Business Process Management - Assignment Example

Business Process Management Name Course Name and Code Date Qs. 1 (a) The Definition of a business process and its characteristics in the context of the contemporary Business Process Modelling A business process refers to a structured series comprising of IT interventions, work interventions and events, which generate one complete product or service for the customers of a particular organization. In addition to that, a business process refers to a collection of structured tasks or activities which are related and which produce a particular product or service with an aim of serving a specific goal for a particular client or clients. A Business process can therefore be visualized through a flow chart as being a sequence of activities having interleaving decision points or as a Process Matrix having a sequence of activities having relevance rules, which are based on the data that is in the process. One particular characteristic of business processes is that they are normally recurrent in that they may occur or happen more than once and numerous times as well. However, the occurrence of each business process should actually have not only a well defined start point but it must also have a well defined end point which makes it possible for all the participants to be able to ascertain each occurrence (Bendz: 107). A business process normally starts with a mission objective and then normally ends with the achievement of the business objective. A business process can therefore be decomposed into numerous sub-processes that have their own attributes while also significantly contributing to the achievement of the goals of the super processes. All business processes are designed with an aim of adding value for the clients and they should therefore not comprise of any irrelevant or unnecessary activities. As a result, the outcome of any well designed or established business process is an increase in efficiency and the value for the client while also translating to an increase in efficiency and less costs for the organization. (b) The “As Is” Model of the Business Process (C) Ways through which the Pizza Ordering Payment might be altered in order to enhance customer services In order to enhance the pizza ordering and payment activities to be beneficial to the clients, then numerous steps need to be taken. For instance, there is need for Playing Cards Pizza to adopt the use of electronic systems in locating the client’s phone number and addresses instead of the tattered book comprising of street maps. In addition to that, electronic modes of payment should be adopted by PCP instead of the conventional means of payment in order to avoid time wastage that is incurred in making payments. The time taken to bake, package and deliver the pizza order should be reduced to make the clients to be more satisfied (Butler: 45). Q. 2 Definition of the following terms as applied in business processes (a) End to End –this refers to the significant changes aimed at comprehending the process management through the various elements in the organizational design. (b) Cross Functional-This refers to the combination of documentation and work of more than one particular department in the organization. (c) The Public or Abstract Type This refers to the interactions between the private business processes and other participants or processes, only those activities that are used in communicating outside the private business processes can be comprised in the abstract process. On the other hand, all the other internal activities or actions of the private business processes are not depicted in the abstract process. As a result, the abstract process depicts to the outside world the sequence of messages, which are needed to interact with the business process. Abstract processes are normally comprised in a pool and thus can be separately modelled or in a larger Diagram of BPMN to depict the Message Flow between some of the activities in the abstract process and other activities as well. In case the abstract process belongs to the sane diagram as the corresponding process in the private business, then it is quite definite that the activities, which are common to both of the processes, can be linked or associated. 2 (b) The Waterfall approach or model towards the development of software refers to a “sequential software development process” in which the progress is known to steadily flow towards the conclusion just like a waterfall throughout the phases of a specific project namely in analysis, designing, development and in the resting stages. This includes the full documentation of a particular project in advance, which also includes the user interface, the user stories and all the variations, and outcomes of all the features. The waterfall approach thus uses the old adage goal of measuring twice and cutting once. Based on the Waterfall Methodology or approach, it is insisted that each particular phase must be actually completed and perfected before commencing of the next phase. This is aimed at preventing clients from reviewing and ultimately providing feedback regarding a particular project before it is released (Chunge et al., 253). There are various significant failures of using the waterfall approach in the automation of a business process. For instance, it is (The waterfall approach) expensive especially in circumstances where change is needed since most of the effort and time is normally spent early during the design and analysis stages. In addition to that, there may be the prevalence of considerable resistance towards change since the team is so much invested in the needed requirements just before the start of the project. Apart from that, clients may not exactly ascertain their requirements before they review any working prototype and making comments on it. They may therefore constantly change their needs and thus programmers and designers may have little control and say regarding this. If such clients change or alter their needs even after the finalization of the design, then such designs must actually be modified in order to accommodate such new requirements. Eventually, this will imply that a good deal of efforts and working hours must be invalidated leading to an increase in costs to cater for the new changes. (c) The existence of the IT Gap in Organizations Over numerous years, there has been widespread failure for IT to realize the potential that is expected in terms of value addition to businesses. This has been due to a desire of addressing business problems and issues like in reducing costs, establishment of new business models, the implementation of new business processes and the gaining of competitive advantages and on the other hand, the ability of successfully implementing solutions through the use of information technology. In some of the circumstances, the gap arises due to the ability of technical people and business people to effectively communicate with one another. In other circumstances, the closure of the IT gap is prevented because in some of the circumstances, the organizational factors may be in place while the technology is not delivering as expected. In some of the other circumstances, while the technology works, the organizational factors may not indeed be aligned with change while in some others, the technology may work while the organizational factors may not indeed be in place but the needs of the organization may unexpectedly change (Cody, et al: 697). Question 3 (a) Definition of APCQ’s PCF and its purpose The APQC’s PCF (Process Classification Framework) refers to a list, which organizations use in order to define the work processes comprehensively, and without any redundancies. The PCF therefore serves as a tool for not only supporting benchmarking but also as a tool for managing content and performing other vital performance management actions or activities. In essence, the APQC’s PCF is actually a taxonomy comprising of business processes, which makes it possible for organizations to track and objectively compare their own performance both externally and internally with various organizations from any given industry. In addition, it also forms a basis for numerous projects, which are linked or associated to business processes. The PCF is widely used in that having been developed during the early 1990’s through the APQC and various group members from numerous countries and industries throughout the world, various organizations have now used it in naming, organizing and mapping their processes. The PCF is therefore designed as being a global standard and framework that can be customized and be used in any particular organization. As a result, organizations can be able to benchmark their own performance against that of other firms as well (Fingar, et al: 52). (b) (i) The PCF’s Top-Level Categories They include the identification of the project’s requirements and objectives, identification of the project’s resource requirements, assessment of culture and readiness for the project’s management approach, identification of appropriate or relevant project management methodologies, the creation of business cases and obtaining funding and the development of project measures and indicators. (ii) Contents of each of the lower levels of the PCF (c) 3 Categories of basic process types which flow across organizations (i) BPMN’s 2 categories of basic process types (a) Internal (Private) Business Processes –These are normally internal to a particular organization and are the types of business processes, which have been generally, referred to as the BPM or workflow processes. If the swim lanes are utilized, then definitely, a private business process will be contained in the single pool. As a result, the “sequence flow” of the business process is thus contained in the pool and can’t cross boundaries of the pool. The Message Flow can on the other hand cross the pool boundary in order to depict the interactions, which exist between the separate private business processes. (b) Global (Collaboration) Processes This normally reflects the interactions between two or more business enterprises. Such interactions are defined through a sequence of activities, which represent the exchange message patterns between the entities, which are involved. Indeed, the collaboration messages may actually be contained in a pool and participant business interactions that are different can be reflected as being the Lanes in the pool. In such circumstances, each particular Lane would actually represent two participants and a travel direction between them in addition to that; they may also be depicted as being two or more abstract processes, which interact through the Message flows. Such processes are capable of being separately modelled or in a larger BPMN diagram in order to depict the relationships between the process activities that collaborate and other entities as well. If the process of collaboration is in the same particular diagram as one of its private business process that corresponds, then activities, which are common to all the processes, can be clearly associated. (ii) Allocation of the Appropriate process type for the business interactions (A) In process A, it can be ascertained that it is a global or collaboration process because it involves the interaction between two entities, which are defined as being a sequence of activities, which represent the exchange patterns between the two firms. (B) In process B, it can be ascertained that this is an internal or private business process because such actions are specific towards a particular organization, which are also contained in a single pool. This scenario therefore best suits the private or internal business processes. (iii) The type of end-to-end coordinated business process, which is not represented in either process A, or B is the Abstract or Public processes, which refer to the representation of the interactions between the business process with another participant and process. The abstract process only contains the activities that are used in communicating outside the process of the private business. As a result, the abstract process depicts to the external environment the sequence of messages, which are required in interacting with the business process. (c) SOA and its role in Business Process Management SOA refers to the Service Oriented Architecture, which is a design of philosophy, which calls for both lightweight and loosely coupled application and data integration with protocols and self defined end points, which are capable of being reused instead of the hardwired integration, which can require revision with each addition, upgrade or change of each application. SOA’s core value is therefore the delivery of IT flexibility and business agility. SOA is beneficial to the business because it makes it easier for the improvement of the business process through providing the business users with a conducive environment for the monitoring of the business operations. In addition to that, the alteration of the business flow and process manipulation can be easily achieved through the use of the Business Process Modelling tools, which can easily be integrated in the SOA infrastructure. SOA has got a great role to play in business enterprises because it aids in the re-using and leveraging of the existing assets in that a business entity can be able to be constructed as being an aggregation of the current components through the use of the relevant SOA infrastructure and even made available to the enterprise (Sowa: 590). The legacy systems can also be encapsulated and made available through the web service interfaces. In addition, given the fact that the infrastructure of SOA has become a commodity, which can easily be implemented through the use of the COTS products, both its development and even deployment can become consistent across the entire organization. In addition to that, the re-using of the existing components and service will lead to a reduction of the software development costs and times (Zachman: 454). Despite the above advantages, it should also be noted that there are also numerous disadvantages, which are associated with the adoption of the SOA approach. For instance, its use can only be adopted by well conversant personnel who are well equipped with the knowledge and skills on how it can be applied in the organization. References "Integrating Business Processes." Forrester Research Mar. 1999. 20 Feb. 2003 . Bendz, Johan, and Harold W. Lawson. "A Model for Deploying Life-Cycle Process Standards in the Change Management of Complex Systems." Systems Engineering 4.2 (2001): 107-117. Butler, David, Doug Neal, and Howard Smith. "The evolution of business processes." bpmi.org. 4 Feb. 2003 . Chung, J Y., Y Huang, and S Kumaran. "A framework-based approach to building private trading exchanges." IBM Systems Journal 41.2 (2002): 253-271. Cody, W F., et al. "The integration of business intelligence and knowledge management." IBM Systems Journal 41.4 (2002): 697-713. Fingar, Peter, and Howard Smith. "A New Path To Business Process Management." Optimize Oct. 2002. 5 Feb. 2003 . Sowa, J. F., and J. A. Zachman. "Extending and Formalizing the Framework for Information Systems Architecture." IBM Systems Journal 31.3 (1992): 590-616. Zachman, J. A. "A Framework For Information Systems Architecture." IBM Systems Journal 38.2&3 (1999): 454-470. Read More