APM Global Tasks
Analysis Process Model provides initial business specification of the processes that underpin the initial determination of the optimum process to follow from a business perspective
Activities and Tasks
One of the core elements of a business process is called an activity or task. There are approximately 2800 predefined tasks in the Banking Process Model solution set.
A task is defined as an action performed by the financial institution to satisfy a business requirement.
An XMaps is a special type of task whose purpose is to transform data from one representation to another representation.
This will be of interest to those organizations looking to define design level processes. The standard definition of an 'XMaps' is as follows:
“To Map a Business Item from one type to another type, to convert, extract or transform information from one type or format into another.
It transforms the data into the appropriate format for the task which follows it.”
Where possible, it is recommended that a task should have the same I/O data regardless of the context the tasks operates. Based on this rule, processes may need to transform data types between tasks.
In the following example, task 1 contains “Arrangement Details” as an output. In the same example, Task 3 needs “Involved Party Identifier” as an input.
Because Involved Party is part of Arrangement Details, we can use an “XMap” to transform “Arrangement Details” into “Involved Part Identifier”.
Task Reuse
When attempting to identify reuse across multiple business processes it is not sufficient to rely on a given named element occurring in multiple flows.
Definitions must be precise and detailed enough to identify that the recurring activity is actually the same pattern. If definitions are not sufficiently detailed, the actual intent of an activity becomes ambiguous, and that activity can be reused across multiple processes, with subtle changes in business meaning in each context. This is not reuse of an activity, it is a ‘false' reuse caused by poor activity definitions. Similarly, looking at the informational requirements (inputs and outputs) and resultant end event across multiple business processes should give a consistent picture of an activity, not one that is tightly bound to its business context.
When analyzing the informational flows for a business activity, a further check on the reusability of an activity occurs. Although an activity may, at the level of a business definition, seem reusable, analysis of the information that flows into and out of this activity will often highlight that fundamentally different business behavior is involved. In these cases, the activity should be separated into several distinct activities.
Each activity within the scoped process template should be challenged for its applicability and validity to the organization and specifically the project under analysis. This will result in the addition of new tasks/activities and the removal of unnecessary existing activities from the process.