#automatedbpm

Just as early attempts at assembly line manufacturing predate Fordism by over 100 years, so too there have been attempts at implementing automated Business Process Management systems since the early days of networked computers. These attempts were necessarily hampered by the limitations of early computer networks, the lack of a standardized means to outline business processes and the need for open source software in which the groundwork had already been laid. Today these pre-requisite technologies are in place and, as a result, in recent years automated Business Process Management has become not only a realistic option for many companies but increasingly it has become required in order to remain competitive. The advantages of a well-engineered automated BPM solution are many, resulting in greater efficiency and freeing management from day to day monitoring of work flow and thereby allowing managers to focus on those areas which will serve to increase productivity and profitability. Before automated BPM, management was required to spend the majority of their time monitoring workflow – the simple day-to-day tasks which each department needed to complete in order to keep a company functioning at a basic level. This of course meant there was very little time left over to focus on strategy and growth, to assist in addressing unexpected problems that might be encountered by employees in the course of doing their daily tasks, and perhaps most importantly, to simply think about the bigger picture; to engage in the kind of top-down analysis that leads to innovation. Instead managers spend time monitoring each employee, checking in to see that required tasks are being completed in a timely manner so that other employees farther down the task chain can do their jobs, and so on in a never-ending circle. Now imagine that same manager able to simply check an on-screen checklist, often from anywhere – the office, home, or on the road – and see at a glance what tasks have been completed by each employee, see where a bottleneck in workflow may be forming, or even assign priorities to pending tasks. The same system will notify each employee, automatically, when a pre-requisite task by another employee in the chain has been completed and flag a new task ‘pending’ as a result, then monitor that task in turn and notify yet another employee, and management, when the task has been completed and so on in a never-ending circle – all without the manager ever needing to step outside their office, send an email or pick up the phone. Another obvious advantage of this technology is the ability to make an organization ‘leaner’, especially those companies that are very task heavy and that, as a result, have traditionally required mid-level managers whose sole purpose is to monitor daily workflow. Some of these positions can now be eliminated as the automated BPM system will replace them with a more efficient and tireless ‘virtual manager’. This not only saves the company money but has the potential to remove levels of obfuscation that make it difficult for upper management to see where an organization may have room for improvement or innovation. In addition, many companies have compliance requirements which must be adhered to. A well implemented automated BPM solution will control workflow ensuring that all required tasks are not only completed but completed in time, while ensuring that any associated or pre-requisite tasks are also completed and while simultaneously keeping a record of these tasks. A system such as this will greatly reduce the likelihood of a company unintentionally violating compliance regulations.

Business Process Model and Notation is quite simply a method of flowcharting any business process in a manner which is largely intuitive and which bridges the communication gap between the employees within an organization, including management, and the programmers who must implement the automated Business Process Management system. The actual creation of the BPMN flowcharts and the accompanying notes require a specialized skill set provided by Business Analysts/Technical Writers who interview Subject Matter Experts within an organization, distill the resulting information to discover the exact processes which are required to complete the organization’s objectives and then create flowcharts using standardized symbols. These flowcharts and notes are then handed off to the programmers and are also used in most cases to create Operations and Procedures Manuals for the company itself. These manuals not only serve as a handy reference for existing employees but also serve to speed training of new employees, although these benefits are corollary to the main purpose of enabling the implementation of an automated BPM solution in an efficient manner. Business Process Model and Notation 2.0 is, as previously mentioned, largely intuitive once the basic concepts have been explained. The concepts are themselves quite simple and straightforward. There are three basic types of flowchart symbols used: rectangles which represent Tasks, diamonds which represent Decisions (or ‘Gateways’ in programming parlance) and circles which represent Events. Once a clear understanding of the differences between each of these three concepts has been gained a well prepared BPMN flowchart will enable anyone with the pre-requisite knowledge of their industry to see and understand a given business process. Events are things which ‘happen’, such as a phone call from a customer, an email from a business partner or other employee, or a cheque arriving in the mail. ‘Open’ or ‘Catch’ events always begin a process, that is, there is always an event which triggers a chain of tasks and decisions. There are also ‘Close’ events which end a process, ‘Intermediate’ or ‘Throw’ events which move the flow to another process or sub-process, ‘Timed’ events, ‘Message’ events and several other types as well, however it is only necessary to understand that these are things which ‘happen’, not things which are ‘done’ and in fact the sub-types of events are often used at the discretion of the Business Analyst and usually only where their use will serve to clarify, rather than complicate, the BPMN flowchart. Tasks are things which are ‘done’, such as a sales rep completing an order form, an email being sent or a cheque being deposited. Just as with events, there are different types of tasks but it is only necessary to understand that these are things which require an employee or a computer to do a certain thing. It is similarly important to know that tasks can be automated and that what is a task for one person or department may be an event for another. Finally, there are ‘decisions’ which are somewhat self-explanatory beyond understanding that decisions are not themselves tasks. Decisions come out of tasks. For example, a sales rep may complete the task of speaking with a customer to determine which options the customer would like. On the flowchart, this task will be represented as a rectangle with the subsequent options flowcharted as decisions (diamonds) following that task, either in sequence or in parallel. In programming parlance, BPMN ‘decisions’ are often referred to as ‘gateways’, simply because they control the logic flow within the automated BPM solution in the same way that, for example, electrical relays control the flow of power within a wiring network. Decisions can be exclusive, that is, only one path out of two or more may be taken, or they may be inclusive, allowing several paths to be followed simultaneously. There are also ‘complex’ decisions which may be dependent upon conditional logic to determine the path taken. Once again, just as with tasks and events, detailed decision or gateway symbols will be used only to clarify in cases where the generic symbol may lead to confusion.