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In my previous article, "Manage the process, not the steps," you learned about the various pieces of process management: enabling process steps, creating a process design, outlining process roles, implementing a process management system, and using strategic planning. All these process management activities serve as the framework for the phases we discussed in this article.
Phases are process segments that logically follow one another. Methodology is the analysis of the principles or procedures in each phase. Phased methodology, then, is the logical analysis of processes.
In terms of process, phases are critical. They help you stay organized. They provide a standard way to implement changes. They allow for analysis of people, processes, and information in a logical progression. They provide a way to clearly define goals, deliverables, and measurements. In addition, they're a great way to keep key stakeholders informed in a language they can understand (for example, "We're in phase 2, step 3."). Finally, they're a perfect way to help others understand what's happening at any given point in the process. Without phases, it's easy to become overwhelmed or miss important details.
There are lots of ways to establish phases, and you can create any number of phases to meet your organization's needs. The IBM® WebSphere® Business Integration suite of products, for example, offers software that can help with almost every aspect of process management, including phased methodology. For this article, I discuss a basic phased methodology that uses four phases:
- Process management
- Discovery
- Assessment
- Redesign and deployment
Since I covered process management in my previous article, I won't discuss that phase in detail here. However, it's important to note that process management is the framework surrounding the other phases -- without it, your phases will not be effective or adhered to. Figure 1 shows this concept.
Figure 1. Phased methodology
As you can see, process management encases all the other phases. It is literally the foundation for the next three phases.
When you are working on redesigning your organization for the future (or for any reason), you must first take some time to review and analyze the present. As I explained in my preceding article, an enterprise process framework (EPF) is a virtual picture of the basic process the organization must accomplish, including its high-level steps. Using an EPF as a guide, the discovery phase acts as a net to help you capture a variety of details, including:
- Timetables and timing options
- Required business capabilities
- Analysis of vendor applications and best-in-class processes
- Current processes, exceptions, and applications
Some of these details may be caught during the process management phase, but it's important to capture or transfer them in the discovery phase, too. This ensures that all the details are properly covered as you work through aspects of phase 2.
The first thing you'll do in phase 2 is draft a timetable and options roadmap. This helps you investigate all the options available to you for the timing of new processes and applications. The timetable depends upon you and your organization's goals: When do you want to complete the redesign? Does your company have a specific time frame? Are there competitive aspects to redesigning by a certain date? Do some applications have technical service agreements that are ending at a specific time? What corporate events (launch of a new Web site, for example) might impact a redesign?
When you're considering time frames, be sure to consider departmental factors as well. Sales, for example, may have an annual event for partners that can't be compromised by deployment of a new application at the same time. Or, perhaps sales wants the new process established before the big sales event, which could move up your deployment dates substantially. As you investigate your timing options, create a roadmap to help you--and others--visualize the time frame clearly. It can be simple or elaborate; the point is to highlight key events and activities that might impact any redesign timeline. Figure 2 shows an example of a very simple roadmap.
Figure 2. Sample roadmap
Required business capabilities
Another aspect of the discovery phase is the determination of required business capabilities. These should be based on your company's business model. For example, if your company has a transactional business model, which capabilities will best support that? Do you need more commerce capabilities? A better manufacturing to shipping process? Whatever the business model, it will require specific capabilities across the organization, and it will require integration of the applications providing the capabilities. The discovery phase is where you identify those capabilities, track them across departments, and build an inventory of the current applications that can meet the business requirements.
You need to be ruthless as you work on required business capabilities. This is the time to identify the capabilities that are no longer needed. You need to prioritize the capabilities that are needed and understand which capabilities are just nice to have. Plus, you need to weed out capabilities that are no longer necessary. Are there outdated capabilities that no longer support your company's business model, ones that have been bandaged over the years to perform? Maybe a certain department is hanging onto an application that won't meet new business requirements because the transfer of data would be a lengthy and painful course of action; in turn, they might have three extra processes in place to cover for the faulty application. You can't afford to let extra or broken processes and applications continue to hold down your organization, but that doesn't mean you can't help departments find strong replacements.
Analysis of vendor applications and best-in-class processes
A third aspect of the discovery phase is the analysis of vendor applications and other processes that can be used to provide business capabilities. While vendors will want to know all kinds of details about your organization before they provide a lot of detail about how their applications and processes can be of benefit, keep them at some distance for now. Otherwise, you'll find yourself wasting a lot of time talking with vendors who simply don't fit well with your organization. Instead, do cursory reviews of vendors by researching products on their Web sites, talking with others who have used the vendors, and digging up research from places like Forrester or Gartner.
The discovery phase also helps you identify the best-in-class processes that are appropriate for your organization. As you research vendors, you'll start to uncover the processes that other companies view as key to their success. Those processes are considered to be best in class. You want to use those whenever possible at your own organization. Don't be afraid to ask a lot of questions during this phase. You can't discover facts and potential problems unless you're willing to ask and learn from every person you talk with.
From there, you can derive a short list of vendors you really want to talk with--maybe five or so. Ask for a list of the capabilities each offers and compare that against your own required capabilities list. Then you can identify your top three choices and begin talks with each. They will come to your organization for presentations, participate in conference calls, and even offer you trials of their software so you can see how it might work in your environment.
If a vendor doesn't have every capability you need, don't panic. Often, vendors have backup options or can create a customized piece of software to meet your specific needs. Use caution here, however. Don't get caught up in a vendor's low cost. If a vendor can't provide your organization with most of what it needs without customization, you will wind up paying more in the long run.
Current processes, exceptions, and applications
Documentation of current processes and exceptions, along with an inventory of current applications, is typically gathered during the overall process management phase. However, you should carefully review both during the discovery phase. In this phase, you're looking at these items with the goal of simplifying processes, as well as simplifying and sunsetting applications.
After the entire discovery phase is complete, you're ready to move on to phase 3: assessment. Compared to discovery, the assessment phase is fairly simple and straightforward. This is the phase where you complete the prioritization of the capabilities your business needs and make a final determination of the improvements needed in the processes across your organization. The second piece of the assessment phase is selecting the best solution for the function and the enterprise. You can't do this assessment until you've analyzed the vendors, of course, so you can see how the assessment phase logically follows the discovery phase.
As you can see, the activities in the discovery phase are critical. Without them, you can't prioritize anything or make solutions decisions. But when you have a good understanding of the priority for the capabilities and improvements required, you can begin to redesign the full enterprise process and begin planning the enablement of the solutions you've selected. Those are the two key outcomes from the assessment phase.
Phase 4: Redesign and deployment
The final phase is that of redesign and deployment. While there are obviously dozens of details to consider when redesigning any process and deploying any application, there are three key elements in this phase:
- Ensuring enterprise linkage
- Adopting best-of-class processes
- Developing a detailed roadmap for conducting fit/gap analysis and solutions
Ensuring enterprise linkage during the redesign of your processes is absolutely critical for organizations in today's global economy. To compete effectively, every application and process must be linked for maximum efficiency. Marketing processes must link to sales processes, which must link to manufacturing and delivery processes, which must link to billing and commissions processes. All areas of your organization should be linked together with an integrated process design.
Adopting best-of-class processes
As you begin to incorporate solutions, watch for best-of-class processes and use those whenever possible. Don't be afraid to tell a vendor that you won't use a piece of their application because you found something better. Chances are it will kick that vendor into action to create a stronger process for you. It's rare that any single vendor can provide exactly what you need with a single application or suite of applications, but why shortchange your organization by allowing the perfect application to slip by? Include the items you feel are right for your organization and the ones that will help you compete most effectively.
Conducting fit/gap analysis and solutions
To enable your chosen solutions, you need to take a second look at the roadmap you created. Take it a step or two further and start dropping your chosen application solutions and related deployment timelines onto the roadmap. As you do, you can begin to conduct a fit/gap analysis. Do the solutions you've chosen really work for all departments? If not, where are the gaps? What solution can be used to fill in the gaps? Will deployment deadlines overlap any major events? If so, how will you ensure that critical systems and processes won't fail during those events?
It might seem redundant to conduct a fit/gap analysis after so much work has been done, but this step is literally the final piece in determining whether your proposed redesign will work. Resist the urge to skip it. If you need further guidance on this or other aspects of phased methodology, take a look at WebSphere Process Server.
Phased methodology can be used in any organization and at any level of process work. While it's particularly useful for handling large-scale process redesigns, it is also useful when working on a single process. With it, you can see the future with a balanced view by weighing your organization's desires against competitive realities. The phases discussed here are the most common used in business today, but don't be afraid to place additional phases in your process management foundation if you think it will help clarify the direction your organization should take. Step by step, you'll guide your company to become a highly effective, efficient, and competitive organization.
Learn
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Check out "Improving Business Performance Insight" (developerWorks, August 2006) for information about business intelligence and business process management.
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Read "How to jumpstart your process development effort using IBM Rational® Method Composer" (developerWorks, July 2006) to learn about starting a process development effort.
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To learn about business integration projects, read "Ground rules for managing business process integration projects" (developerWorks, July 2005).
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Explore the WebSphere Business Integration zone to get technical resources for WebSphere Business Integration products.
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Read "Exploring Business Process Management Systems and the impact of BPM on developers" (developerWorks, August 2006) to learn how business process management systems are changing the development process and the roles of the architect and developer.
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Learn more information about the WebSphere Business Integration suite of products.
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Get more information about WebSphere Process Server, including trial downloads.
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Visit New to WebSphere Business Integration
to learn about the IBM WebSphere Business Integration family of products.
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S. E. Slack is a freelance writer and author with more than 16 years of experience in business writing. She has also been an executive and business transformation communications consultant to IBM, Lenovo International, and State Farm Insurance Companies. She is currently writing CNET Do-It-Yourself Digital Home Office Projects: 24 Cool Things You Didn't Know You Could Do (McGraw-Hill) and is the author of six other books.
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