Would be Rush to Try to Improve "Orders-inspection-Shipping-Billing" from the Beginning?

It sure is the only way to maintain business competitiveness, that to continue improving business flows which leads to 'Sales' or 'Customer satisfaction'.

But it's not a good idea to start with 'Major business flow' from the beginning of business improvement activity. Because there are risks that would not reach to business flow improvement discussion, or worse, would not reach even to operation of the business flow. It's better to give a priority to make a simple business flow into actual operation.

* We call Workflow in present situation as 'As-Is-Flow', and a Workflow should be as 'To-Be-Flow'. Even an operation that you have believed very simple, you can't stop thinking about 'procedures and rules should be' once you start designing process.

Warming-up with 'General Purpose Request flow'

If you don't think up a non-major 'simple business flow', we suggest you 'General Purpose Request flow'.

1. Mr.A requests it.
2. Mr.B does it.
3. Mr.A checks it.

and that's it. Simple, isn't it? If those requests had been done by email, request them on the Workflow instead, so that supervisor can look over. (Visualizing the Requests)

If "translation requests" from departments appear again and again , then you should consider operating of "the common translation flow". Or, you could say if there seems to be appearing again and again "Web publishing request on Defect information", it is in need of developing "Web publication on Defect information flow" or "Defect information management flow".

Other cases: Request for checking the Agreement, Request for Password reissue, Request for checking the Bill, Request for writing business record.

* By the way, this 'General Purpose Request flow' is a very long life Workflow. The day it is no longer needed won't come so soon. Rather, it will survive until the day of 'finish to define all sorts of workflow'. "Atypical Workflow" would increase to suit changing business environment.

Clarify business sequences and regulations!

"I still can not memorize business rules… To be honest, I’m afraid that I won’t have memorized them even 5 years later."

Since business flow diagrams are displayed, everyone can easily understand the business flow. In addition, tasks can be completed by simply entering artifacts based on directions displayed on the screen, so even newcomers are quickly oriented to the business.

Always grasp your to do list.

"I’ve got tons of task offers by Email. But, weirdly, I’m pretty sure that I haven’t replied to all of them."

Everyone can clearly see the tasks allocated to him/her. In addition, tasks offered to the entire team can also be managed, which enables appropriate responses.

Clarify each employee's performance.

"I am wondering what the supervisors evaluate in an achievement-oriented system… Maybe it’s OK if I can make a big one."

The number of business processes processed can be clearly reported on a monthly or weekly basis. By quantitatively checking achievements of colleagues and distant workers, everyone is encouraged to try to improve by learning from others.

Look over past data

"If I could divert the senior worker’s proposal to mine, my work would be done easily. But, I can’t find him and his files anywhere."

Artifacts of the processes are centrally managed. Thus, everyone can easily access the artifacts of projects completed in the past.

Setting 'Improvement Targets' is a Must

When You become able to operate a simple Workflow, the next is 'Improvement Cycle'.

Even in simple Workflows such as "Advance Money Settlement flow" and "Password Re-issued and Temporary Password Change Confirmation flow", there should be idea for improving 'number of rework cases' or 'average completion time'. Let the Workflow advance to easier to use.

• Indicate 'Easy example of Input' on Input Screen.
• Reduce the approval steps if they meet certain conditions.
• Change some processing (Task) to be processed concurrent.
• Change the rule as to set deadline on processes (Tasks) which tends to delay,etc.

In addition, if even though the Workflow itself is improved, but still the bottle neck wouldn't be improved, you should consider increasing the number of business personnel (task processing person).

It would be difficult to capture the causal relationship between 1. each employee has been improved their "business skills" and 2. the workflow itself has been improved to "something easy to use". However, the aggregate value of when increased the statistical parameter, should be strongly correlated to the "ease of use of workflow".

Techniques of Workflow Definition

Even though you understand the concepts and the need of Workflow improvement (BPM), it is not easy to actually define business processes. Moreover, they are front-line workers and managers who really recognize 'daily business flow' and 'business flow that need to be improved', never outside consultants. Here, we are going to organize a basic knowledge of "to be able to read the business processes" or "to become to be able to define business processes".

Applying a lot to "Complaint Handling" and "Quote process"

Here are the concrete design examples of business processes. All the Business Template listed in examples can be imported and used in Questetra BPM Suite.

Templates  (400+)