La Verdad

Christian College

Business Process
Management
Email: [email protected]
Week 1: Introduction to Business
Process Management
Objectives
On completion of this module you should be able to:

◉ Describe & identify business process/es

◉ Identify business process initiation measures
◉ Define BPM
◉ Identify reasons for undertaking BP projects
◉ Describe Systems and Value Chains
Objectives
On completion of this module you should be able to:

◉ Describe Process Management Frameworks-

CMM & Rummler and Brache
◉ Identify BP methodologies & BPR
◉ Identify skills of a BP Professional
Why the interest in Business
Process Management?
◉ Changes to ◉ Changes to task ◉ Changes an
business environment due organisation’s
environments as to pressure from internal
organisations both customers activities.
implement and suppliers.
innovations for
competitive
advantage.

◉ Overall organisational ◉ Improve business

dynamics. processes.
From Function to Process

• Organisations previously focused on individual processes and grouped

workforce by functional area.
• ICT developments have led to the development of cross-functional
business processes.
• 1980s saw the rise of process oriented organisations.
- and the advent of business process re-engineering
Process
◉ Definitions for ‘process’ are many, varied and
usually ambiguous.
◉ A measurable set of activities performed to
produce a specified outcome.
◉ A complete end-to-end set of activities that
provide value, through the delivery of a product or
service, to the customer of the process.
◉ The process may be a mixture of human and
machine interaction, or solely human or solely
machine.
What Initiates a Business
Process?
◉ Triggered by a specific event such as a customer
placing an order, purchasing department placing a
supply order, the accounts department reconciling
a customer account.
◉ The processes within each example are a
collection of deliberate tasks and have a clearly
defined outcome.
- The examples above comprise processes that may
cross functional borders.
Business Process Management

• Identification, assessment, and improvement of the

enterprise’s business processes.
• This discipline is also known as business process
management (BPM).
• BPM - Top-down methodology designed to organize,
manage, and measure the organization’s performance based
on the organization’s core processes.
Business Process Pyramid
Why undertake business process
projects?
1. In bad times, companies seek to make their
processes more efficient to save money.
2. In expansive times, companies seek to redesign
processes to make them more competitive, to
offer new services, or to get into new lines of
business.
3. Developments in Internet technologies.
4. Corporate-wide focus on process.
From 1990s to today…
Systems and Value Chains
Applying Porter’s value chain model
to a business organization
Business Process Change and
Management
◉ Process changes are necessary to sustain and grow!
◉ Consider automobiles companies and mobile
phones/technology companies as examples.
◉ Managers should constantly examine the processes by
which their companies produce products and services
and upgrade them to assure that they remain as efficient
and effective as possible.
◉ Consider Amazon and eBay as pioneers – are they still
changing/evolving?
 CMM- 5 stages that
organizations go
through as they
move from an
immature to a mature
understanding of
business processes.

Capability Maturity Model (CMM)

Rummler and Brache framework
What should process driven
organisations do?
◉ Document processes
◉ Develop process architectures that describe
how processes relate to each other
◉ Align management systems to assure that
corporate goals are aligned with managerial
goals
◉ Routine, continuous process improvement
Different business process
change problems
◉ Vary by the organization’s level of concern,
industry, and the nature of the environmental
change that needs to be accommodated.
◉ What problems can you think of that prompt
process changes?
◉ Many problems with different ways to improve
or redesign business processes!
BP methodologies - Six
Sigma and Lean
Six Sigma

a variety of tools and methods that emphasize

minimizing variance and defects in the output of that
step. Emphasizes individual activities and the
consistency of their outputs. Embraces a whole culture
dedicated to training employees to support process
change throughout the organization.
BP methodologies - Six
Sigma and Lean
Lean

or lean manufacturing, has its roots in the Toyota

Production System (TPS), which emphasizes looking at
significant parts of the entire process with an eye
toward the elimination of waste and the maximization
of speed. Emphasizes the connection between
activities and the smooth flow of the end-to-end
process.
Business Process Reengineering (BPR)

• Define all of the major processes and then focus on the

processes that offered the most return on improvement
efforts.
• Processes needed to be conceptualized as complete,
comprehensive entities that stretched from the initial order to
the delivery of the product.
• Information technology (IT) needed to be used to integrate
these comprehensive processes.
IT in BPR

◉ IT applications can cut across departmental lines

to eliminate inefficiencies and yield huge gains in
coordination.
◉ Some projects succeeded while others failed!
◉ Due to failures and employee distrust, most
companies began to refer to their current
business process projects as “business process
improvement” or “business process redesign.”
Skills of a Business
Process Professional
◉ Change Agent - Ability and willingness to champion
organisational change. Can influence stakeholders about
the need to change.
◉ IT/IS experience - Has a good background in and an
strong understanding and practical skill in information
systems and technology.
◉ Leadership - Can motivate and lead to promote new
ways of thinking.
◉ Systems thinking approach - Can view a process in the
context of the overall system without only focusing on
the area of the problem.
Skills of a Business
Process Professional
◉ Communication - The ability to communicate
complex problems through key elements of a
process.
◉ Innovative - Willing to propose out-of-the-norm
solutions and challenge “the way we do things
around here” type of thinking.
◉ Analytical- Can focus on facts and find the true
cause of a problem, rather than the perceived
cause of a problem.
 “At several recent BPM conferences, I have asked audiences of
several hundred attendees to see a show of hands, first for “Who is
from IT?” generally about 30-45% of the hands go up, then, “Who is
from the Business side?” another 30-45%, then, “Who here is like
me, stuck in the middle?” Nearly the entire group raises their hands,
Perspective… generally emphatically. This is telling. Many of us, who work in
process management, process redesign, process performance
analysis, process automation, and the like, are conflicted. Are we
business practitioners who have to understand how to leverage IT
to manage by process or are we IT practitioners who have to
Excerpt from an article written for BPM Strategies October 2006 understand the business in order to fully utilize the capabilities of
edition by Brett Champlin, President of the Association of Business new IT solutions?”
Process Management Professionals (ABPMP).

Source: Guide to the Business Process Management Common

Body of Knowledge, (ABPMP BPM CBOK),
2009, version 2.

“
Where are we heading?
In summary
◉ Process improvement refers to relatively minor,
specific changes that one make in an existing business
process.
◉ Process design or redesign refers to a major effort that
is undertaken to significantly improve an existing
process or to create a new business process.
◉ Process automation refers to the use of computers and
software applications to assist employees or to replace
employees in the performance of a business process.
◉ And finally BPM again - refers to how business
managers organize and control processes.
Thanks be to God!

Any questions ?

Lynyrd Ross Alquiroz