manual Process Discovery

Table of Contents

• Question To Cover
• Process
• User Task
• Work Queue Handling
• Service Tasks
• Reports
• Template

Today there are great Tools around to automate Process Discovery or better-called Process Mining.

Process Mining helps organizations gain a full understanding of the processes that support their customers. That understanding is a key prerequisite to successful digital transformation programs.

TIBCO LABS - Project Discover is a process-mining solution built on the TIBCO^? Connected Intelligence platform that allows customers to discover, learn, improve, and predict process behaviors from data event logs produced by operational systems. 

Manual Process Discovery can be quicker archived using Tools like NIMBUS that's clear, and there is a lot of references around that show that.

In case you plan to go the very manual route at least define a Process Activity like it NIMBUS does as a Best Practice:

If you want to use tools like Business Studio, stick with the basic modeling functionalities,

otherwise, Business people could get confused if they do not know BPMN already. 

Make use of Flipchart as they allow fast drawing, without getting too technical. 

Question To Cover

Here is a list of topics that need to be covered during the As-Is phase of most projects, comprising questions which need to be raised with the business users involved.

Process

Describe how the workflows around the organization? 

• Who is responsible for which tasks, and in which sequence?
• Make sure you pick up any conditional routing (e.g. ?if deposit amount more than 10k then a supervisor must approve?)

How is the case started? (List all options of Input Channels, if more than one)

• Manually filling a form in?
• Automatically from a web application?
• Automatically from incoming document scanning?
• Automatically from Call Centre system?

What volumes are involved? (per day or per month as appropriate) 

• Not critical, but may indicate that the priority of developing this process needs to be revised

What is the average and maximum life of one case ? the time from when it is started to when the actions are completed? 

• Obviously, the data involved may live forever, but when is this process considered to be complete?

What types (teams?) of users are involved in the various stages of the process? 

• Look for groupings of users, usually by function, sometimes also by skill level or management level: Fraud Agents, Senior Signup Agents, RoW Legal specialists

Is there any ?exception? routing involved? 

• Are there points where a user may need to ?refer the case to a supervisor? or ?return to inputter for repair??

Integration points involved 

• Business users may know that external systems are updated at certain points in the process.
• The Systems team will need to become involved to start to identify services that will be involved, and maybe to identify precisely where in the current system updates happen.

Is there an overall SLA on the whole process, or maybe at a gate in the process? 

• Who monitors it and what action do they take as it approaches?  Is there a financial or another penalty to the company if the SLA is breached?

User Task

At each point in the process where there is human intervention, we need to know the following)

What user/team/type of person carries out this task 

• Does it vary according to the business data e.g. ?if the country of residence is flagged as RoW then the RoW Signup team handle it, otherwise the general Signup team handles it?.
• Also are there any exceptions such as ?any Call Centre operator can do the Check step, except that the person who did the original Input cannot Check that case?.

Is there an internal or external SLA on the task? 

• Who monitors it and what action do they take as it approaches?  Is there a financial or another penalty to the company if the SLA is breached?
• If no action is taken, then is it really an SLA?

When the user passes the task on, what types of ?completions? give rise to what sort of routing? 

• For example, maybe they can may choose to ?cancel? (the case ends immediately) or ?decline? (a rejection email is generated) or ?refer to supervisor? (the case goes to the supervisor for sorting out) or ?refer to fraud? (the case is sent to the fraud department for review)

Is there any concept of ?case ownership? at this step? 

• Does the same case need to come back to this specific user at a later point in the process for continuity?

What access to computer systems does the user need in order to complete this task? 

• For example, they use the Admin screen to review and update business data, and a Rules package to help them make a decision quickly; and a Currency exchange website for currency conversion.

Work Queue Handling

How does the user decide which case to handle next? 

• Is it ?first in, first out?, or maybe ?Declined Account applications first?, or ?push process? with no choice?
• Sometimes different users are told to approach a common queue differently ?You process the in-tray in Date sequence, I will process the same in-tray in VIP status sequence?

What mixes of work does this group handle ? and how do they tend to prioritize different types of Task? 

• If they work Signup Reviews and also Change of Personal Details, how do they choose which work takes priority?
• Skill-based Routing?
• Workforce Organization?
• Support for Branch Offices? 

Service Tasks

What are the involved Backend's

• Names & Technologies?
• Are there any Limitations to access information?
• (Batch, Database, Services available?)

Other Systems?

• HR Systems, Global used Content Management & Collaboration?
• IT Operations Systems to connect to?
• Single Sign-On?
• LDAP?

Reports

What are the relevant information's about?

• KPI's & Milestones?
• Not All data need to be in the BPM System

Who is this information for?

• IT Operations, Business Operations, Team Leader?
• realtime vs historical?

Template

A good starting point could be the here attached one.

Attachments

bpmbusinessrequirementsdocumenttemplate_v.2.1.docx