Assessing the benefits of Business Process Management (BPM) by categorizing processes based on their progressive optimization.

1. © 2013 IBM Corporation
IBM Software Group
Author(s): Kim Clark, Brian Petrini
Version: 1.5
Date: 14th June 2015
BPM Benefits

2. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation2
Agenda
§ Overview
§ Progressive process optimisation
– Unmodelled process
– Modelled process
– Automation
– Flow automation
– Task automation
– Straight through process
§ Finding opportunities for BPM

3. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation3
Goals of process optimisation
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– Maximise high value staff
– Increase volumes
– Meet performance targets
– Improve user experience
– Meet compliance requirements
– Make better informed decisions
– Improve business agility
– Reduce headcount
– Improve data quality

4. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation4
Progressive process optimisation
Flow automation
Task automation
Straight through processing
Unmodelled process
Modelled process
IBM
Business
Process
Manager

5. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation5
Agenda
§ Overview
§ Progressive process optimisation
– Unmodelled process
– Modelled process
– Automation
– Flow automation
– Task automation
– Straight through process
§ Finding opportunities for BPM

6. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation6
An unmodelled process
§ What tasks are being done?
§ Who is doing them?
§ How do we know who’s next?
§ Will we finish on time?
§ How can we manage priorities?
§ Knowledge is reliant on individuals
§ Restructuring the process hard
§ Re-training is painful
§ Management information is a burden
§ Data duplication is inevitable
§ Data integrity is poor

7. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation7
Agenda
§ Overview
§ Progressive process optimisation
– Unmodelled process
– Modelled process
– Automation
– Flow automation
– Task automation
– Straight through process
§ Finding opportunities for BPM

8. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation8
8
Root Causes of Business-Driven Processes Problems
1. Informal Tasks and
Communication (ex
Paper or email)
2. Inefficient Working
Environment Spans
Systems
3. Inconsistent
Prioritization
4. Incomplete or
Inaccurate Data Flow
Between Systems
5. Lack of Control Over
System and Business
Events (Exceptions)
6. Poor Visibility Into
Process Performance
Executive
Management
Customer
Service
Invoice
Reconciliation
Teams
Finance
& Ops
Account
Administration

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© 2013 IBM Corporation9
There are significant benefits to process modelling alone
An unmodelled process can’t be optimised
§ Process understood and visible to all
§ Enables process re-engineering analysis
§ Provides documentation for training and compliance
§ Provides a common language between the business and IT
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Cloud-based platform for collaboration on processes

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© 2013 IBM Corporation11
Source: Applying Lean, Six Sigma, BPM, and SOA to Drive Business Results
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/redp4447.html?Open

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© 2013 IBM Corporation12
Optimising the model
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As-is process model
To-be process model

13. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation13
Agenda
§ Overview
§ Progressive process optimisation
– Unmodelled process
– Modelled process
– Automation
– Flow automation
– Task automation
– Straight through process
§ Finding opportunities for BPM

14. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation14
Business Process Management (BPM) provides a single,
executable view of the process
After
BPM
Current State Future State
Executive
Management
Call Centre
Regional Risk
Management
Local
Finan
ce
and
Ops
Offshore
Operation
1
2
3
4
5
6
Process Definition à Management
Orchestration à Defined Work Segments
à Measurable Results
Hidden work à Process Variation à
Complexity à Missing Information à
Chaos

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© 2013 IBM Corporation15
Business Process Management
What are the types of automation?
Automation
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Agenda
§ Overview
§ Progressive process optimisation
– Unmodelled process
– Modelled process
– Automation
– Flow automation
– Task automation
– Straight through process
§ Finding opportunities for BPM

17. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation17
Executive
Management
Customer
Service
Invoice
Reconciliation
Teams
Finance
& Ops
Account
Administration
BPM
1. Better
communication of
process model
2. Automatically
prioritizes and routes
work
3. Guides users through
decisions
4. Standard and
consistent work
prioritization
5. Real-time visibility
and process control
6. Initial identification of
potential integration
points.
Workflow without system integration (swivel chair integration!)
1
2
3
4
Could include some “integration at the glass” alongside “swivel chair” integration.

18. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation18
“Automated” flow, “Manual” tasks
§ The end to end process flow controlled
by a system rather than by humans
deciding what to do next.
§ All the individual tasks/activities in the
process could still be manual, it is only
the process flow that has been
automated.
§ Issue:
– Might we now just be giving tasks to people
faster than they can complete them?
– Still have the issues of re-keying/swivel chair.
§ More efficient work throughput
§ Process is known, and made consistent
§ Process state is visible
§ Process is measurable.
§ Process transitions can be reported on.
§ Work is distributed, prioritised
§ Reduced reliance on spreadsheets/paper/emails
§ Reduced duplication from paper forms
§ Mobile interaction with process enabled
§ Increased data integrity of process data
§ Simplified process re-engineering
§ Reduced re-training
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19. IBM Software Group
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Manual tasks involve systems too
“Manual” task means there is definitely a person involved,
but there is typically systems involvement too.
Common examples:
§ Manually prepare communication (create letter/fax/email).
§ Re-key information into another system that requires the same
data.
§ Manually retrieve information from system to inform decision.
§ Manually distribute work via a system (send email, create
workflow task etc.)
§ Manually collate data relating to the current and/or past state
of a process

20. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation20
“Assisted Swivel-chair”
§ Process model is implemented in the simplest form in a BPMS.
– Work is transferred between the participants automatically, and prioritised
automatically. Workload distribution is managed automatically including for
example substitutes during vacations, and balancing work across multiple teams.
Managers can focus on assistance rather than distribution of work.
§ Tasks are screens explaining what to do with context specific data.
– Only the relevant data and guidance for the task is presented to the user.
– A new participant would need less training.
– Lower skilled workers could be used.
§ No integration with other systems.
– This level of automation is very simple to implement since the BPMS is a
completely self contained solution.
§ Issues
– User must return to the task to say they have completed it.
– If we require data from the other system in the process, the user must re-key it.
– We have no idea whether the user really did the work, or whether they did it
correctly.
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Details
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Customer
1. Perform a credit check on the customer using the
standard procedure to ensure that their credit
rating is above the threshold set in the guidelines.
2. If the credit score is acceptable, initialise an
account using the account setup guidelines.
Instructions
SmithSurname: JohnFirstname:
15/07/1985DOB: 1, High St., LondonAddress:
800Score: AC3957495New Account Num:
CompleteClose
“Tell me when and how to do the task, and let the next person in line know when I’m done”

21. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation21
Although “process” is at the core, there is more to BPM

22. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation22
Flow automation brings runtime statistics
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End-to-end
Customer
visible delays
Queuing time
Customer
response time
10 mins
15 mins
20 mins 2 mins
2 mins

23. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation23
Create Account
Decision Support
§ Reduce how often the task is included in the process
– Average time of the task is reduced.
– Better distribution of work between junior and senior resource.
– Really a “flow optimisation”, but could be seen as “task optimisation” if we consider that the sub-process as still representing the original
task
§ Externalise the decision criteria to a business rule
– Analysis of process statistics may turn up further opportunities to bypass the task, and these can then be introduced at runtime.
– Passing more process data to the rule allows for most options at runtime. However, it also couples the rule to the process data model.
– Rules can be derived from historical data from the current process. Look for trends in the monitored data.
Check
Credit
Capture
Details
Initialise
Account
Call
centre
Back
Office
(Juniors)
Credit
Check?
Yes (1%)
No (99%)
Business Rules
Credit Check Rules
Rule 1: Customer is staff member
Rule 2: Customer has balance > $1000
Rule 3: …
Back
Office
(Seniors)
“Ensure I only do the task when it’s really necessary, and that I only the part of the task that I’m most suited to”

24. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation24
Agenda
§ Overview
§ Progressive process optimisation
– Unmodelled process
– Modelled process
– Automation
– Flow automation
– Task automation
– Straight through process
§ Finding opportunities for BPM

25. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation25
Executive
Management
Customer
Service
Invoice
Reconciliation
Teams
Finance
& Ops
Account
Administration
BPM
1. Automatically
prioritizes and routes
work
2. Guides users through
decisions
3. Standard and
consistent work
prioritization
4. Leverages exiting
system data Systems
5. Reacts to business
events and generates
actions
6. Real-time visibility
and process control
BPM Delivers a Layer for Control and Visibility

26. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation26
BPM complemented by a Service Oriented Architecture
Systems
SOA
BPM
Executive
Management
Customer
Service
Invoice
Reconciliation
Teams
Finance
& Ops
Account
Administration

27. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation27
Integration “on the glass”
§ Single user interface, with service
calls to underlying systems
– UI calls services via ESB, or directly via
API
– Users need not have to be familiar with
user interfaces of underlying systems.
– No re-keying of data
– Resulting data easily drawn back into the
process.
– If errors occur, user is still has visibility of
where the error occurred in order to take
remedial action.
§ Issues
– Required systems must be available via
an exposed API.
– Response from services must be real-
time. 1-3 seconds typically.
– User is still co-ordinating the requests to
the systems. Could be further automated.
– User interface is coupled to the APIs of
other systems. ESB pattern should be
considered.
1. Retrieve a credit check on the customer using
button below to ensure that their credit rating is
above the threshold set in the guidelines.
2. If the credit score is acceptable, create an account.
Instructions
SmithSurname: JohnFirstname:
15/07/1985DOB: 1, High St.Address:
Score:
Account:
CompleteCancel
Credit Check
Create Account
CRM
System
Credit
Vetting
Agency
Search
Address
Validation
Service
“Create a screen specifically for my task, that makes me as effective as possible.”
AT284326855 Savings Account
Existing Accounts

28. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation28
Types of Automation: Task Automation
§ Tasks that were done by people,
are now performed by systems
instead.
§ It’s not all or nothing. Tasks could be
partially automated, or their most
common cases could be automated.
§ Issues
– Is the task worth automating? How often
does it happen? How much of the current
end to end time does it take?
§ Simplifies data entry
§ Faster activity completion
§ Reduce end to end process duration
§ Removes unnecessary touch points
§ Improved data consistency
§ Improves process availability
§ Eliminate laborious re-keying
§ Reduced data duplication
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Create Account
Fully automated task
§ Remove user interaction
– End to end time vastly reduced
– Throughput vastly increased (orders of
magnitude)
– Headcount reduced/released for more
important work
§ Issues
– Many exception handling now pushed to
the domain of IT operations.
– Exceptions harder to diagnose.
– Business less familiar with the process
and the back end systems, so less able
to assist with exceptions.
Check
Credit
Capture
Details
Create
Account
Call
centre
Credit
Check?
No
Yes
System
CRM
System
Credit
Vetting
Agency
Credit
Check
Rules
Accept
Rules
“Just do the task for me.”
Acceptance
Check
Accept
Reject
Notify

30. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation30
Partially automated task
§ Minimise the user interaction
– Data for the task is pre-fetched. Interaction need not be
real-time – could be asynchronous enabling better
workload balancing on back end systems.
– Actions performed as a result of the task are done
asynchronously following the task.
– Data is presented in a context specific format
– Human resource is used only for what it is best at – e.g.
complex decision making
– Good for “mobile” users. Review task is much simpler,
and can be viewed and acted upon on a smaller device.
E.g. “inline tasks completion”
§ Issues
– User loses awareness of how to interact with back end
systems should they need to revert to manual processing.
– Changes to the back end systems’ APIs break the
process. (ESB pattern would help with decoupling here).
– User may need results from the follow on actions (e.g. may
need the account number created to pass back to the
customer).
– Services/APIs need to be appropriately exposed for use by
automated consumers
Check
Credit
Capture
Details
Initialise
Account
Call
centre
Back
office
Credit
Check?
No
Yes
System
CRM
System
Credit
Vetting
Agency
Business
Rules
Review
Create Account
“Do the task for me, and I’ll just review it.”

31. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation31
Agenda
§ Overview
§ Progressive process optimisation
– Unmodelled process
– Modelled process
– Automation
– Flow automation
– Task automation
– Straight through process
§ Finding opportunities for BPM

32. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation32
What is STP?
§ STP = “Straight Through Processing”
– The primary goal of STP is to increase throughput, typically by removing
humans from the process.
– This requires both flow and task automation and also significant re-
engineering.
– If the end goal is STP, you must design for this from the start.
§ STP = “Fully automated?” – Rarely
– STPs automate the most commonly traversed paths.
– Most have rarely occurring edge cases that are still handled manually.
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Is full automation the goal?
§ “Should we automate a person pushing 2 buttons once a
year?”
§ “It costs $100K to automate the work and $200K to make
the team redundant. We will then save $20K each year as
a result.”
§ “Press 1 for your account balance, 2 for new credit card or
9 to listen to another 100 choices"
§ “What do you mean, I need to land the plane? I normally
just push a button. I haven’t had to actually land a plane in
20 years!”

34. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation34
Progressive process optimisation
Flow
automation
Task
automation
Straight through
processing
Manual
process
Reduce reliance on spreadsheets/paper/emails
Reduce time lost on paperwork
Enable mobile interaction with process
Increase data integrity
Enable reporting within and across processes
Simplifies implementation of process re-engineering
Reduce re-training
Reduce end to end process duration
Simplify data entry
Eliminate laborious re-keying
Reduce duplication
Further increase data integrity
Remove unnecessary touch points
What tasks are being done?
Who is doing them?
How do we know who’s next?
Will we finish on time?
How can we manage priorities?
Knowledge is reliant on individuals
Restructuring is the process hard
Re-training is painful
Management information is a burden
Data duplication is inevitable
Data integrity is poor
Modelled
process
Process understood and visible to all
Enables process re-engineering analysis
Provides documentation for training and compliance
Provides a common language between IT and the business
Enables orders of magnitude more volume
Maximises data integrity
Minimises human resource requirements
Variability points established and enabled

35. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation35
Agenda
§ Overview
§ Progressive process optimisation
– Unmodelled process
– Modelled process
– Automation
– Flow automation
– Task automation
– Straight through process
§ Finding opportunities for BPM

36. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation36
What makes a business process suitable for BPM?
§ The process contains individually business relevant steps
§ Performing the process provides value to the business
§ Business relevant data flows through the process
§ The process follows a relatively structured path
§ The steps within the process are performed by multiple roles/teams.
§ The process changes over time as a result of changes in the business
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revenue!
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-- ------ --- -- ------- ------ ------- -
-- ------ --- -- ------- ------ ------- -
-- ------ --- -- ------- ------ ------- -
-- ------ --- -- ------- ------ ------- --- ------ --- -- ------- ------ ------- -
-- ------ --- -- ------- ------ ------- -

37. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation37
What business goals can BPM process optimisation assist with?
Maximise high value staff Free up core knowledge workers from mundane activity, to focus on higher
value activities, in order to gain greater value from the investment in high
cost staff.
Increase volumes Scale up the volume of process instances that can be handled in a given
time in order to retain or increase profit margins.
Meet performance targets Focus on performance indicators such as “end to end” process time, to
avoid being penalised for failing to meet service level agreements (SLAs).
Improve user experience Improve user traction with the process, in order to employee retention,
and/or retain customers.
Meet compliance
requirements
Ensure process adherence is provable. Provide an audit trail of process
activity.
Make better informed
decisions
Expose the aggregate process statistics to enable more insightful decisions
due to the runtime statistics naturally available from the automation of
process flows.
Improve business agility Enable the business to react more quickly to changes in the market due to
the adoption of agile methods and tools
Reduce headcount Handle the same amount of work with less people in order to cut costs, or
free up resources for alternate work.
Improve data quality Ensure that data is not duplicated, entered incorrectly or inconsistently.
See questions relating to each goal in background slides

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Background slides

40. IBM Software Group
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Maximise high value staff
§ Are high value members of staff tied up performing menial
tasks?
§ Could we spread the work more appropriately between the
skills of the team?
§ Could we completely automate the simple tasks?

41. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation41
Increase volumes
§ Is there demand for greater volumes that we cannot
handle today?
§ Is the volume of work done via this process currently
limited by the number of people that can be assigned to it?

42. IBM Software Group
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Meet performance targets
§ Do you have specific Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to
which you must adhere, or bear penalties?
§ Would you be better able to manage the process if you
could easily view key performance indicators?
§ Are your processes delayed by time taken to transfer work
from one person to another?
§ Is it time consuming to get the information you need to
make decisions?
§ Is time lost due to non-value add activities?

43. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation43
Improve user experience
§ Do users find the current user interfaces difficult to use?
§ Do they have to use multiple complex user interfaces
and/or multiple systems to perform a task?
§ Does this affect productivity?
§ Does this affect staff retention?

44. IBM Software Group
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Make better informed decisions
§ Are you struggling to make strategic decision because you
are unable to gather aggregate data about the process?
§ Is it difficult to answer “how are we doing today”
questions?
§ Is it hard to get the information you need to make
decisions?
§ Are multiple people needed to make decisions?
§ Are staff spending time investigating things that are
essentially obvious?

45. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation45
Improve business agility
§ Does the process change regularly?
§ Does the way you do this process differentiate you in the
industry? In other words, does you ability to be unique in
this area make you more competitive?

46. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation46
Reduce headcount
§ Is the process particularly sensitive to human resource
costs?
§ Are some of the steps in the process highly manually
intensive?
§ Are the staff involved in the process highly paid?
§ Are people tied up performing non-value add activities?

47. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation47
Improve data quality
§ Is the same data entered/stored in multiple place?
§ Is data captured inaccurately due to the mediums used
(e.g. paper/fax)?
§ Are data changes suitably audited?

48. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation48
Common pitfalls in optimisation
§ Don’t assume you must optimise all tasks to the same level
– Use simulation or historical statistics to optimise the critical path
§ Don’t do it all in one go
– Recognise the benefits of Progressive Task optimisation
§ optimisation must be relevant
– optimise to a quantifiable, business goal such as a service level agreement
§ Don’t over-optimise
– It might not be advantageous to be able to pay invoices more quickly!

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Spectrum of Effort
What sort of project characteristics will drive level of effort/cost for implementation?
Easy
Medium
Difficult
Simple
passing of
data between
participants
Email
outbound – no
attachments
Lookup using
existing web-
service
New
Integration
services to be
created
Receive
inbound
email /
documents
Update
systems using
existing web-
service
Track work
against an SLA
with automatic
escalations
Implement
complex
business
decisions
Validation of
form fields
Database read
/ update
Simple
business
decisions
‘iframe’ style
screen linking
Screen
scraping / full
screen
merging into a
new screen
Multiple system
integrations in a
single process
Attach and
route
documents

50. IBM Software Group
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From Isolated workflow and integration and SOA to
BPM
Service Oriented Architecture
(SOA)
Business Process Management
(BPM)
Enterprise Application Integration
(EAI)
BPM + SOAIsolated Workflow
Point to Point Integration

51. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation51
Design time “green field” optimisations
When does optimisation occur?
Project 1 Project 2 Project 3
Production
Production time “brown field” optimisations
Initial Development
Changes via runtime “points of variability”
“green field”
optimisations

52. IBM Software Group
© 2013 IBM Corporation52
How is change management different
§ Green field process change (Initial implementation time)
– Changes can be deployed immediately by replacing the process
application.
– Existing test process instances can typically be re-created.
§ Brown field process change (Production time changes)
– Process instances are present, and may be for some time.
– Changes to the following require a new process application
– Process flow (BPMN/BPEL)
– Process data model
– User interfaces (coaches/task clients)
– Inline rules
– Interfaces/services
– To take full advantage of the changes, we must migrate process instances
– We need to consider how intermediate events will correlate with process
instances.
– Points of variability need to be designed in, and externalised if changes
are going to be possible without re-deployment.

53. IBM Software Group
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Iteration cycles across the SOA Layers
Shorter
Iteration
Cycle
Longer

54. IBM Software Group
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Data structure changes – always high impact
§ Multiple layers will be affected
– User interface – we need to capture
it and view it later in the process
– Operational systems – we need to
store it, maybe even in duplicate
– Everything in-between
– Interfaces, data mappings, rules and so on in
all the intervening components will have to
change to handle the new data.
§ Can we make it easier?
– Predictive data models
– Might provide insulation from future changes,
but only if they predict the future accurately!
– Weak data types
– Make the layers and systems less sensitive
to the data structure. But this can result in
poor quality data, make reporting harder, and
testing almost impossible.
Affects interfaces
between all layers
Affects multiple back-
end systems
Affects reporting and monitoringRarely, if ever, isolated
to the user interface
layer Could affect security (privacy,
storage, encryption)
Could affect QoS (message size,
search time)
Could result in new
composition/orchestration