Business Process Management:
Process Identification
prof.dr.ir. Hajo Reijers
BPM recap
• Any process is better than no process
• A good process is better than a bad process
• Even a good process can be improved
Michael Hammer
(1948 – 2008)
BPM life-cycle
Planning
Deployment
Diagnosis
Identification
Design
Discovery
Control
Execution
Agenda
• Identification phase
• The link with process modeling
Goal
• Identify processes that are worthwhile to manage
• e.g. to redesign or to support with workflow technology
Identification phase
Key activities
•
•
•
•
Enumerate major processes
Determine process boundaries
Assess strategic relevance of each process
Render high-level judgments of the “health” of
each process
• Qualify the culture and politics of each process
• Define manageable process innovation scope
Process selection
See Davenport (1993)
What is a process?
Processes are not functions
“Some people take the lazy way out. They use the
term ‘process’ without really understanding it […]. A
common indication of this occurs when we ask
someone to identify the organization’s processes
and the response is: ‘Sales, marketing,
manufacturing, logistics, and finance.’ Simply calling
your functions processes doesn’t make them
processes.”
Hammer and Stanton (1995)
Business process
• “A set of logically related tasks performed to achieve
a defined business outcome.”
Davenport (1990)
• Two important characteristics:
• it has customers, either internal or external to a firm
• it crosses organizational boundaries, i.e. it occurs
across or between organizational subunits
Rule of thumb
“If it does not make at least three people mad, it’s not
a process.”
Hammer and Stanton (1995)
Examples of business processes
• Ordering goods from a supplier
• customer: user of the good
• involved parties: purchasing, receiving, accounts
payable, supplier organizations
•
•
•
•
Developing a new product
Creating a marketing plan
Processing an insurance claim
Etc.
Issues
Process enumeration
• Typical number of processes is unclear
• Trade-off:
• ensuring process scope is manageable
• process scope determines potential impact
• Rule of thumb: 10-20 main processes
Process boundaries
• Processes are interdependent
Insight into relations is required
• main processes – subprocesses
• upstream – downstream processes
• Processes change over time
• identification should be exploratory and iterative
• improvement opportunities are time-constrained
Process selection
Four criteria:
1. Assess strategic relevance of each process
2. Render high-level judgments of the “health” of each
process
3. Qualify the culture and politics of each process
4. Define manageable process innovation scope
Process selection
• Concurrent process initiatives
• limited resources
• coordination complexity
• Limited number of “active” process management
projects
The link with process
modeling
BPM Life-cycle
Planning
Identification
Deployment
Diagnosis
Discovery
Design
Control
Execution
High-level process Renders
a detailed
overview
is sufficient understanding
Require detailed models of processes
Conclusion
• Identification is a necessary first step
• Few strict rules, many issues
• Process modeling is required for all further phases of
the BPM life-cycle