Blueworks Live Best Practices

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IBM Cloud / © 2018 IBM Corporation
Becoming an IBM Blueworks
Live Process Ninja | Best
Practices
—
Bob Spory
DBA Technical Sales
spory@us.ibm.com
@bobspory
ProcessNinja.us
LinkedIn

Content overview
2
Blueworks Live overview
Modeling principles
Discovery maps
Process diagrams
Process details
Diagram customization
Personalization
Collaboration
Administration
Spaces
Establishing a COE
Decision discovery

IBM Blueworks Live | Overview
3
IBM Blueworks Live provides a rich set of tools for
discovering and documenting essential process
knowledge. Exceptionally easy-to-use and highly
collaborative, IBM Blueworks Live supports subject
matter experts and business analysts working together
to capture and refine processes.
Once documented in IBM Blueworks Live, the company
practices are available for all employees to review. Also,
in the admin console, each account can have a custom
help screen where links to an internal wiki can be
posted, or documents can be found to help users comply
with company policies and best practices.
“IBM Blueworks Live is a collaborative platform for
process and decision discovery in the cloud.”

IBM Blueworks Live | BPMN
4
IBM Blueworks Live supports Business Process Model
and Notation (BPMN). BPMN is the industry-standard
graphical notation. BPMN is a standard that defines the
set of shapes and interactions that define how a process
should be documented for clarity and consistency.
IBM Blueworks Live partially conforms to the most
recent BPMN 2.0 specification to provide the most
functionality -- without overwhelming new users with
options. For more information about BPMN, see this
website: BPMN.org
“Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is the shared standard
graphical notation that is used in defining business processes.”

Modeling principles | Guidelines
5
Keep it simple: Resist the temptation to introduce complexity into your
approach and methodologies. Remember that your most important goal is for
others to understand your project approach and participate.
Process power: Process models are what differentiates your organization from
the competition. Everything your organization does is a business process.
Understand the reason: Why you are modeling? The purpose guides the level
of detail for the process diagram and documentation. Organizations model
processes for documentation (training), analysis, and automation.
Scope is king: Clearly define the scope of the process by identifying the Who,
What, When, Where and Why of your process. The process is the How.
Choose a champion: A successful project must have a management champion.
The champion supports the project, helps overcome resistance and protects the
team from any political interference.
“Modeling is more ‘art,’ than ‘science.’ However,
modeling principles help ensure consistency.”

6
Start small, think big: Take an incremental, rather than a “big bang,” approach
of modeling processes. You will produce results that help create skills and
interest when you start with a small, easily manageable project.
Rudderless without governance: Establish standards, best practices, and
governance policies, such as BPMN, modeling frameworks and patterns,
process level definitions and granularity, naming conventions and approval
processes. Lack of governance is one of the most common reasons for failure.
Trust, yet verify: It is vital that best practices are followed to represent
processes in a consistently, regardless of their individual modeling the process.
Review models to confirm their your methodologies are followed.
Involve a team: Build a process team that includes your management
champion, analysts, process owners, functional owners, knowledge workers,
SME’s, technical team members. Ensure all understand their roles.

7
Include experts: Be sure to work with the people who actually know how the
process works and who are responsible for its success — not those who think
they know how it works.
Celebrate collaboration: Collaboration is vital to getting business people excited
and involved. Ensure your methodology and tools are designed for business
users to get modeling simply and quickly.
Prioritize Process: Focus on process discovery first to understand the health
and welfare of your process. Do not focus too much on technology without
understanding the process.
Depict real reality: Identify and document how people really perform the
existing process and not how they should. Typically, a significant number of
undocumented workarounds and organizational knowledge is captured while
modeling the current process.

8
Model with simplicity: Remember that your most important goal is for you and
others to understand how things work. People should understand what happens
in the process quickly. If you need to explain your model, it means it is too
complicated for end-users.
Optimally organize: Ensure people understand where and how to access your
process library. This is accomplished by creating spaces by organizational
structure, APQC definition or customer journey.
Measure milestones: Prepare an approach that defines milestones and
deadlines. This minimizes risk by simplifying a large project or rollout into
smaller measurable steps.
Use vigilant validation: Ensure that the process models and associated
information are validated and approved by stakeholders and participants. Their
buy-in is critical. Use an approval process, if possible.

9
Centers are excellent: Establish a Center of Excellence to prioritize process
projects, maintain process library establish best practices.
Determine decisions: Actively look for automatable decisions, such as goals,
problems, activities before Gateways (do not imply that work is performed) and
participant hand-offs.
Understand potential paths: Model all possible pathways of a process. Capture
the "happy path" first – from left-to-right. Then, document all process
exceptions as branches off the happy path. The exception paths typically occur
more frequently than realized and require significant effort to resolve.
Control your versions: Version management of a process enables a history of
the process model to be recorded systematically. It is critical to ensure users
access the most current version and save the evolution of your process. Consider
using tooling that simplifies version management.
Go pro: Use professional services. The main benefit of using IBM Services or IBM
Business Partners is the experience they bring.

10
Modeling principles | Selecting candidate processes
□Which processes result in customer dissatisfaction?
□Which processes have obvious problems?
□Which processes are high cost or high volume?
□Are there long delays or bottlenecks?
□Which processes require significant manual intervention?
□Is there a shortage of knowledge workers?
□Do knowledge workers make decisions manually, make inconsistent
errors, or apply the wrong policies?
□Is there compliance or revenue issues with decisions?
□Can you measure and manage these processes?

11
Modeling principles | Process improvement focus
□Unstructured or non-value activities?
□Manual data entry? Poor data quality?
□Paper and spreadsheets?
□Exposure to non-compliance or fraud risks?
□Activity time? Waiting time between activities?
□Routing or prioritization or work tasks?
□Re-keying of information between systems?
□Limited process scalability?
□Audit trails, process performance and visibility?

12
Modeling principles | Decision improvement focus
□Decision logic hidden in code or isolated within organization?
□Exposure to risks such as non-compliance or fraud?
□Implementation logic of the decision perform poorly?
□Changes hard to track and maintain over time?
□Changes take a long time and require IT resources?
□Decision logic duplicated across different applications?
□Decisions auditable and traceable?
□Changes easily tested or simulated?

Spaces | Process organization
13
Space organization methods: There are five
recommended methods for organizing spaces. These
methods can also be used in combination with each
other:
1. By Project: Create a top-level space called Projects,
then create a child space for each project. In each
project space, create two lower-level spaces, one for
current state and the other for future state
processes.
2. APQC Process Classification Frameworks: APQC is
an “authority in best practices, process and
performance improvement.” Use the PCF names and
numbers in the space name. For more information,
see their website: apqc.org.
“You can organize your spaces hierarchically to provide structure to your
Blueworks Live projects and make it easier for team members to navigate.”

Spaces | Process organization
14
3. By Organizational Function: Set up space hierarchy
by functional group within your organization. Many
companies are internally structured into functional
groups. Therefore, process discovery is best
completed using this same structure.
4. By Customer Journey: Set up your hierarchy by
Customer Journey. Your spaces can be set up to
reflect important business functions of your
company and shared across the business.
5. By User: Set up your spaces by giving each user
their own space. This makes it very easy for
participants to find their work. However, this
approach makes it difficult for others to re-use
processes.

Spaces | Guidelines
15
Spaces guidelines: The following guidelines apply regardless of the method
used to organize your spaces:
§ Ensure that each new space is given a description and space-level goals.
This will help new users navigate and understand the type of work that is
being done.
§ Designate a space owner and include contact information in the space
description.
§ Use tags. Tagging spaces is an easy way to improve navigation and search in
your Blueworks Live account.
§ Set the appropriate space-level user permissions for each space. Child
spaces inherit parent level user permissions by default, so be sure to check
the user permissions of the child space if you do not want to inherit the
parent permissions.

Discovery maps | Activities
18
Activity objects: Activities describe the kind of work
being done in a particular process instance. A task is the
most basic level of an activity and cannot be broken
down further.
§ You can define different types of tasks depending on
the work that is performed: Normal, User, Service,
Decision, Robot, and Linked. Right-click the task and
select Type > task type
§ Tasks should be labeled using action verb + noun. Do
not include role or system in an activity name
§ Name should be as concise as possible, so it fits
clearly on the task and is easy to read
§ Capitalize the first letter of each word
“Activities represent the work that is performed in a process.
The work might be performed by a person or by a system.”

Discovery maps | Subprocesses
19
Subprocesses & Linked processes: These objects
allow you to capture the right level of detail about the
activities in your process without over-complicating your
diagram. A linked process is a call to another stand-
alone process.
Use a subprocess when you want to group together a
set of steps in your process, allowing that group to be
collapsed or expanded depending on the level of detail
required.
§ Subprocesses should be labeled using object + verb
§ Name should be as concise as possible
§ Capitalize the first letter of each word
§ Do not use the word process in the name
“A subprocess is a more complex group of activities.”

Process diagrams | Granularity patterns
22
Process granularity: Granularity and scope should be
similar from process-to-process and project-to-project.
The following questions can help determine if an activity
should be created:
§ Will a participant complete multiple activities in a
row?
§ Is an output created and forwarded during this
activity?
§ Is the duration similar to others at this level?
Rule of Seven pattern: For single-page readability, Rule
of Seven is a good standard. This means that there
should be no more than seven milestones or
activities/subprocesses per process level.
“Maintaining a similar level of granularity for activities and
subprocess across the organization is critical.”
7 Milestones
7 Activities

Process diagrams | Granularity patterns
23
String of Pearls pattern: If you notice several following
activities in the same swim lane in a row, like a string of
pearls, consider eliminating or collapsing the activities
into one activity or subprocess. This model may indicate
missing participant details, too much detail at a low level
of granularity or indicate misalignment in scope.
Constellation pattern: Consider creating a subprocess if
you notice a constellation pattern:
§ Tight groups of multiple activities across 2-3 swim
lanes in a group
§ Single flow line in and out of the group

Diagram customization | Process layout
28
Improving process layout: Blueworks Live automatically
lays out the elements according to a default layout
algorithm. You can customize by:
§ Re-ordering swim lanes
§ “Aligning Parallel Flows” by right-clicking the Gateway
§ Changing the connection ports
§ Pinning Activities and Decisions
§ Moving activities underneath each other
§ Add additional ‘placeholder’ milestones
§ Use Gateways for connections to 2 or more activities
§ Use Links rather than long crossed lines
“Blueworks Live automatically lays out the elements according
to a default layout algorithm.”

Personalization | Notifications
30
Setting notification preferences: Click your login name
in the upper right corner -- open the My User Settings
window -- to personalize.
There are a number of notifications that Blueworks Live
can send to you by email so that you can stay up-to-date
about activities and conversations that you care about.
On the Notifications tab, you can select whether to
receive the following types of updates:
§ A weekly update about activity in your account
§ A daily update about changes made to items your
follow
§ Immediate notifications about replies to items you've
commented on and about new tasks that are
assigned to you
“You can customize the way that Blueworks Live works for you
by updating your user settings.”

Administration | User types
35
1. Editors: Create, copy, modify, and publish artifacts. They can add
comments on blueprint processes, and they can configure, launch, and
participate in work. $53 per month.
2. Contributors: Create, configure, launch and view process apps as well as
participate in work. They can also view process blueprints. However, they
cannot modify or create process blueprints or artifacts. $11 per month
3. Community Members: Can not participate in work or view published
process blueprints, or policies. However, they can participate by creating
and editing posts. There is no charge for Community membership.
4. Viewers: See all spaces and processes, however, Viewers cannot
participate in work in spaces, blogs, or activity streams. Sold in “packs” of
100. $2 per user, per month
“You can manage the list users who have access to Blueworks
Live and configure the types of tasks they can perform.”

Administration | User groups
36
Predefined user groups: Predefined user groups exist,
representing each of the license types (Editor,
Contributor, Community Member, Viewer) as well as
Admin. When a new user is added to the account, they
automatically inherit these privileges based on the user
type they are assigned in the invitation. These
predefined user groups can be added and removed from
spaces just like custom user groups.
Custom user groups: It is possible to for user groups to
be defined, added to, and removed from spaces to
further customize how permissions are managed across
the account. This flexibility is useful for users who have
groups of users performing similar roles and requiring
similar levels of access to Blueworks Live that are not
well addressed by the predefined user groups.
“Define user groups for the account and then add them to spaces
to manage permissions for sets of users across an account.”

Administration | Permissions
37
Account level permissions: Click Admin in the upper-
right corner and, on the User Management page, select
the name of the user whose permissions you want to set
or change. You can change the user's name, email
address, user type (Editor, Contributor, Community
Member, Viewer), send the user an email to reset his or
her password, and expire the current password.
Space level permissions: Click Admin in the upper-right
corner and then Customization. From here you can
determine:
§ Whether admins are automatically granted all of the
permissions in a space
§ Who can create, move, and archive spaces
§ Who can copy spaces to other accounts
“You set and change permissions at the account level, the
space level and, to a lesser degree, the artifact level.”

Administration | Business glossary
38
Glossary: Define and store all of the terms in your
Blueworks Live account. Importing or manually defining
a set of preferred terms and associated descriptions can
help achieve consistency and encourage best practices
in documenting your business processes, policies and
decisions.
Always Visible items: Items set to Always Visible show
up in the glossary and are listed in the options
presented as type-ahead suggestions in field drop-down
menus.
Glossary warnings: To encourage users to use
preferred terms and to warn them if they that enter non-
preferred values, a glossary manager can open each
category and decide whether to check the Warn Users
check box.
“The glossary is a place to define and store all of the important
terms used in the artifacts in your Blueworks Live account.”

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