed by business objectives and theorganization’s environment.

In the book Business Process Management Common Body OfKnowledge [26] is said that processes are composed of a collectionof interrelated tasks or activities which solve a particular issue. Inthe context of business process management, a “business process” isdefined as end-to-end work which delivers value to customers. Thenotion of end-to-end work is critical as it involves all of the work,crossing any functional boundaries, necessary to completely delivercustomer value.

2.1.2 What is the Value Chain?

The Value Chain categorizes the generic activities of an organizationand is a good tool for strategic planning. The Value Chain figure2.1 divides the activities of an organization into primary activitieshorizontally and support activities vertically. Defining activities is thefoundation of process thinking and help understanding the processesin an organization [13].

Value chain notation is used to demonstrate a single continuousflow from left to right of the sub-processes that directly contribute toproducing value for the organization’s customers (clients/constituents).This notation was introduced by Michael Porter in his works on cor-porate strategy and is typically applied at the enterprise planninglevel. SCOR, the consortium that defined the Supply Chain ReferenceModel used a value chain notation to describe the high level processflow supporting supply chain management and its sub-processes [26].

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Figure 2.1: Michael Porter’s Value Chain

2.1.3 What is Business Rule?

Business rules define how or when a particular activity can be per-formed and help control the flow of the activity. We use business rulesto enforce organization policies, external regulations, reduce processerrors, and expedite process execution [26].

2.1.4 What is Business Process Management?

Business Process Management (BPM) is a disciplined approach toidentify, design, execute, document, measure, monitor, and controlboth automated and non-automated business processes to achieveconsistent, targeted results aligned with an organization’s strategicgoals. BPM involves the deliberate, collaborative and increasinglytechnology-aided definition, improvement, innovation, and manage-ment of end-to-end business processes that drive business results,create value, and enable an organization to meet its business objec-tives with more agility. BPM enables an enterprise to align its businessprocesses to its business strategy, leading to effective overall companyperformance through improvements of specific work activities ei-ther within a specific department, across the enterprise, or betweenorganizations [26].

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BPM does not have a one exact definition and a long time it wasdifficult explaining to management what it actually is because theyalready knew similar techniques like Business Process Improvementfrom 80s, Six Sigma practices, Lean manufacturing philosophy, TotalQuality Management, and others. Object Management Group definesbusiness process management as ”a set of techniques for the continu-ous, iterative improvement of all the processes involved in runninga business”. Very important value is the continuous, iterative im-provement that we achieve by using of IT which provides monitoringcapabilities in a business. Often we see the following definition that isso general that it could be used for the techniques, mentioned above,as well. ”Business process management (BPM) is a management disci-pline that focuses on improving corporate performance by managingand optimizing a company’s business processes.”[24]

The most referenced definition comes from Business Process Man-agement: Survey and Methodology [4] where the authors define busi-ness process management as ”a systematic and structured approachfor analyzing, improving, controlling, and managing processes withthe aim of improving the quality of products and services”. Still, thedefinition is not perfect because it lacks some BPM functions likediscovery, monitoring and modelling of business processes when theyare listed. Hence, what is Business Process Management? It is every-thing mentioned in this section because every definition focuses onthe parts of BPM that they value the most.

2.2 Scope

Business Process Management initiative may have a quite wide rangeof focus. In this section we will look at what business process man-agement is all about.

Though BPM is often connected to a technology support, at thebeginning we have to mention that BPM is not ”a technology-baseddiscipline”, it is a business-led initiative because it solely focuses onhow the business manages its day-to-day processes. Therefore, theimplementation of people, process, and governance should alwayscome before technology [24]. And so, these are the four pillars of BPM:

• People - functional training, performance measures, software

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training, leadership, repository training

• Process - documentation, stewardship, improvement method-ology, standardization, standards and taxonomy

• Governance - strategy and alignment, change control, risk, pro-cess architecture, quality

• Technology - repository usage, tool usage

People are always core to any organization, and it’s the organiza-tion’s human capital that helps make processes function effectivelyand efficiently, no matter how much they are automated. That’s why“People” is the first and the most important pillar in a Center of Ex-cellence [24]. Unfortunately, many organizations make the mistake ofhiring people who lack the appropriate expertise, or they move peo-ple around internally in the hope that people will learn the disciplineon the fly.

Governance, in particular, is a key element of process management-and is of the highest importance to get real value out of reference mod-els [26]. BPM governance includes defining roles and responsibilitiesfor process stakeholders, rules for accessing and modifying referencemodels and their organization-specific variants, and guidelines forthe adoption of new or additional reference models. Furthermore,effective governance can provide organizations with centralized co-ordination, maintenance, and management of their BPM capabilities,even when the execution of process management is scattered through-out the enterprise. A strong governance approach will ensure theconsistency of reference models, even if decentralized organizationalunits adjust them based on specific needs [26].

In the figure 2.2 is a visualization of BPM initiative activities whenwe focus on a specific scope with a targeted goal. In the matter ofscope, the range can be from a single process to an initiative that spansan entire organization. Depending on needs, from documenting pro-cesses we can target to continuous improvement and automation ofthe processes through various methodologies such as Six Sigma, LeanManufacturing, and others further described in the section Method-ologies 2.5. At the top-right corner notice the Center of Excellenceinto which we will go in detail the next chapter 3. An interesting

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information also comes from BPMS Implementation where we seethat it can be used from single processes to the whole enterprise incontrast to the Center of Excellence.

Figure 2.2: BPM Initiatives - Activities

The practice of BPM is defined by a set of values, beliefs, lead-ership and culture which form the foundation of the environmentin which an organization operates. They influence and guide orga-nizational behavior and structure [26]. BPM requires a significantorganizational commitment, often introducing new roles, responsibil-ities, and structures to traditional functionally oriented organizations.Effective and sustainable business process management cannot beachieved without the integration and deployment of appropriate tech-nologies to support operations, and management decision making[26]. We will look at this more in the chapter 7.

To implement BPM, we have two possible approaches. Top-downapproach starts with a broad, architectural view of the organizationand defines organizational strategies and goals. The second approachis bottom up when we start with a specific broken process and look athow this process relates to others and the organizational goals.

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2.3 Life-cycle

Traditionally, optimization of business processes using Six Sigma orLean Manufacturing meant usually doing it once. The same happenedduring automation of business processes using workflows. However,BPM takes these activities to the next level by introducing continuouswork.

Figure 2.3: Business Process Life-cycle

Therefore, the management practice of BPM may be characterizedas a continuous life-cycle (process) used by a Center of Excellenceto manage and optimize business processes. The phases of the life-cycle depicted in the figure 2.3 are broken down into eight steps andprovide a process analyst with a structured approach to working withsubject matter experts in developing and implementing processeswithin a business [24].

The eight steps of business process life-cycle are characterizedaccordingly:

1. Define – Requirements, clear definition of the process, form ofa formal work request.

2. Design – Develop a draft process model, procedure guidesshould only be written once the model has been tested, ap-proved, and executed within the business.

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3. Simulate – Simulate the process within BPM tool and real-time analysis which is called ”dashboarding”, usage of othermethods.

4. Deploy – Developing a method for ”ramp-up” and ”ramp-down” activities that will cause minimal interruptions to busi-ness operations.

5. Execute – Make the new process model ”fully operational”.

6. Monitor – Critically examine the success of the new executedprocesses and make adjustments accordingly.

7. Analyze – Collate all the feedback obtained under the monitorand execute phase.

8. Optimize – First, implement the changes that were identifiedduring the analyze phase. Second, commence developing theprocedure document that accompanies the process models.

Within the work we will go through these steps in a differentmanner that are actually based on the concept of BPM Center1 andthey are depicted in the figure 2.4. We will rather follow the secondworkflow because it is designed for an initial work when we need todo an analysis before implementation.

The process identification in the chapter 5 contains the initial stepsof a BPM project and introduces the employee on-boarding processthat is used as an example of this thesis. In the figure 2.3, the step isnamed as Process Discovery.

Then, we will look at process discovery (chapter 6) from the per-spective of the figure 2.4. It means that we will fully define the mappedprocess and we will develop process models like in the Define andDesign steps.

Analysis and Redesign phases are not part of this work thoughthey were obviously done. Instead, we focus on process implementa-tion (chapter 7) in detail, describing architecture of the systems andBusiness Process Management Suite. The last parts of the cycle, pro-cess monitoring and controlling, are not included because they arenot required for this work.

1. http://bpmcenter.org/

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Figure 2.4: BPM Life-cycle

2.4 Benefits

What are the reasons to apply the BPM approach? And, why shouldwe be interested? In this chapter we will look at some of the benefits ofBusiness Process Management. To sum up the most common businessdrivers of BPM, they are listed below:

• The need to save money and increase revenues.

• The need to improve an existing process or to create a newbusiness process.

• Improve customer satisfaction.

• Improve organizational responsiveness and reliability.

• Improve business coordination and control including risk re-ductions.

• Compliance with new regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)and IT upgrades.

• One-time events like a merger or acquisition.

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Alright, we have a temptation but certainly more important are thereal results and statistics of the successful changes. Probably one ofthe best sources of the statistics are BPTrends Surveys which has beenpublished every one or two years since 2005. However, the data fromthe surveys are focused on BPM understanding, process maturity,BPM spending, BPM activities, and used methodologies.

Therefore, we used another sources to get the real data. Accordingto the book The Ultimate Guide to Business Process Management [24]and Alan McSweeney, the typical results of a well-established processimprovement program include:

• Productivity improvements of 10% - 50%.

• Quality improvements: significantly decreased error rates andfield problems, resulting in reduced rework 20% - 30%.

• Improved ability to plan and control projects, reduced projectdelays.

• Cycle time reductions of 20% - 50%.

• Cost savings average 5:1 ROI 12%.

• Reduced number of customer complaints 20% - 30%.

• Increased forecast accuracy of 15% - 30%.

Of course, there are also other intangible benefits such as bettercompany image, better information quality, improve of employeemorale and better working conditions.

2.5 Methodologies

A methodology is an approach with principles and specific proce-dures that provides guidelines for how to approach different scenarioswithin the Business Process Management discipline.

Many people confuse Business Process Management with BusinessProcess Improvement (BPI) initiatives. BPI initiatives typically implyprojects or a set of one-time unique improvements in redesigning or

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otherwise fixing a process. Common BPI methodologies include sixsigma, lean, total quality management (TQM) or re-engineering efforts(a la Michael Hammer). BPM, on the other hand, implies a permanentongoing organizational commitment to managing the organizationsprocesses [26].

Reference models (e.g. Capability Maturity Model Integration,APQC’s Process Classification Framework, and Supply-chain opera-tions reference model) are a set of ”best practices” that can be usedto serve as a starting point for the management and improvementof processes. These models should not be implemented in isolation,but rather as part of an overall BPM roadmap. Doing so helps ensurethat organizations can achieve the full value they expect from theirprocess management efforts. Reference models relate to BPM in thesense that organizations can use them as a proven path for processimprovement by comparing their current processes against world’sbest practices via benchmarking.

Below, we mention the methodologies that are commonly used inBPM nowadays.

Balanced Scorecard is a strategic approach and performance man-agement system that enables organizations to translate a company’svision and strategy into implementation, working from 4 perspectives:financial, customer, business process, learning and growth.

Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process im-provement approach that provides organizations with the essentialelements of effective processes, which will improve their performance.(CCMI Institute)

SCOR provides the best practices, process metrics and a standard-ized language to help organizations manage common business prob-lems and streamline core operations.

Lean Manufacturing is a generic process management philosophywhich uses a set of tools that assists in the identification and steadyelimination of waste in a process by using the least amount of humaneffort, least amount of investment in tools, and the least engineering

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time to develop a new product [24]. It originates from the manufac-turing industry, in particular the engineering philosophy of Toyota.In comparison with Lean, ”BPM puts more emphasis on the use ofinformation technology as a tool to improve business processes andto make them more consistent and repeatable”[23].

Six Sigma is a set of practices developed to improve processes bymethodically eliminating defects. A defect is defined as the noncon-formity of a product or service, and the Six Sigma Defect is definedas anything outside of customer specification [24]. It originates fromengineering and production practices at Motorola. In practice, SixSigma is not necessarily applied alone, but in conjunction with otherapproaches. In particular, a popular approach is to blend the philoso-phy of Lean with the techniques of Six Sigma, leading to an approachknown as Lean Six Sigma [23].

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management approach cen-tered on quality, based on the participation of an organization’s peo-ple and aiming at long term success. (ISO 8402:1994). The TQM is anapproach that both historically preceded and inspired BPM. Applica-tions of TQM are primarily found in manufacturing domains, wherethe products are tangible, while BPM is more oriented to serviceorganizations [23].

Benchmarking is the process of comparing and measuring an or-ganization against others, anywhere in the world, to gain insightsinto measures, performance, and practices in a way that can rapidlyimprove the journey to world-class performance (APQC). In otherwords, it is a practice comparing the performance of a process tosimilar processes among any industries.

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Chapter 3

Center of Excellence

At a high-level view, the important thing is that organizations applyproper best practice frameworks when implementing a Business Pro-cess Management capability. The reason for this is because BPM is amultifaceted discipline that inevitably affects all areas of the organiza-tion. As a result, it’s important to ensure there is a structured methodused in order to achieve the intended objectives. Otherwise, all theeffort can lead to a diminishing return on investment in BPM [24].

A Center of Excellence (CoE) is a cross-functional team with a for-mal organizational structure, defined tasks, roles, responsibilities andprocesses for supporting and promoting methodical BPM adoptionand effective use of BPM and continuous improvement across the or-ganization. It develops and maintains a library of reusable standards,methodologies, and techniques to ensure continues success with BPMprojects and to minimize the time and effort needed to achieve thosesuccesses [16]. Figure 3.1 shows BPM Center of Excellence on top ofthe four pillars, people, process, governance, and technology.

Figure 3.1: BPM Center of Excellence

A BPM CoE is the mechanism used by organizations to institu-

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3. CENTER OF EXCELLENCE

tionalize BPM initiatives and perpetuate its benefits across the organi-zation in a more coordinated approach [24]. Though it seems logicalto establish a BPM group (or Center of Excellence) to coordinate,train, and support business process efforts within an organization,according to the The State of Business Process Management surveyanalyzed by BPTrends in March 2014, 100 of 297 (34%) companieswhich use BPM, do not have any Center of Excellence nor BPM group.Furthermore, the total number of companies with a BPM CoE has notincreased significantly during the time of measuring (2005 to 2013).

3.1 Objectives

According to The Ultimate Guide to Business Process Management[24], establishing and maintaining Center of Excellence has 3 mainobjectives:

• Create strategic alignment and an organizational BPM culture.

• Converge multiple BPM initiatives running in parallel.

• Disseminate BPM concepts and benefits.

The general thought is to define and maintain a baseline set of BPMskills and competencies across the organization. Regarding the firstpoint, it is also essential to create and maintain BPM vision and futureplans. The objectives also includes inner work like taking inventoryand capturing processes, continuously improving existing processes,and creating new capabilities.[16]

3.2 Process Catalogs

Effective Business Process Management requires organizations to de-velop catalogs to distinguish business and technical processes andassign process owners. A process catalog is a comprehensive databaseof processes for each business unit. It is usually housed in either aspreadsheet or BPM tool (most tools come with a built in repositoryfeature). A BPM catalog should include policies, guidelines, responsi-bilities, and service level arrangements for each process [24].

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As we mentioned in the previous paragraph, in BPM, we distin-guish process catalogs into two types:

Business Process Catalog contains details of all business processesthat are used to deliver goods and services to the customer from theperspective of the business unit. It is usually used for process docu-mentation purposes as a single point of truth, hence every employeehas an access to read and comment the processes.

Technical Process Catalog contains details of all processes deliv-ered from an IT perspective. The catalog keeps the automated businessprocess in a form of Business Process Execution Language (BPEL),BPMN 2.0, or others. Only certain people have rights to start the pro-cesses and only certain people have rights to modify them becauseany modification needs to go through the whole life-cycle describedin the figure 2.3.

3.3 Process Classification Framework

A Business Process Hierarchy (also known as a process architecture)is a list of all process models that are tagged against a number foreasy identification and placement within a process hierarchy. It isdeveloped to categorize each process’s models using a framework. Aprocess hierarchy allows staff to identify the processes associated witheach business service as well as identify gaps in process modeling.In many organizations, process models are developed on an ad hocbasis, with no consistency in numbering or naming association. Fur-thermore, models are developed without a direct linkage to businessservices, activities or products. Sometimes, models are also developedon request of each of the business units without taking into accounthow each process fits into the broader process hierarchy. The resultof this is usually a repository that contains mixed sets of models anddata [24].

To overcome this problem, we recommend the CoE team adopt theProcess Classification Framework (PCF) as a means for developing abest practice hierarchy. Enterprise knowledge architect Dennis Pearce,working for Lexmark, said ”APQC (The American Productivity &

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Quality Center) has a generic process classification framework thatcovers the basic processes needed by companies in order to operate.We can use their highest-level processes as a starting point for design-ing collaboration spaces that maximize coverage of our informationspace.” The important thing about frameworks according to the bookUsing Process Frameworks and Reference Models [1] is that ”it isinsufficient to implement reference models or BPM frameworks inisolation. Each component of BPM must be part of an overall, value-driven BPM journey” [1].

Figure 3.2: Business Process Hierarchy PCF

The Process Classification Framework is the most well-known andwidely adopted process framework by many organizations such asthe IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, NASA, Siemens AG,US Army, Visa Inc. and others1. Developed by APQC, the PCF wasoriginally envisioned as a taxonomy of business processes and a com-mon language through which organizations could benchmark theirprocesses. Therefore, it gives organizations the ability to comparethemselves. Though benchmarking is the most popular use case, notevery organization is so far in the framework implementation. Hence,they may use it just for organizing their structure and functions ina way that manages work in an end-to-end fashion, based upon thecross-referenced process framework or reference model. In the finalimplementation phase, the PCF becomes an operations manual forthe enterprise. The framework is usually modified by every organiza-

1. Full list of APQC members http://www.apqc.org/apqc-current-members

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tion to fit its business, needs, culture, and other organization-specificvalues. It is up to the organization to align the PCF with softwaretools such as Microsoft Office, SharePoint, Visio, Lotus Notes, Aris,Nimbus Control, Blueworks, Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite and others [7].

Since we have the two types of catalogs, business and technical, itis important to have the same identification and similar hierarchy. Insome software tools such as Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite, the catalog isbased on a different framework that is aimed for IT. In that case wealign the PCF with other framework. Therefore, it is known wherein the technical process catalog a business process from the businessprocess catalog is automated. This topic is described further in thesection Aligning the PCF with BPMS Framework 7.1.3.

The figure 3.2 depicts the PCF hierarchy from top. The Categoryrepresents the highest level of company plans and know-how such as1.0 Develop Vision and Strategy, 2.0 Design and Manage Products andServices, 3.0 Market and Sell Products and Service, et cetera. The nextlevel, Process Group, keeps the processes with the same or similarbusiness objectives together. A Process described by the PCF is a seriesof interrelated activities that convert inputs into results (outputs).

The PCF is a general framework, hence it does not tell us howit must be used in the meaning of implementation. Should we usea shared file system, BPMS, flow charts, BPMN, or any others? It isstill up to us to choose which approach fits the organization’s existingenvironment the best.

3.4 Change Management

A change is about moving out a current state (how things are donetoday), and through a transition state to reach a desired future state.Usually, the reasons we change are to address a current issue or totake advantage of a future opportunity. Either way, the reason wechange is to reach a future state where performance is better than inthe current state [19].

Prosci, an independent research company in the field of changemanagement, defines change management as ”the application of astructured process and set of tools for leading the people side ofchange to achieve a desired outcome”. In other words, ”Change man-

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agement is an enabling framework for managing the people side ofchange” [19]. We apply change management to realize the benefitsand desired outcomes of change.

Without change management, the individual change process isignored, resulting in slower speed of adoption, lower ultimate uti-lization and poorer proficiency. Understanding how individual andorganizational change occurs demonstrates the necessity of havingboth an individual and organizational perspective in change manage-ment [19].

A BPM project within CoE often influence some part of businessin the organization. Therefore, it is wise to manage the changes andbe aware of consequences though they might not be direct (e.g. achange in a support process may reduce output of a primary processif employees are not trained to a new system2).

We apply change management because change management hasa distinct and pointed focus on benefit realization and achieving thedesired results and outcomes of change. It is for this reason that,when embarking on our change management journeys, we beginwith the end in mind. The end, in the case of change management,is driving successful change - the means is applying a structuredapproach to helping individual employees adopt and proficiently usechanges that have impact on them [18]. Another point is that the mostBPM activities focus on making people able to use the new processes,through training sessions and one-way communication but changemanagement is about people wanting to use the new processes andrequires early, frequent and interactive two-way engagement.

3.4.1 The 8-Step Process for Leading Change

One of the many theories how to manage a change is ”The 8 stepschange model” by John Kotter which is considered as the origin.Kotter has identified a process outline for organizations to follow inorder to avoid failure and adapt to change.

The Kotter’s official site3 defines the steps of Change Model 3.3 asfollows:

2. The definitions of primary and support processes are described in the chapter5.13. http://www.kotterinternational.com/the-8-step-process-for-leading-change/

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Figure 3.3: Change Model

1. Create a Sense of Urgency - Craft and use a significant oppor-tunity as a means for exciting people to sign up to change theirorganization.

2. Build a Guiding Coalition - Assemble a group with the powerand energy to lead and support a collaborative change effort.

3. Form a Strategic Vision and Initiatives - Shape a vision tohelp steer the change effort and develop strategic initiatives toachieve that vision.

4. Enlist a Volunteer Army - Raise a large force of people who areready, willing and urgent to drive change.

5. Enable Action by Removing Barriers - Remove obstacles tochange, change systems or structures that pose threats to the

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achievement of the vision.

6. Generate Short-Term Wins - Consistently produce, track, evalu-ate and celebrate volumes of small and large accomplishments– and correlate them to results.

7. Sustain Acceleration - Use increasing credibility to change sys-tems, structures and policies that don’t align with the vision;hire, promote and develop employees who can implement thevision; reinvigorate the process with new projects, themes andvolunteers.

8. Institute Change - Articulate the connections between the newbehaviors and organizational success, and develop the meansto ensure leadership development and succession.

3.4.2 3-Phase Change Management Process

Another approach for managing a change is Prosci’s methodology of3-Phase Change Management Process, showed in the figure 3.4.

Figure 3.4: 3-Phase Change Management Process

Preparing for change. The first phase in Prosci’s methodology isaimed at getting ready and provides the situational awareness that iscritical for effective change management [20]. It answers the question:

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”how much change management is needed for this specific project?”Therefore, preparing for change includes building a foundation formanaging change (strategy), examining theories and perspectives thathave impact on how people go through changes, assessing specificchange characteristics and the organizational attributes that haveimpact on change management, and developing team structure (roles)and sponsorship model.

Managing change. The second phase of Prosci’s process is focusedon creating the plans that are integrated into the project activities -what people typically think of when they talk about change manage-ment [20]. Based on Prosci’s research, there are five plans (communi-cation plan, sponsorship roadmap, coaching plan, training plan, andresistance management plan) that should be created to help individu-als move through the ADKAR Model.

Reinforcing change. Equally critical but most often overlooked, thethird phase of Prosci’s process helps project teams create specific ac-tion plans for ensuring that the change is sustained [20]. In this phase,project teams assess the effectiveness of change management activitiesthrough the developed measures and mechanisms (compliance auditreports). Then, it is evaluated whether the change has taken holdand employees are actually doing their jobs the new way. During theevaluation any identified obstacles are overcome by implementingcorrective actions.

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Chapter 4

Business Project

PMBOK R© Guide [17] defines project as ”a temporary endeavor un-dertaken to create a unique product, service, or result”. Projectsare funded to accomplish a specific strategic objective and to im-plement a solution that will meet business needs and may includesoftware/technology development; Business Process Improvement ora Commercial-Off-The-Shelf solution. ”A solution is something thatmeets a business need by solving problems or allows an organizationto take advantage of an opportunity” adds BABOK [6]. The word‘solution’ is used as it has a broader meaning and includes imple-mentation of new or changes to an existing system; to proceduresand to organization structures and competencies. Every project anorganization initiates must have a positive return or benefit to theorganization to justify the investment of the project. Because of thatwe do a feasibility study which evaluates the proposed alternativesto determine if they are technically possible within the constraints ofthe organization and whether they will deliver the desired benefits tothe organization.

4.1 Strategic Objectives

When it comes to actually taking action and implementing the valuechain models inside a company, BPM needs to do the job! BPM isabout optimization, efficiency, collaboration, automation. But thismeans nothing unless we take a step back and look at the higherpurpose – achieving the company’s goal by setting up objectivesand implementing strategies supported by value chain models. BPMstands as main building block for the goal and Value Chain Modelsare the ones who drive the transition from processes to goals [22].

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4. BUSINESS PROJECT

Experience has shown that the most successful organizations im-plementing BPM pay particular attention to the alignment of businessstrategy, value-chain definitions, and business processes. BPM relieson key business strategies that set the primary direction of the enter-prise, usually in terms of value propositions for goods and servicesdelivered to customers. The business strategy then leads to enterpriseand business unit goals as the basis for action plans and businesstactics. These goals are often stated in terms of operational objectivesand financial goals [26]. If any process does not support the objectives,it may not be warranted and may need to be eliminated [10].

4.2 Project Integration Management

Project integration management is a collection of processes requiredto ensure that the various elements of the projects are properly coordi-nated. It involves making trade-offs among competing objectives andalternatives to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations.

Figure 4.1: Project Integration Management

This approach can be viewed as a framework that may be used toensure the success of a business project. Using PMBOK R© Guide [17],we listed the parts of project integration management:

1. Scope Management processes ensure that the project includesall the work required, and only the work required, to completethe project successfully.

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4. BUSINESS PROJECT

2. Time Management processes manage the timely completion ofthe project.

3. Cost Management processes are involved in planning, estimat-ing, budgeting, financing, funding, managing, and controllingcosts so that the project can be completed within the approvedbudget.

4. Quality Management processes determine quality policies, ob-jectives, and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy theneeds for which it was undertaken

5. Human Resources Management processes organize, manage,and lead the project team.

6. Communications Management processes ensure timely andappropriate planning, collection, creation, distribution, storage,retrieval, management, control, monitoring, and the ultimatedisposition of project information.

7. Risk Management processes conduct risk management plan-ning, identification, analysis, response planning, and control-ling risk on a project.

8. Procurement Management processes purchase or acquire prod-ucts, services, or results needed from outside the project team.

4.3 Requirements

A requirement can be thought of as something that is demanded orobligatory; a property that is essential for the system to perform itsfunctions [6]. Defining business requirements helps ensure what thebusiness requested is what the project is going to deliver. The require-ments should include enough detail in the business requirementsso that the stakeholders have a good understanding about what theproject will deliver.

Finding out what the business needs is very different to askingcustomers what they want, but it’s critically important from a process

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4. BUSINESS PROJECT

point of view [15]. As Henry Ford once famously quipped ”If I’dasked them what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse”.

According to the white paper Linking Process, Procedures andBusiness Requirements to Successful Customer Outcomes [15], themain recommendation is to start with the end in mind which adviseto monitor a business project to guarantee that the requirements arefollowed from the beginning to the end of project.

Effective business requirements are both a business organizationaldiscipline issue, and a technology issue. Requirements are the bridgebetween business and technology where in the maturity of the pro-cesses in place have direct impact on the effectiveness of a company inits use of technology or technology suppliers [11]. Therefore, the pro-cess of business requirements is a collaborative process between busi-ness and technology. Good requirements must consider and shouldcommunicate 4 dimensions:

• behavior - using workflow and process models

• structure - data modeling

• dynamics - events and triggers

• constrain - business rules

With this in mind it is therefore essential that data modelingshould be a parallel activity in the analysis and requirements-gatheringphase. Good requirements use a combination of different models andother elements (matrices, prototypes, user stories, etc.) that are ca-pable of describing the requirement from a holistic view, seeing thewhole picture / product1.

Requirements are not simply a document or template that needsto be filled in. Effective business requirements are achieved only bygetting the right content, in a consistent format, using a clear process.The process is a discipline which requires commitment at the highestlevel. The format must match the three very different user needs:business professional, IT professional and analyst/oversight role. The

1. Geoffrey A. Moore first defined the term ”whole product” in Crossing theChasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers (1991,revised 1999 and 2014)

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4. BUSINESS PROJECT

issue is to ensure that the format for early stages of analysis can beused seamlessly in latter stages without rework. Otherwise, there isredundancy and inefficiency [11].

Business Requirements Document (BRD) is a widely acceptedstructured document for project requirements which defines whatshould be delivered in order to gain value in the project. The BRD pro-cess can be incorporated within a Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure,Analyze, Improve, Control) culture [9].

Elicitation methodology is a process of getting the business require-ments information extracted from the heads of subject matter experts[11]. This approach is different to the way the analyst chooses to writethe requirements information down (a ”documentation methodol-ogy”). The process should include:

• Crystallization - Deliver clear scope in days versus weeks ormonths.

• Elicitation Planning - Schedule precise dates, times and goalsfor subject matter experts.

• Elicitation - Consistency in extraction of complete requirementsdone in cross-functional group sessions.

• Completeness Testing - Proof that requirements gathering isdone.

4.4 Documentation Resources

During a business project, many various models, diagrams, tables,guides, and documents are created. This sections contains some of theresources which are worth to mention.

Organization decomposition model shows the essential businessfunctions of an organization without showing any sequence or rela-tionships between them.

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4. BUSINESS PROJECT

Process Map is a flat file representation of a process that, once de-veloped, cannot be altered or manipulated in any way. Process mapsare typically developed using static BPM tools such as Power Point,Word, or Visio. The function of a process map is to show very clearlyand simply what work is done, not how the work is done.

Process Model is a representation of an end-to-end process that isdeveloped using a dynamic BPM tool. Process models allow analyststo manage large volumes of activities and run simulation events toidentify areas in a process that can be optimized.

Flowcharts depict the sequential flow of a process using a diagram-matic representation of activities and their connections.

Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is considered amongthe BPM community as the preferred standard for providing a graph-ical representation of processes within an organization. BPMN 1.2 forbusiness unit of the organization; BPMN 2.0 for a technical IT team.

AS-IS Process represents a process in the current state where AS-ISmeans the information of the current state. The AS-IS can be definedby performing a process diagnosis.

Procedure guide is an actual textual representation of an end-to-endprocess, which acts as a document that all employees and managerscan reference to ensure there is mutual agreement and understandingof a particular process. Procedure guides are used for training andauditing purposes to help employees understand how a process isexecuted. However, they are rarely relied upon as being the source oftruth for a process. As a result, procedure guides are developed aftera process model has been created.

Process Repository is a database that houses all process artifacts.Repositories are created using a process architecture numbering sys-tem that allows employees of an organization to identify a logicalcorrelation between parent and child processes. Repositories are the

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4. BUSINESS PROJECT

responsibility of a BPM Center of Excellence and contain processmodels and procedure guides.

RACI matrix table helps to relate process activities to stakeholderroles by identifying the people who would be responsible (they do thework for the activity), accountable (they are responsible for the successor failure of the activity), consulted (they are asked to participate in theactivity), or informed (they have information concerning the activitydistributed to them).

Functional decomposition diagram develops a process model us-ing a list-type file.

Entity Relationship diagram visually represents information re-quired by the business to manage business operations and to makesound business decisions.

4.5 Risk Management

According to ISO 31000, risk is the “effect of uncertainty on objectives”.Then, risk management refers to a coordinated set of activities andmethods that is used to direct an organization and to control the manyrisks that can affect its ability to achieve objectives.

Good risk management is an integral component of any process.In BPM, documented processes are reviewed and assessed by processanalysts from a risk perspective whereby effective controls are em-bedded in all processes and for all levels of staff. Process analysts areable to greatly reduce the overall risk to an organization by enforcingrigorous process management in all business units [24].

For better understanding we list these common risks:

• poor detection of fraud

• low morale

• increased fines and penalties

• customer dissatisfaction

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4. BUSINESS PROJECT

4.5.1 Enterprise Risk Management Integrated Framework

In 2004, COSO introduced Enterprise Risk Management—IntegratedFramework (commonly referred to as ERM). This framework was de-veloped to provide a way for companies to better understand how toaddress and respond to various risks. For this model, risk was definedaround the risk to the achievement of the company’ s objectives. And,one of the most important aspects it brought to the discussion wasthe inclusion of strategic risk—the risk that high- level goals mightnot be aligned with or support the entity’ s mission [10].

Figure 4.2: ERM Framework

The model 4.2 for the framework is a three-dimensional cubewhich shows the interrelationships of the objectives, the entity and itsunits, and the eight components of the ERM framework.

Many companies have adopted this framework to establish andevaluate their risk management processes, and it has become cen-tral to many companies’ assurance activities. Because of its impor-tance, many companies are looking for ways to ensure the integratedframework is working properly or to find ways for it to work moreefficiently [10].

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4. BUSINESS PROJECT

4.6 Pitfalls

This section explains some of the terms that are often used to expresspitfalls that negatively affect the way work gets done. The pitfallslead to poor performance, issues, mistakes, and wasting.

The Paper Trail. Insisting on using paper documents as part of busi-ness processes and printing that information out, leaves it vulnerableto loss, errors or data theft. Nowadays, this way is not economic noreffective but it requires changes which are not usually well acceptedby employees.

Handoff. Handoff activities pass control of the process to anotherdepartment or organization. Any point in a process where work orinformation passes from one system, person or group to another isa handoff for that process. Handoffs are very vulnerable to processdisconnections and should be analyzed closely [26]. An example ofa handoff activity is transferring a customer to another departmentafter determining the appropriate group to resolve their issue. Everytime a handoff is performed, there is a risk of loosing data, inaccurateknowledge sharing, or dead end when nobody does not continuewith the work.

Silo Syndrome. Silo syndrome is a business term that refers to op-erating in isolation. This is usually caused by typical functional man-agement. Since the functional areas operate in isolation, it is moreprobable that handoffs will be tough to perform.

Copies. Keeping several copies of particular documents (digital, orpaper based) supports silos and causes inefficiency in cooperation.

Bottleneck. A bottleneck is a constraint in the process that creates abacklog of work to be done [26].

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Chapter 5

Identification

To work with business processes, first, we need to find, define andprioritize them. Process identification is a set of activities aiming tosystematically define the set of business processes. ”The output ofprocess identification is a process architecture, which represents thebusiness processes and their interrelations providing an overall viewof the processes in an organization” [23].

Beside a process architecture, there are other methods to identifybusiness processes. For example, process mining techniques allow forextracting information from event logs.

During identification of processes, business analysts search forany existing materials such as flow charts, guides, check-lists, andother documents which may help to recognize some process patterns.Employees are very important source of information since they areusually part of the work that is mapped. To give a hint, section 5.1contains a paragraph about process patterns that are common to beseen in BPM.

At the beginning of identification we gather information to a pro-cess profile worksheet that is a single repository of critical informationregarding processes and units. The worksheet has a defined structurethat helps to remind every key information which should be foundabout the process first. An important part of the worksheet is a processowner and the unit owners because these people are the stakeholderswho are our internal customers. Usually, additional events are causingtransformations during the process and can represent units withinthe process. After the initial meetings (overall process identificationexercise with owner, brief meetings with unit owners, etc.), the follow-ing additional details are filed into the worksheet: business objectives,business risks, key controls, and especially measure of success that is

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5. IDENTIFICATION

sometimes forgotten though it has high importance. However, some-times success can be measured only by the absence of failure. Byproviding clear process objectives, employees can know their motiva-tion and provide performances consistent with the strategic needs ofthe company [10].

5.1 Types of Processes

A business includes various business processes that we divide intothree categories which will be developed in the following paragraphs.

The first category of primary processes (or activities) forms thevalue chain of an organization and is where it derives revenue andincurs operating expenses, hence the term value chain defines thechain of processes from which value is derived for an organization.Primary processes are often referred to as “core” processes as theyrepresent the essential activities an organization performs to fulfill itsmission. These processes make up the value chain where each stepadds value to the preceding step as measured by its contribution tothe creation or delivery of a product or service, ultimately deliveringvalue to customers [26].

Support processes are designed to support primary processes,often by managing resources and/or infrastructure required by pri-mary processes. The major difference between support and primaryprocesses is that support processes do not directly deliver value tocustomers, while primary processes do. Common examples of sup-port processes include information technology, facilities or capacitymanagement, and human resource management. Each of these sup-port processes may involve a resource lifecycle, and are often tightlyassociated with functional areas [26]. A failure of a support processmust be transparent and must not inhibit customers satisfaction. Asmentioned, the support processes do not directly create value for thecustomers but are necessary for the main processes to work.

Management processes, of the last category, are used to measure,monitor, and control business activities. They ensure that a primaryor supporting process meets operational, financial, regulatory, andlegal goals. Management processes do not directly add value to cus-tomers, but are necessary in order to ensure the organization operates

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5. IDENTIFICATION

effectively and efficiently [26].As mapping and modeling of business processes continue in de-

velopment, various common patterns are being seen. For examplea pattern called ”Case process” is a process which passes an entitybetween roles that perform some update on the entity. ”Event-drivenprocess” is executed in response to a raised event. ”Cycle-driven pro-cess” is a single process (only one such instance) that is executedperiodically. And, ”State maintaining process” which maintains thestate of one or more objects. Therefore, when we see a similar pat-tern in our process, we recommend to inspire from the basis andrealize with which type of the process we work; primary, support, ormanagement.

5.2 Employee On-boarding Process

For this work, employee on-boarding process is a group of activitieswhich lead to fully employ the approved candidates who understandtheir role in a company and its culture. It involves all the paper work,assuring accounts and appliances, first day introduction and training,new hire orientation, 90 days trial period including the followingassessment and at last evaluating the effectiveness of employee on-boarding program.

In the PCF, the process is named as Manage employee orienta-tion and deployment and includes 3 activities as a template; Cre-ate/maintain employee on-boarding program, evaluate the effective-ness of the employee on-boarding program, and execute on-boardingprogram.

Human Resources department is not only about hiring new em-ployees. It is also (or perhaps mostly) about salary settlements, changesin staff, data analysis and reporting. Major problems in Human Re-sources include control over total costs of wages and change manage-ment resulting from frequent modification of legal regulations.1

For this process we wrote a process profile worksheet based onthe initial meetings with process owner, the manager of Human Re-sources department, and we describe the structure and some of the

1. http://www.bpmleader.com/2014/06/05/bpms-a-key-to-effective-shared-services-center/

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5. IDENTIFICATION

recommendations in the section 5.3.Though employee on-boarding is a support process by the defini-

tion, from now we will look at it as our business for a moment becausethanks to that decision we will be able to determine deeper levels andstructures through the existing tools. Otherwise, the process architec-ture is usually performed to cover the whole organization. In our case,we created the process architecture specific for employee on-boardingin the section 5.4. Furthermore, we use this perspective to depict theprocess into a value chain, hence we are able to understand the flow ofthe primary activities and recognize supporting/managing activities.

5.3 Process Profile Worksheet

Process profile worksheet is a single repository of critical informationregarding processes and units [10]. Filling the worksheet helps tofocus on the essential and critical information about which we shouldknow before we proceed to the discovery phase of process mappingand modeling.

The structure of process profile worksheet is always similar. Wespecify the name of the identified process and its owner. In a fewsentences we describe the process. Further, we list:

• triggers - beginning, ending, and additional events

• inputs - items and resources

• outputs - items and customers

• internal documents - used, created, updated, and deleted

• external services - systems and outsourcing

• process units - main parts of the process

• participants - departments, teams, and individuals

The beginning and ending of the process is very essential indeedbecause the process should not be set too early because then theprocess would be very complex and it also should not be too late

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5. IDENTIFICATION

because the process would be missing the important information andmeasurements how much time the process took would be misleadingsince at the beginning might be the activities that stuck. According tothe book Business Process Mapping: Improving Customer Satisfaction[10], they are often called ”false triggers” because they may cause afaulty results of the processes.

It is not enough to gather information about the inputs but alsotheir sources to find out who use them and what is the workflow ofthese inputs. That is important because in some cases it might happenthat the inputs will not be available at the beginning of a process andthe process should count on it in that case.

The book Business Process Mapping: Improving Customer Sat-isfaction [10] rather recommends to think about results instead ofoutputs and Clay Carr defines four different types of results: output,waste(scrap), surprise, and invisible consequences. Every type hasdifferent characteristics that can be seen in the figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1: Process Results

The process profile worksheet should also include business ob-jectives that the process accomplishes and should be able to answerthe question: ”What is the process trying to accomplish, and howdoes that tie to the theme of the business?”. If there is none businessobjective associated with the process, the process might be a waste.However, it is unclear why the process is actually in our business andthis must be clarified.

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5. IDENTIFICATION

From the perspective of BPM, business processes are the runningcore of organizations. Nevertheless, the processes are not perfect andwe should be aware of any threats and risks which are part of theprocesses. We should be able to answer the question ”What wouldprevent the accomplishment of the key business objectives?”. Theprocess has always its limits. The process is a cooperation of peopleand machines; therefore, it is not surprising there are many variousrisks and for that reason we have key controls which eliminate ormitigate the risks.

When a process is finished, we have results. Yet, it is not clear ifthe results are expected and wanted. We should be able to answerthe question: ”How does the process owner measure the success ofthis process?”. The metrics of the process say whether the process isfinished successfully or not.

5.4 Process Architecture

When we want to map and model processes within a company, weneed to ask first: ”Which processes exist in my organization?” [21].Therefore, several authors have proposed the notion of a businessprocess architecture that organizes an overview of the processes thatexist within an organizational context.

A business process architecture is an organized overview of busi-ness processes with their relations and guidelines that determine howthey must be organized [21]. Springer in its book Fundamentals ofBusiness Process Management [23] defined a process architectureas ”a conceptual model that shows the processes of a company andmakes their relationships explicit”.

There are a variety of views on how to design a business processarchitecture and it has been recognized that not any business processarchitecture is equally effective. To consider a process architecturesuited for our work, we drew on the book The road to a businessprocess architecture: an overview of approaches and their use [21]which describes the approaches useful in practice.

The book Fundamentals of Business Process Management [23]nicely shows an examples how a process architecture may be builtand we used the same approach. The figure 5.2 shows the activities of

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5. IDENTIFICATION

Figure 5.2: Process Architecture

employee on-boarding process by case type in the horizontal dimen-sion and by business function in the vertical dimension. The functiondimension shows what the process does: sending offer, contracting,preparing, planning, notifying, requesting, etc. The case type dimen-sion shows the types of cases that the process handles: internship,part-time/full-time, and contractor. A location would be a better op-tion for a case type because the processes differ in the sites aroundthe world due to the country regulations. However, it would expo-nentially increase the amount of work and management difficulties tooperate with all the sites. With the dimensions, case type and businessfunction, we constructed a case/function matrix that helps us to findthe activities(subprocesses) which are involved. Then, we listed and

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marked ten activities, distinguished by color, that handle these typesof cases, using the different functions.

It is important to realize here that we miss insights into the flowof activities and the organizational units that are involved in carryingthese out. Therefore, later we will create additional models such asvalue chains and level two process models.

5.5 Process Hierarchy

In the section Process Catalogs 3.2, we mentioned two types of cat-alogs, business and technical. With this in mind, we will structure aprocess hierarchy for the employee on-boarding process in the busi-ness catalog. As a basis for the placement and identification of theprocess we chose the Process Classification Framework because it iswidely used and so in the future it might be used for benchmarking.

Figure 5.3: Business Process Hierarchy

A process architecture refers to the design of process categorizationaccording to the functions performed by the employee on-boardingprocess. The output of process architecture is a Business Process Hi-erarchy and the figure 5.3 explains where the employee on-boarding

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process is categorized and which activities the process involves.When the activities depicted in the business process hierarchy 5.3

are placed in a sequential order, they form a value chain that is shownin the appendix A.

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Chapter 6

Discovery

Process discovery is defined as the act of gathering information aboutan existing process and organizing it in terms of an as-is processmodel [23]. This definition emphasizes gathering and organizinginformation. The process of discovery involves finding answers to aseries of questions about the process and generating data to ensurethat any conclusions are based on facts extrapolated from the dataand not on hearsay or generalizations [26].

In this chapter, the current state of each of the relevant processesis documented in the form of several AS-IS process models. In theliterature, this phase is also being called process design. The goal ofthis phase is generally to discover the process rather than to designit. In rare cases (e.g. new companies) no process is yet in place so thediscovery and analysis phases are not required and the process has tobe designed for the first time rather than redesigned [23].

Process discovery is a much broader activity than modeling aprocess. Clearly, modeling is a part of this activity. The problem isthough that modeling can only start once enough information hasbeen put together [23].

Since we have a process profile worksheet, process architecture,and process hierarchy from the previous phase, Identification 5, wewill be gathering and organizing information about the identifiedprocesses. The output of this phase will be process models of the end-to-end on-boarding process together with process maps and modelsof its activities (subprocesses), procedure guides, and any other docu-ments that describe the mapping process.

While process analysts are skilled in analyzing and modelingprocesses, they often lack detailed domain knowledge. In contrast,domain experts have typically limited modeling skills, but detailed

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understanding of the part of the process they are involved with. Thisimplies three challenges of process discovery. First, different domainexperts have an understanding of only a part of the process. Differ-ent partial views have to be integrated in process discovery. Second,domain experts tend to think in cases and not on the general pro-cess level. The process analyst has to abstract from these cases. Third,domain experts often have difficulties in understanding process mod-els. Therefore, the process analyst has to guide the domain expert inreading the model for getting feedback [23].

There are several different ways to capture information for processmodeling. Direct observation, domain expert interviews, structuredworkshops, web conferencing, written feedback, or some combinationof these techniques can all be used to gather descriptions of a pro-cess [26]. However, we mainly focused on domain expert interviews,which are described further in the section 6.1.

6.1 Process Mapping

During process mapping we observe and ask questions to gather therelevant information at a high level about the process as it actuallyhappens.

Interview-based discovery refers to methods that build on inter-viewing domain experts about how a process is executed. With thesemethods, we have to explicitly take into account the challenges ofprocess discovery, namely the fact that process knowledge is scatteredacross different domain experts, that domain experts typically thinkin terms of individual cases, and that domain experts are often notfamiliar with business process modeling languages [23]. This has im-plications for how the interviews can be scheduled, and which phasesand iterations are required [23]. Interview-based discovery providesa rich and detailed picture of the process and the people working init. Furthermore, it has the potential to reveal inconsistent perceptionsthat different domain experts may have on how a process operates.However, several iterations are required for arriving at a point wheredomain experts feel comfortable with how a process is described in aprocess model.

One recurrent pitfall of interviews is that when asked how a given

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process or activity is performed, the interviewee tends to describethe ”happy path” of processing. Questioning - ”How did you handleyour most difficult customer?”, ”What was the most difficult case youhave worked on?”. This technique allows one to uncover variationsor exceptions in the process that, while not necessarily frequent, havea sufficient impact on the process to be worth documenting [23].

”What we think of as the moment ofdiscovery is really the discovery ofthe right question.”

Jonas Salk (1914–1995)

To model an accurate process map, it is essential to ask the rightquestions. Though we made a list of the domain expert interviewquestions in the appendix B, the right questions are being found byexperience or when we keep asking. It is not only important to knowwhat to ask but also how because each person from whom we gatherinformation needs a different approach.

Those who are interviewed may include process owners, internalor external stakeholders (vendors, customers, or partners), those whowork the process and those who pass inputs to or receive outputsfrom the process. These interviews can be in a formal face-to-facesetting or can be conducted via phone or e-mail. Typically, the formalface-to-face setting is more productive as they allow for greater dialogand discussion about what is or was actually happening. A groupinterview performed by a facilitator can also be effective in generatingdiscussion about processes [26].

6.2 Gathering and Organizing Information

This section describes the approach we used to gather and organizeinformation from the domain expert interviews, documents, and othersources.

Often, BPM literature recommends to use post-it notes, flip charts,observation, and really detail investigation. However, we did not haveso many resources to spare, hence we had to come up with a solution

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that would resulted into a satisfactory outputs and still followed theBPM principles.

Since we had an overview of the employee on-boarding processfrom the initial meetings, we knew from which departments we needto gather information because they were stakeholders of the process.Therefore, with a help we chose eleven department and team repre-sentatives with whom we should have an interview to gather accurateinformation.

The invitation to an interview always contained the agenda com-posed of the process activities on which we focused and the mostcritical questions for which we needed answers. At the beginning ofthe first appointments, we were explaining description of the workand the goals. The aim of that was to convince them they want thesame thing as we want - make the processes transparent, easy toperform, and to reach other benefits mentioned in the chapter 2.4.

The interviews took usually one hour. To achieve short durationof the interviews, we were recording the first interviews becausethese were the moments when we gathered plenty and most of theunstructured information. That is because very often the informationwere hidden and surrounded by stories. Therefore, after an interviewwe went through the record to make the information chronologicallycorrect. Also, it helped us to recognize the important details whichwe missed during the interview. Thanks to recording, the interviewswere more fluent because we did not need to do many notes, hence weused that time for discussions of various scenarios, drawing diagrams,and questioning.

When we had the written flow of the process, the informationabout the tasks were structured into a table by task name, potentialowner (actor), preconditions, inputs, outputs, postconditions, events,description, and optimization suggestions.

Beginning and Ending. Our assumption from the initial meetingwas that the beginning of the employee on-boarding process is whenthe manager wants to hire the candidate. However, after the interviewwith a recruiter from the Talent Acquisition team, we decided tochange it because the moment was still a part of hiring process, notemployee on-boarding process, and many other activities followed.

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Instead we chose approval of the ”Offer Approval Request” for thebeginning of the employee on-boarding process because from thatmoment the position is approved by talent acquisition manager andfinance department. After the initial interview we had been awareof the ending which represented an evaluation of the employee on-boarding program. And, nothing has changed there; the interviewsgave us just the details about what the evaluation involves and whenit is done.

Setting borders. Since we were aware of the differences betweensites and countries where they are located, we set borders for the thesisonly for the Brno site in the Czech Republic. Employee on-boardingprocess depends on the laws of the country where a candidate isgoing to be employed. As we created the process architecture for theemployee on-boarding process, notice that in the future we mightadd a new type, site, to determine which processes are common andspecialized for every site.

6.3 Modeling

”A process model is a visual representation of the sequential flowand control logic of a set of related activities or actions” [6]. Processmodeling is used to obtain a graphical representation of a current(as-is) or future (to-be) process within an organization. A model maybe used at its highest level (1 and 2) to obtain a general understandingof a process or at a lower level 3 as a basis for simulation so that theprocess can be made as efficient as possible [6].

Process modeling combines a set of processes and skills whichprovide insight and understanding of business process and enableanalysis, design and performance measurements [26]. The objectiveof process modeling is to create a representation of the process that de-scribes it accurately and sufficiently for the task at hand. By definition,a model will never be a complete and full representation of the actualprocess, but will focus on representing those attributes of the processthat support continued analysis from one or more perspectives. So, asimple diagram may suffice for one purpose while a fully quantitativemodel may be required for another [26]. Beside documenting an exist-

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ing process, models can be used as a training aide or an assessmentagainst standards and compliance requirements.

Modeling is already very well described in many books and re-search works, hence we do not want to go into details in this work.To learn more about business process modeling look at these books:BPMN 2.0 by Example, Bpmn Method and Style, Real-Life BPMN,and Business Process Management Common Body Of Knowledge.

Tools in the meaning of process modeling are the aids which enableto depict and model the processes textually or visually. They can becreated in the specialized BPM suites (BPMS), standalone modelers,as well as in the office-based products. According to the Best PracticesReport [1], the following tools are often used for business processdefinition: Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, Word, Lotus Notes, Aris, Corel,MetaStorm, Nimbus Control, Signavio, et cetera. We found also an-other type of tool for process discovery and it is Discovery Accelerator1 which enables to discover processes from existing documentation orfrom an interview session with a subject matter expert.

6.4 Process Models

Using structured data mentioned and created during gathering andorganizing information 6.2, we designed twelve process models of theactivities within the employee on-boarding process. In this section,we will look at some interesting parts of the process models. Since thiswork is not aimed to be a reference material for the process models,they are only briefly described.

6.4.1 Offer Job Position

As we mentioned in the section 6.2, the employee on-boarding processstarts when the position is approved by talent acquisition managerand finance department. This is a trigger for the first activity in theemployee on-boarding process named Offer job position process de-picted in the figure 6.1. The main business objectives of this activityare:

1. http://www.discoveryaccelerator.com/

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Figure 6.1: Offer Job Position Process Model

1. The approved and expected job offer is sent to the candidate.

2. A recruiter acts on comments concerning the job offer.

3. A recruiter stores personal data about the candidate.

The third objective is possible due to the laws in the Czech Re-public according to the Act No. ”101/2000 Sb., o ochrane osobnıchudaju” (Coll., on the protection of personal data) which enables com-panies to gather personal data under specific conditions (e.g. a personmust agree with providing the personal and sensitive information,there must be a purpose of keeping the data, and precautions mustbe taken). The benefit of gathering personal data is that the employeecontract and other actions requiring information about the candidatecan be prepared in advance.

In the view of Offer job position activity we see a task whichsends an offer letter to a candidate. Afterwards, the process waits to aresponse. If no response is received within approximately one week,the recruiter will remind the candidate we await personal data andcomments concerning the offer. In the most cases, the offer letter isalright and there is no need to change anything. That means the offercontained a correct position, salary, and start date. However, in somesituations the start date can change easily when a candidate cannotleave the previous job as soon as the candidate planned. This situationis not administratively complicated because the money were already

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reserved. When a hiring manager needs to employ a candidate sooneror the salary should be higher than the contract request containedbecause the position is wrong, another approval round needs to bedone through talent acquisition manager and finance department.Since nothing is written into a stone, a candidate can still decline theoffer. We consider declining the offer as an error because the activity isused by the on-boarding process where we do other activities relatedto it. Therefore, the total result of the on-boarding process is a regularend, afterwards.

At the end of offer job position activity, a contract request ticket isfiled. This action triggers the next activity, Contract request.

6.4.2 Contract Request

Figure 6.2: Contract Request Process Model

Employee on-boarding process is managed mainly by HumanResources (HR) team which is divided to People Representatives andPeople Infrastructure teams. When a contract request ticket is filed inthe internal ticket system, a contract request process 6.2 is started anda person from People Infrastructure team takes the ticket. During theprocess, the person checks the contract request once more from their

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point of view and forms an employment contract based on the per-sonal data gathered in the Offer job position process 6.4.1. Afterwards,the employment contract is signed by a signature authority and thenby the candidate. This is a direct ”happy path” of the process.

Since the employment contract is sent electronically to the candi-date, we may get a request to change the hiring date or the candidatemay decline the employment contract because of mind change. Theresponse is may be received by various channels. However, when theresponse is sent to the preferred email address, a conversion ticket isautomatically filed. Otherwise, the ticket has to be filed manually bythe person from People Infrastructure team.

6.4.3 Conversion Ticket

Figure 6.3: Conversion Ticket Process Model

Like in the previous contract request process 6.4.2, filing of a con-version ticket starts a conversion ticket process 6.3. The ticket is alsoassigned to a person from People Infrastructure team who performsall the tasks within this process. The main business objective of thisprocess is to get done all the paper work around hiring documentssuch as Code of conduct, Insider trading, Vendor access agreementfor interns and contractors, and Relocation agreement for people whomove in.

During the process, a file named New hire data form is created.The form contains all the information about the candidate including a

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position and is put to a secured shared folder for the candidate amongHR employees. For the follow-up work, the form is sent to Payroll,HRIS, and People Representatives departments and to the recruiterto be informed the candidate is boarding. When the employmentcontract and hiring documents are signed, the assigned person fromPeople Infrastructure team establishes a red employee folder in thearchive for the new hire and closes the conversion ticket.

6.4.4 Organize Employee On-boarding Day

Figure 6.4: Organize Employee On-boarding Day Process Model

New hires are employed twice a month, at the beginning andmiddle of every month. Before the hiring day when new hires cometo work, we need to arrange and prepare the activities for the hiringday. Because of that, Facilities, IT, hiring managers, and others needto be informed who is boarding the hiring day. It is done in theOrganize employee on-boarding day process 6.4 by a person fromPeople Infrastructure team who sends a hiring table containing thelist of new hires. This happens usually five business days before thehiring day. We have to mention that the activities following after thisnotification are not time-consuming and the essential actions (e.g. HWorder, account request, working place, etc.) have been or are beingfinished in other processes.

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During this particular process, a person from People Infrastructureteam books a meeting room and sends an email with instructions tonew hires.

This process ends when the hiring day is organized. Afterwards,other processes continue in the employee on-boarding process likewe depict the flow of subprocesses in the value chain of appendix A.

6.4.5 Evaluate Effectiveness of Employee On-boarding Program

Figure 6.5: Evaluate Effectiveness of Employee On-boarding ProgramProcess Model

By enabling evaluation of the employee on-boarding and takingreactive actions, we achieve improvement of the whole process. Inthe Evaluate effectiveness of employee on-boarding program 6.5 aperson from People Representatives team sends assessment meetinginvitations to the new hires after their 90 days trial period. Thoughthe 1-on-1 meetings are voluntary, 80% of new hires attend it. Thenew hires freely speak about their experience of the on-boarding andassess the Peer program.

Every half of a year, a person from People Representatives teamcreates a report for managers including HR, Facilities, IT and hir-ing managers. We believe that this report should trigger the 6.3.1.1Maintain employee on-boarding program activity.

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6.5 Risks

No business process is without a risk. In this section we will look atthe selected risks in employee on-boarding process and in general.

A very common risk are ”bad” data. By ”bad”, we mean incor-rect. Incorrect data lead to misleadings, wrong actions, and cost usresources. Therefore, we get rid of these risks through edit checks,reviews of original documents, and data reviews.

Another point of view is from the outside, when we employ a”bad” employee. The ”bad” employee may want to steal (tangibleor intangible assets), spy, or cause other damage to the company. Toprevent these actions, companies have policies with access rights andprivileges when no person has access to everything and at the sametime no person has rights to approve anything important alone due torequiring oversight approval. In the USA, it is common that employ-ees do not take their vacations, sometimes to cover their ”footprints”.Therefore, some companies force them to take vacations to eliminatesuch risk. Since new hires come along with internal data, knowledge,and company secrets, they often sign non-compete agreements towait some time before starting a business in the same market afterthey leave the company.

It is a hard work to build a company culture that drives the com-pany forward and creates a pleasant environment for work. However,a very big risk is damage to company culture that can bankrupt acompany like it happened to the Enron Corporation, an Americanenergy company. Although Enron’s compensation and performancemanagement system was designed to retain and reward its most valu-able employees, the system contributed to a dysfunctional corporateculture that became obsessed with short-term earnings to maximizebonuses [2]. Employees constantly tried to start deals, often disre-garding the quality of cash flow or profits, in order to get a betterrating for their performance review [2]. They took actions that wereclearly against their principles and the audit is cited as the biggestaudit failure.

When we employ a new hire, it is about setting the right tone fromthe beginning. If a company does not look respectable, where peopledoes not focus on work and does not follow the ethics code, the newhire can be easily heading down the wrong path and quickly adapt to

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”bad” practices, behaves, and activities. People for whom it is the firstregular job like graduated students, this risk is even higher becausethey do not have any other experiences to compare and may not seethat their actions are ”bad”. Therefore, it is essential to have a goodstrategy for employee on-boarding in place to at least mitigate thisrisk.

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Chapter 7

Implementation

In this phase, the changes required to move from the as-is processto the to-be process are prepared and performed. Process implemen-tation covers two aspects: organizational change management andprocess automation. Organizational change management refers to theset of activities required to change the way of working of all partici-pants involved in the process. Process automation on the other handrefers to the development and deployment of IT systems (or enhancedversions of existing IT systems) that support the to-be process [23].

Since we have not decided whether the implemented to-be processwill be deployed and used, we will focus only on the second aspect,process automation. However, the automation should only be seenas a part of making the effectiveness and cost reduction possible. Thefocus is on the result for the customer and with the automation as theway of accomplishing this in an efficient way.

7.1 BPM Suite

Business Process Management Suite (BPMS) is the software enablingBPM through facilitation of process design, workflow, applications,integrations and monitoring. It is the collection of integrated toolssupporting the entire process life cycle from modeling and executionto measurement and optimization. BPMS enable organizations tomake more out of what they already own by coordination of tasksand human process activities and synchronization of data across theexisting systems. Moreover, it facilitates streamlining of tasks, triggersand timelines that are associated to a business process and that theseare completed according to the definition of the process model.

BPM systems and suites (BPMS) may include several of the capa-

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bilities of technologies previously designed for specific capabilitiessuch as: imaging, document and content management, collabora-tion, workflow, work routing and assignment, rules management andexecution, metadata management, data warehousing, business intel-ligence, application integration, communications management andmore [26].

7.1.1 Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite

For our work we chose Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite which enablesenterprise business and IT users to document, simulate, manage,automate and monitor business processes and policies. It is an opensource BPM solution that combines Business Process Managementand Business Rules Management.

The suite components are depicted in the figure 7.1. IT developersuse development tools in Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio (JBDS) tocreate projects and libraries for the projects in BPMS. Management,modeling, and simulation are available in Business Central of the BPMSuite. Business rules engine runs on Drools Expert and business pro-cess engine runs on jBPM. These engines are interconnected throughDrools project which cover also web authoring and management inDrools Workbench, complex event processing in Drools Fusion, andautomated planning in OptaPlanner.

Figure 7.1: Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite

For version management of the deployed artifacts, the BPM suiteuses Maven repository. It is possible to run different versions of givenproject in a single execution environment and do a smooth migration.

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In the inside, projects are based on Maven and the archives are calledknowledge java archives (kjars). These archives contain business pro-cesses, rules, forms, and other assets. Whether the kjar artifact wasbuilt in JBDS or Business Central, it is deployed to the Maven repos-itory from where we create a deployment unit in Business Centralto specify session strategy (singleton, per process instance, and perrequest), and other details.

For project development of the assets, the BPM suite uses GITrepository. Therefore, it is possible to return in the project historywhen anything goes wrong. Also we are able to see who did thatchanges, do audits, and watch the participation in a project.

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite runs in Java environment on top of anapplication server which provides at least a web profile (e.g. Tomcat).To this day, it is certified for Red Hat JBoss Enterprise ApplicationPlatform, Red Hat JBoss Web Server, and IBM WebSphere.

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) component allows us con-necting to various data sources within our organization and generategraphical reports based on this information real-time (key perfor-mance indicators, KPIs) and measuring process metrics (key resultindicators, KRIs) based on the historical data.

7.1.2 Process Automation Potential

To assess the feasibility of a process to be automated with BPMS, thereare criteria that can, and should be considered. Before we considerselecting a process, the process should be already optimized, hencewe evaluate the real benefits of automation and not others. That isbecause sometimes it is just enough to optimize a process and theautomation would not bring such Return on Investment (ROI) that isworth to do it. Therefore, below we define all the reasons which areessential during the selection process. First, it is important to say thatevery point is connected to another and the points cannot be takenseparately to decide. Instead, we look at the potential as a whole [8].

Below, we list some of the business process characteristics wewatch during the evaluation of business process automation potential:

• Frequency - number of executions

• Size - number of activities

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• Diversity - number of actors/departments (coordinated acrossmultiple departments), number of systems (multiple businesssystems – email, ERP, ticket system, enterprise applications),number of rules

• Speed - replace manual scheduling, mobile/tablet support

• Resources - resource demands, expenses, operational costs,transition costs

• Flexibility - freedom to react out of process

• Routine - manual repetitive tasks

• Duplication - need for more copies

• Problems and Risks - common errors and mistakes, work de-lays, misunderstandings, failures, high expenses

• Environment - process change frequency, rules variation

• Compliance - sensitivity to legislation, highly regulated indus-try

• Cooperation - among processes

• Business activity monitoring - real-time monitoring, alarms andnotifications, evaluation/continuous improvement, auditing

For more details about these characteristics and selection of aprocess for automation, look at the article Evaluation of BusinessProcess Automation Potential [8].

7.1.3 Aligning the PCF with BPMS Framework

In the chapter 3.3 we introduced Process Classification Frameworkrepresenting a best practice hierarchy for business processes. RedHat JBoss BPM Suite is based on its own BPMS Framework opti-mized from the technical point of view, being adaptable to variousenvironments and flexible in the requirements of BPM implementa-tion. Therefore, this section describes the aligning between these twoframeworks, the PCF and BPMS framework.

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First, we needed to understand what each level represents. Tosummarize it, below are some points comparing the hierarchy levelsof the PCF and BPMS Framework next to each other.

Process Classification Frame- BPMS Frameworkwork • Organizational units organize• Categories represent the high- workspaces by group or de-

est level of processes in the partment.enterprise. • Repositories store projects

• Process groups indicate the and their assets.next level of processes. • Projects are collections of all

• Processes are series of interre- the assets and informationlated activities that convert needed to build a completeinputs into results (out- functional system.puts). • Packages are places where we

• Activities indicate key events put the assets which be-performed when executing long together.a process. • Business assets are business

• Tasks are generally much process models, businessmore fine grained and may rules, forms, and others.vary widely across indus-tries.

Since we understood the representations of the levels, we wereable to interconnect them in the figure 7.2. Notice, that the alignmentis not straightforward enough to be mapped 1-to-1.

The first levels of frameworks may remain and so we can freelymap Category to Organizational Unit level and Process Group toRepository level. Afterwards, the aligning starts to be interesting be-cause as we understand 3th Process level in the PCF, it is an end-to-endprocess (e.g. “1.1.5 Conduct organization restructuring opportunities(16792)”) which is usually quite complicated. Therefore, we have 3thProject for every complicated end-to-end process and thus we be-lieve 4th Activity level is the part to focus on if we want to automatebusiness processes (e.g. “1.1.5.3 Analyze deal options (16795)”). Asthe PCF describes, 4th Activity indicates key events and hence it issupposed to be automated like a business process [7].

By putting metrics together from the automated processes wecan get information about the whole end-to-end process and make

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Figure 7.2: Aligning the PCF with BPMS Framework

corresponding conclusions. However, We do not think it is practicalto automate the end-to-end process because only some particular partof the process may be so important to automate it. Besides, it wouldbe difficult to maintain the whole end-to-end process because it isusually very complex (i.e. composed of many activities and tasks) [7].To decide which business processes have potential to be automatedwas described in the section 7.1.2.

Since 5th Task level is the lowest level which makes sense todocument (like a procedure guide), the tasks can be included in the5th Business Assets (business processes and business rules). For thelast undescribed level, 4th Package, it is recommended by the BPMSuite 6 Framework that 4th Packages should be used to keep 5thBusiness Assets which work along together.

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7.2 Architecture

Before we begin with automation of any business process, we needto establish an architecture of the services and determine how thecomponents will cooperate with each other.

Beside BPMS, we have an SMTP server for sending emails andusually many various systems. It is recommended to integrate thesesystems within SOA applications where SOA stands for Service Ori-ented Architecture. The designed architecture is captured in the figure7.3. In our case, we send requests through a web browser where westart processes, fill forms, and complete tasks.

Figure 7.3: Architecture

On the server side in a Java EE container (JBoss Enterprise Applica-tion Platform) the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite is deployed. However, theBPMS is slightly modified to provide ITServices Work Item Handlerwhich is used to execute remote operations in the SOA applicationITServices.

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The SOA application ITServices provides a part of the servicesthat are available in the service catalog which an IT department offers.The ITServices are exposed via WSDL interface as a web service. TheWSDL, standing for Web Services Description Language, is a standardfor description of web service interfaces. Since it is a standard, theSOA applications and ITServices may run in any container, JavaEE-based, dotNET-based, or any other.

We made the decision to use own ITServices Work Item Handlerbecause the default WebService Work Item Handler requires varioustechnical details such as WSDL location, namespace of the service,service name, and others which we do not want to set directly in thebusiness processes.

7.2.1 Service Coordination

Service coordination concerns how services work together to fulfill abusiness process. Coordination takes one of two forms: orchestrationor choreography [3].

At a higher level of an organization, the choreography is mostlyused because it is ineffective to have a single point of control. Aswe go deeper into our services, it is more appropriate to use thecentral-based approach, the orchestration, when we are able to havethe control of accomplishing.

Giving some example, our Manage employee orientation anddeployment process uses choreography as we can see in the valuechain A because the outcomes of the process go through subprocesseswhich are run one by one or in parallel to get results. There is nocentral unit which would control all of the subprocesses. However,we also use orchestration in our work. The subprocesses themselvescoordinate the services and so they orchestrate to get results.

At the server level of an organization we can choose orchestrationas well as choreography. We would say that it mainly depends onthe existing services we use to assemble a SOA application and therequirements for control and independence of the services amongeach other.

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7.2.2 Testing Environment

To check our assumptions of the architecture and the process itself,we prepared a testing environment which would simulate the realconditions and would use very similar systems and tools. The figure7.4 is mainly based on the architecture 7.3 where we replaced every-thing what is beyond the BPMS with mock services and fake servers.That makes us able to monitor incoming and out-coming messages.

Figure 7.4: Testing Architecture

For our web service defined by WSDL interface, we used SOAPUI software which enables to create a mock service based on theWSDL interface. It automatically creates requests and responses ofthe operations according to the XML schema definitions. We addedsome responses for GetUserInfo operation to return the one which werequested. It was done through dispatching by query match whichwas specified with XPath expression ”//its:userId[1]” comparingthe userId of the requesting message with our predefined users (e.g.dvestri, mseeger, carriola, and others). These users were also regis-tered in BPMS under the analyst role.

A structure of the BPM project is depicted in the figure 7.5. Sincewe needed to put some common classes into a shared library, wecreated a user management library which consists of UserInfo andPermission classes. This library is used in the Peer and Help New

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7. IMPLEMENTATION

Hire Process and its classes are automatically transferred in the ITSer-vices Work Item Handler to the JAXB classes created from the WSDLinterface.

The ITServices Work Item Handler is part of the maven projectit-service-handlers. This project contains not only the handler but alsotest cases which test the handler and other business process enginefunctions including business rules.

Figure 7.5: BPM Project Structure

7.3 Automation of Peer and Help New Hire Process

For automation we selected the Peer and help new hire process be-cause during the process a new hire has to do many repetition stepsaccording to the guides which are different for every team. Therefore,we have opportunities to request bunch of the requests at once andthey can be even prepared in advance so the new hire can focus on

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7. IMPLEMENTATION

the really important things instead.In the analysis phase, we modelled TO-BE process of the Peer

and Help New Hire AS-IS process 7.6. Most of the tasks in the AS-ISprocess model are manual, which include for example sending of anemail to activate a new hire account, and setting of permissions.

Figure 7.6: Peer and Help New Hire AS-IS Process Model

Almost every team or department has a new hire guide describingwhich accounts with permissions should be created because nobodyneeds and nobody should have access to every system. Otherwise,it might be a business risk of exploitation, hence we avoid of globalaccess configurations.

Notice, that in the AS-IS process model 7.6, new hires search forthe parts of a team guide which describe accounts, permissions, LDAPgroups, and mailing lists. Afterwards, they follow them by sendingmany emails to the service desk and subscribing many of the mailinglists manually. It takes time not only to the new hires but also peoplesetting the configurations and permissions.

It is important to realize that we have to secure the services whichwill set the permissions, check the requests and do the audits, henceonly authorized changes would be performed. However, for newhires the changes can be authorized in advance by the managers forevery new hire who will be in their team.

The TO-BE process model 7.7 represents the business process howit may work in the future. Based on this model we created a prototype.

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7. IMPLEMENTATION

The model is a second level process which is modelled in BPMN2.0, however it does not contain any implementation details such asprocess variables, inputs and outputs of the tasks. The model wasused to discuss process changes during the analysis phase.

Figure 7.7: Peer and Help New Hire TO-BE L2 Process Model

To start the Peer and help new hire process, we fill the start formwith new hire telephone number and new hire identifier which isusually composed of a first name letter and the last name (i.e. forme, Ivo Bek, it is ”ibek”). After we send the form to start a processinstance, a request to activate the new hire account is automaticallysent as an email message.

We will get additional data about new hire from OrgChart ap-plication. If the data are not there yet or there is any problem withconnection or the system itself, it is possible to set the new hire datamanually through the human task ”Set new hire data”.

Since we wanted to replace the parts of guides with accounts,permissions, LDAP groups, and mailing lists, we came with businessrules that do decisions about the accounts, permissions, LDAP groups,and mailing lists based on the new hire data, particularly location,group (i.e. work position - engineering, quality engineering, etc.),and product. With the business rules we are able to easily determinewho needs what accounts, permissions, LDAP groups, and mailinglists because we can have business rule files divided by teams aswell as by locations. The locations are essential for mailing lists since

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7. IMPLEMENTATION

not everybody wants to read emails from every single office in aninternational company.

The TO-BE third level process model 7.8 is almost the same asthe TO-BE second level process model 7.7. And, it has to be the samebecause we analyzed the causes, risks, and benefits of the processautomation. If anything needs a change, it should go trough a requestfor change (RFC) and be approved by a person who is accountablefor such decisions.

Figure 7.8: Peer and Help New Hire TO-BE L3 Process Model

The changes done in the process model are not easily visible butall the service tasks have their implementation. The first request ac-tivation task uses Email work item handler to send an email withthe request. The second task Get new hire data uses our own ITSer-vice work item handler to execute the ITServices via WSDL interfacedescribed in the chapter 7.2.

Since we can customize task names, we modified a name of thetask ”Provide basic trainings” to contain the new hire name, so thepeer who guides the new hire is able to see for whom in the list oftasks.

We created forms for every human task in the process model. Itis highly recommend to customize them though they are createdautomatically. However, by default it is not possible to show list ofitems and the official documentation and the discussion forum leadus to create one form for a line (i.e. one object of the list) and have

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7. IMPLEMENTATION

Figure 7.9: Review and Modify Permissions Form

an input which is any object containing a list of the objects for whichwe created the previous form. It is only possible to show a list fromother object as a multisubform type of field. Therefore, we createdPermissionsHolder class which contains a list of the permissions.

One of the forms which uses list of objects is in the Review andmodify permissions task 7.9.

We like to see details about the tasks, hence we added new hiredetails for who we review and modify the permissions. At the end,we may check whether the permissions were modified and need tobe approved by the manager of the new hire. This is surely a place forimprovement, so a business rule would automatically decide whetherit is necessary to approve the requested permissions.

The whole process running in the BPMS is recorded and the demovideo is attached to the work.

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Chapter 8

Conclusion

The aim of this thesis was to document and automate business pro-cesses according to a designed solution that follows the latest trends inbusiness process management. We described the business process tax-onomy and learnt practices to map, model, and automate the selectedend-to-end business process of employee on-boarding.

In the chapter 3 Center of Excellence, we presented a possible wayhow to manage business projects within the BPM Center of Excel-lence. To organize business processes in a company, we introducedAPQC Process Classification Framework. In addition, two changemanagement process flows, The 8-Step Process for Leading Changeand 3-Phase Change Management Process, were mentioned in thesection 3.4, Change Management.

8.1 Summary of the Results

During the Identification phase in the chapter 5, Identification, wecreated a process profile worksheet describing the end-to-end em-ployee on-boarding process. Afterwards, we identified subprocess ofthe employee on-boarding process in the process architecture. Theseidentified subprocesses were put into the process hierarchy based onthe Process Classification Framework.

To document the identified subprocesses, we used text documents,process profile worksheets, flow charts, and process models. Thesemapping and modeling activities were described in the chapter 6,Discovery.

As a result of the analysis phase, we wrote a document namedThe Identified issues associated to the Employee on-boarding process.In the document we discussed the identified problems and possible

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8. CONCLUSION

solutions.At the end of the work, we designed an architecture of an auto-

mated system integrating various external systems which are usedwithin business processes in the BPM Suite. Furthermore, in the chap-ter 7, Implementation, we described a process of modifying the TO-BEL2 process model to TO-BE L3 process model and we presented theautomated process in a testing environment.

Though we provided steps to install and configure the testingenvironment for the process automation, we included a demo videocontaining an introduction of the testing environment and two execu-tions of the automated process including the happy path.

8.2 Future Research

The prototype of the automated process might be fully implementedand integrated into the company. However, there are still some ques-tions about a support from the internal services, security questionsof the access management, and questions of the change managementthat need to be discussed first.

It would be nice to explore other areas of business process man-agement such as analysis, simulation, business activity monitoring,and others. Analysis is often required after a strategic planning, per-formance issues, acquisition, or regulatory requirements, hence thereare a lot of opportunities to use it. Business activity monitoring isvery important as well and it is a big advantage in the enterpriseto predict critical situations in the business. Simulations save us re-sources before we analyze and implement TO-BE processes. Thoughwe implemented a prototype of the automated process, it would bemore effective to just simulate the changes and create a report withthe differences to decide whether it is worth it to continue with theautomation or not.

There is an unlimited space for a research in this area because aswe pointed at the beginning of this work, people still find new wayshow to make things done with a minimum effort and costs.

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Bibliography

[1] APQC. Using Process Frameworks and Reference Models to GetReal Work Done (Best Practices Report). 2011.

[2] Bala G. Dharan, William R. Bufkins. Red Flags in Enron’sReporting of Revenues and Key Financial Measures. 2008.

[3] Ben Margolis. SOA for the Business Developer: Concepts, BPEL,and SCA. Mc Press, 2007.

[4] Elzinga, Horak, D. J., Chung-Yee, T. and Bruner, C. BusinessProcess Management: Survey and Methodology. IEEETransactions on Engineering Management, 1995.

[5] Hammer, M. and Champy, J. Reengineering the corporation: Amanifesto for business revolution. NY Harper Business, 1993.

[6] IIBA. A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge.IIBA, 2009.

[7] Ivo Bek. Aligning APQC Process Classification Framework withRed Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6 Framework [online].http://www.bek.link/?p=7, 2014-07-14.

[8] Ivo Bek. Evaluation of Business Process Automation Potential[online]. http://www.bek.link/?p=57, 2014-08-25.

[9] J. DeLayne Stroud. Business Requirements Document: AHigh-level Review [online]. http://www.isixsigma.com/implementation/project-selection-tracking/business-requirements-document-high-level-review/,2014-10-30.

[10] Jacka, J. Mike, and Paulette J. Keller. Business Process Mapping:Improving Customer Satisfaction. Wiley, 2009.

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http://www.isixsigma.com/implementation/project-selection-tracking/business-requirements-document-high-level-review/



8. CONCLUSION

[11] Keith Ellis. The Executive Briefing on the Issues SurroundingGetting Business Requirements Right. Digital Mosaic, 2006.

[12] Mathias Weske. Business Process Management: Concepts,Languages, Architectures. Springer, 2012.

[13] Michael E. Porter. Competitive Advantage: Creating andSustaining Superior Performance. Free Press, 1998.

[14] OMG. OMG Business Process Management Portal [online].http://www.omg.org/bpm/, 2014-10-11.

[15] Orbus Software. Linking Process, Procedures and BusinessRequirements to Successful Customer Outcomes. OrbusSoftware, 2013.

[16] Progress Software Corporation. Guide to Establishing Center ofExcellence. Progress Software Corporation, 2013.

[17] Project Management Institute. A Guide to the ProjectManagement Body of Knowledge. Project ManagementInstitute, 2013.

[18] Prosci. Benefit realization, results and outcomes Begin with theend in mind [online]. http://www.change-management.com/tutorial-end-in-mind.htm, 2014-09-12.

[19] Prosci. Introduce Change Management in Context with Prosci’sFive Tenets of Change Management [online].http://www.change-management.com/tutorial-five-tenets-mod1.htm, 2014-09-12.

[20] Prosci. Prosci’s change management methodology [online].http://www.change-management.com/change-management-process.htm, 2014-09-12.

[21] R. Dijkman, I. Vanderfeesten, H.A. Reijers. The road to abusiness process architecture: an overview of approaches andtheir use. Eindhoven, 2011.

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http://www.change-management.com/change-management-process.htm

http://www.change-management.com/change-management-process.htm

8. CONCLUSION

[22] Roxana-Maria Petculet. Value Chain Models – The BPMDiamond Cut [online].http://www.bpmleader.com/2014/06/27/value-chain-models-the-bpm-diamond-cut,2014-07-27.

[23] Springer. Fundamentals of Business Process Management.Springer, 2013.

[24] Theodore Panagacos. The Ultimate Guide to Business ProcessManagement: Everything you need to know and how to apply itto your organization. CreateSpace Independent PublishingPlatform, 2012.

[25] Thomas Davenport. Reengineering work through informationtechnology. Harvard Business School Press, 1993.

[26] Yvonne L. Antonucci. Business Process Management CommonBody Of Knowledge. CreateSpace Independent PublishingPlatform, 2009.

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http://www.bpmleader.com/2014/06/27/value-chain-models-the-bpm-diamond-cut

Appendix A

Value Chain of Employee On-boarding Process

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Appendix B

Domain Expert Interview Questions

ProcessWhat?• Is the process trying to

accomplish?• Do you expect the process to

achieve?• Is the usual scenario?• External systems do you use?• Services do you use?• Key strategic objectives the

process supports?• Additional (external) events can

happen?• Forms, documents, and reports

do you use?• Generates (starts) the process?• Decisions are made in the

process?• Is the nature, frequency, and

cause of errors and problems?Who?• Is responsible for this process?• All is involved in the process?• Continues in your work?• Reviews the process?• Are the customers?• Are the suppliers?

Where?• The forms, documents, and

reports go?When?• Do you start working on this

process?• The process should start?• The process ends?• The process should end?• The process is reviewed?

Why?• Is this process important?

How?• Does the process tie to the theme

of the business?• Do you communicate with other

team within the process?• Are errors, problems, and

exceptions handled?Tasks

What?• Is there to do?• Is the next action you take?• Is being done by the task?• Should be done?• Can be done?• Tasks run in parallel?• Tasks can run in parallel?• Tasks are optional?• Happens if you cannot complete

the task?

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B. DOMAIN EXPERT INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Who?• Does this task?• Should do this task?• Knows how to do it?• Is responsible for this task?

Where?• Is this job done?• Should it be done?• Can it be done?

When?• Is this job done?• Should it be done?• Can it be done?

Why?• Is the job necessary there?• Is the job done this way?• Does the person do this job?• Is this job done in this team and

not anywhere else?• Is this job done before another

one?How?• Is the job done? Does this ever

happen differently?• Much time does the task take?

(not elapsed)• Do you know when to do this?

Decision PointsWhat?• Is the probability of every

branch?• Are other options to decide?

When?• The decision causing an iteration

should end? (time or iterationlimited)

Why?• Do you need the decision point

(approval)?

How?• Do you decide? (Any business

rules?)• Do you validate data? (Any

validation rules?)Inputs and Outputs

What?• Items or sources do you need?• Results do you produce?

(outputs, waste, surprise,invisible consequences)

Why?• Do you produce the documents

or reports?• Do you need all information in

the form?Problems

What?• Will happen when ...?• Constraints keep us from doing

what needs to be done?• Problems can appear?• Would prevent the

accomplishment of the keybusiness objectives?

• Controls have been establishedwithin the process to ensurethat the risks are eliminatedor mitigated?

How?• Do you deal with the problems?

MeasurementsWhat?• Things are measured?• Things should be measured?

How?• Does the process owner measure

the success of the process?

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Appendix C

Zip Archive

The attached zip archive contains:

• Source code of this thesis in LaTeX format in the doc directory.

• This thesis in PDF format.

• Business process models of the employee on-boarding processin the models directory.

• Git repository containing the automated business process andother assets for Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite in the git directory.

• Demo video of the running process.

• Scripts, testing files, installation and configuration manual inthe test directory.

• ITServiceHandlers maven project in the it-service-handlers di-rectory.

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Business Process Management Taxonomy in Practice - IS MUNI

Documents

Transcript of Business Process Management Taxonomy in Practice - IS MUNI