Business process modelling

A word or two about business process modelling

Business process modelling is a methodology for the visual representation of business processes at work in a given organisation. Alongside business process definition, modelling has now emerged as a key element of business process management. 

The concept is used to determine the current state of business processes in order to enhance them and design better process solutions. 

To create such models, companies often rely on the BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) standard, which allows them to represent processes through block diagrams that are easy to understand both for IT professionals and managers. 

Business process modelling is employed not just in traditional enterprises but also in all sorts of other organisations, such as government agencies. Its main goal is to improve business outcomes by optimising the delivery of products and services. 

Business process modelling techniques focus on sequence flows and flow maps to better understand, analyse and optimise your processes. It is worth adding that business process modelling applies to many different aspects; to improve them, you need to adapt your methods accordingly. 

Why do you need business process modeling?

Business processes should be implemented in a way that is easy to understand for everyone involved. To make sure it is, you can rely on dedicated tools based on a uniform standard.

One of the most popular standards of this kind today is Camunda, which we have already covered in detail in another article: 5 things you need to know about Camunda 8

Business process modelling notation

In such tools, BPMN is the most frequent notation; it has almost completely edged out other standards, such as, e.g., EPC (Event-driven Process Chain). Business process descriptions in BPMN are highly intelligible and at the same technically advanced. This is important because your process models are going to be used by employees without a good grasp of technology, but also by business analysts, testers or developers.

More and more organisations today want to put their resources and IT systems to the best possible use and business process modelling allows them to bring all those elements together in one place. The better you are at doing this, the further ahead you can get of your competition. Today, what you have matters less than what you can do with it. Business process modelling is a very difficult process that requires a continual optimisation analysis over time.

What is a process-based approach?

Business organisations that support entrepreneurs who create new products and services are growing at a very fast rate; it is important to make sure all new goods are manufactured in a way that guarantees high quality and customer satisfaction.

To this end, companies often work within a process-based approach, creating models to improve existing business processes. This strategy is dictated by rapid changes within them and their consequences.

Business process modelling should focus on those operations where it will generate additional profits and where the employees can be expected to adhere to the process. Organisations work well when people understand the processes and their successive stages. To create enduring value, they need to create positive value not just for customers, but also for employees.

There are two main types of business process models:

• AS-IS model (current situation)
• TO-BE model (target situation)

Both models are used for analysing, testing, deploying and enhancing processes. Modelling aims to visualise the whole process end-to-end, so as to streamline it effectively and enable managers, consultants and other employees to provide better services and products.

The outcomes of business process modelling include:

• a greater value for the customer
• lower costs for the company
• greater profits for the company

What is a process model?

A business process model is a diagram that illustrates a sequence of actions (process steps). Usually, it is used to visualise events, activities and the connections between them. This sequence flow is very important for most aspects of business process modelling.

A model covers all processes, which can be divided into three groups: management processes (e.g. company management); operational processes (e.g. sales); and auxiliary processes (e.g. technical support), and focuses primarily on available resources and the roles of all individual actors in the process, especially whenever many possible variations may exist.

An example of a simple business process model:

A business process model is also a key to many other interrelated activities. Process design and deployment is very time-consuming. It may take months, or even years, depending on the complexity of the processes in question, the number of people and systems involved and the number of changes that need to be introduced into the model.

As the project progresses, the company will also undergo many changes of its own, which means the model must be flexible enough to allow for such changes to be easily implemented.

The main stages of model design:

• identifying the current process (AS-IS) or the baseline model;
• evaluating, analysing and updating the existing process model;
• designing the target model (TO-BE);
• testing and deploying the model;
• upgrading and improving the model on an ongoing basis.

Business process modelling: creating a simple model

Creating a simple business process model in the initial (AS-IS) phase will give you a general idea of how the process works at present. At this stage, you can identify its weaknesses (structural, organisational, technological) and “bottlenecks”.

Before you start building the model, you need to know the following:

• the expected outcome of the process;
• the start point and the end point (customer needs and objectives);
• activities performed in the process;
• the workflow sequence;
• the people assigned to specific tasks;
• the documents and forms used and exchanged between events.

Creating your first business process model will involve positioning and rearranging events and activities. You need to make sure that the method you have chosen is flexible enough and easy to modify. At first, it makes sense do draw a simple diagram of the process on a piece of paper or a board so that anyone involved can look at it at any moment. Once you have all agreed on a version, you can change your diagram into a block diagram using a specialised tool.

Business processes modelling step by step

Once you have already created your first business process model, you might want to meet up with its users and carry out observations of each step. This will help you update the process, adding activities you missed or removing those you don’t really need. It is very important to choose the right notation symbols for your model.

Organisations may develop their own notation systems or use notations included in their software, but whichever tool you use, you should always make sure its symbols are understood throughout your organisation.

One business process modelling technique is BPMN. It is a visual representation of business processes through standard objects.

BPMN consists of the following basic elements:

flow objects: events (circles), activities (rectangles), decision gateways (diamonds)

connecting objects: sequence flows (bold arrows), message flows (dotted arrows)

pools and lanes (pool division)

artifacts (data objects, groups, annotations)

When you rely on this technique to create your model, you will have a separate library of objects and ready-made templates that you can use. The greatest advantage of the BPMN standard is its clear syntax; it is already familiar to many business analysts, which significantly improves cooperation. Models that were designed with the use of BPMN-based tools are also easier to edit in other types of software. All this makes the BPMN a very popular business process modelling technique today.

Business process modelling: regular analysis

Business process analysis is the next step you need to face in the modelling process. Depending on your project size and complexity, you can progress through these stages quickly or slowly. However, to get the expected results, you should not skip any steps.

The first step in business process analysis is to get a big picture of the project. Analysts often struggle with many uncertainties, and it is their job to clear up problematic issues, requirements and business goals. Business processes keep evolving and new business needs continue to crop up.

A regular process analysis may improve both your efficiency and your outcomes.

A business process involves activities that your employees carry out every day en route to a specific objective. Getting to know the sequence flow end-to-end allows you to understand the reason for the process. The next step in the analysis will be to draw up a list of all essential business processes.

Analysing them may be the key tool to improving their effectiveness. To find out whether the process is ineffective, you need to analyse its input and output.

A good process should have a clearly defined input: resources, equipment and a clearly defined output, such as a product or service. If a process is very cost-intensive, this may be a sign it needs optimising.

Business process modelling: bottlenecks

During business analysis, you will often come up against so-called “bottlenecks”. A bottleneck is the slowest task in the process, which affects its overall efficiency. The lower the efficiency, the longer the process cycle.

Identifying bottlenecks is a key element in business process analysis. It gives you information about your process capacity and creates an opportunity to improve the weak points. Unfortunately, the phenomenon cannot be eliminated entirely.

Eliminating one weak point will mean another task will become the next bottleneck, giving you an opportunity to improve your business process yet again.

When a task that occurs right after a step that was described as a “bottleneck” is performed much faster, you can tell that the phenomenon has a significant impact on the efficiency of the entire process.

The next step is to identify the critical process path, i.e., the sequence flow that takes the longest time to complete.

Once you have identified it, you will be able to identify critical activities at the highest risk of delays. With this information in hand, you can set about optimising your processes.

Business process modelling tools

You can now proceed to deploy business processes in your company with Digital Product Center, an advanced tool for business process automation and management.

Conclusion

In order to create business process models, you need to be familiar with the relevant notation system and know how to use it. There are several approaches to business process modelling, but some elements should never be skipped because an element you skipped may turn out to lower the effectiveness of your process as a whole.

When modelling processes, you also need to pay close attention to bottlenecks and try to reduce their impact through detailed process analysis.

I hope that this article has answered some of your questions about business process modelling. Business process modelling is a prerequisite for tapping the full potential of digital transformation, which has opened up many opportunities for better process management.