Automating processes through business process management (BPM) solutions is not where the benefits of the solution end. Because the processes people use internally change rapidly, the BPM solution should adapt its processes accordingly. The ability of the BPM solution to adapt to the ever-changing environment within organizations provides the advantage of delivering increased productivity, and faster cycle times with fewer errors.
BPM solutions generally follow one of two approaches: human-centric, or system-intensive. BPM suites that have to deal with changing processes and work habits are often solutions that have high human-centric involvement. Human-centric BPM involves work done by people while interacting heavily with underlying databases, business applications, and documents. Human-centric systems thus focus on processes such as claims processing, mortgage approvals, and customer service. System-intensive processes, on the other hand, often involve high-volume, repetitive transactions which require no or minimal human interaction. These transactions take place between different applications. This article focuses on the human-centric BPM solution, and how it adapts to process changes.
Automating Processes
Automated processes represent the first step within BPM, and provide the primary business cost savings. The initial legwork captures and documents the inputs and outputs of the current workflows within the organization. After documenting the processes, organizations should analyze the processes to determine which should be eliminated, which should be automated as is, and which should be reengineered to improve processes and workflows within the organization.
Describing the processes in detail, rather than automating them, is the challenge. Discovering all the rules, flows, and exceptions takes a long time and much effort, resulting in delays to deployment. Even though the automation aspect is not trivial, once the processes are defined (together with the rules, roles, events, conditions, and scenarios), process automation is relatively straightforward. The difficulty comes afterwards, when the solution becomes part of the organization's culture and its people's habits. Processes need the ability to adapt to change, so in order for a BPM solution to fulfill these requirements, it should incorporate flexible out-of-the-box functionality that responds to business agility and environmental changes.
Automating processes often requires programming skills. BPM solutions already have built-in, out-of-the-box functions and features that enable the automation of processes, and these simple workflows require minimal technical skills, which enables business analysts to create workflows without interference of information technology (IT) departments. This results in accelerated deployment within the organizations.
Figure 1 shows how BPM reduces inefficiency and business costs, resulting in savings. The vertical axis shows the cost of doing business, and the horizontal axis represents time. Initially the business cost is high, but after the automation process and the deployment of these processes, the business costs will drop significantly, due to better process efficiency, which in turn will result in direct savings.
Figure 1.
Source: Ultimus Inc.
There are complex processes that take more time to develop, to optimize, and to execute within the organization. A longer development time for complex processes, and the "analysis paralysis" of the long discovery period will lead to slow deployment of these specific processes within the organization, resulting in a longer adaptation phase and a longer time frame before the savings are realized, as figure 2 demonstrates.
Figure 2.
Source: Ultimus Inc.
What happens after the deployment when the processes are in place and the BPM solution is implemented? While BPM deployments typically take less than six months, the life cycle of the BPM solution after deployment will be much longer. Organizations will need to see how actual users will adapt to these changes, so the time after deployment becomes a significant element of the BPM life cycle.
Adoption
The deployment of a new solution within an organization to optimize processes, increase efficiency, and reduce costs sounds simple enough. Unfortunately, this doesn't always reflect the reality. The human part of the processes is extremely important in the phase after the deployment, as the actual people executing the tasks have to use the new way of working, by adapting to the solution and the workflow. Workflows should reflect natural ways of performing tasks, to make sure employees actually use them. Otherwise, the results are workarounds, poor execution, and low adoption rates for the BPM solution (this is represented in figure 3).
Figure 3.
Source: Ultimus Inc.
Adaptation Organizations want to accelerate the deployment and adaptation of automated business processes. The challenge is that processes within an organization change frequently. As soon as a process is deployed, people will change the process, enhance the process, or overcome exceptions to the processes as found. Consequently, BPM systems need to be highly adaptable. Systems should be able to meet the changing demands of the business. Otherwise, employees will be forced to work around the system. Users often will develop workarounds of the automated process to meet their needs, or even will revert back to their old way of executing the tasks, resulting in poor adaptation of the processes, thereby diminishing the potential savings. Figure 4 illustrates the effects of poor adaptation.
Figure 4.
Source: Ultimus Inc.
About Ultimus
Ultimus, headquartered in Cary, North Carolina (US), is a leader in adaptive discovery for BPM solutions. Indeed, Ultimus has developed a patented technology called Adaptive Discovery. This technology simplifies the discovery effort, shortens deployment cycles, and enables process changes to be implemented quickly and easily. Adaptive discovery shortens the effort required to deploy a successful BPM solution by continuously improving and adapting processes.
Ultimus started with a workflow module, but has created broader functionality than other companies such as Lotus Software, and offers small businesses (and even large enterprises) an organization-wide automated workflow solution. Founded in 1994, Ultimus has grown from a workflow solution into a comprehensive BPM suite. It has created its solution completely on a .NET environment, and is one of the leaders in .NET BPM solutions.
Ultimus' worldwide business operations consist of a network of more than 85 partners in 60 countries, with over 1,500 customers. Its solution is localized in twenty languages, with local offices all over the world, and a 24x7 support group is available. With its solution, Ultimus is the only BPM solution provider with a human-centric focus tackling both the automation and the adaptation cycle.
The Adaptive Discovery technology helps discover when a change occurs within a certain business process. This is the most important part of the adaptive discovery process.
The Ultimus BPM Suite is a mature seventh-generation enterprise-class application. The Suite provides an easy-to-use collaborative environment that includes all components of BPM (see Business Process Management: How to Orchestrate Your Business). Ultimus has architected the product to add value across the entire BPM life cycle, to enable rapid automation and integration, as well as innovative adaptive technologies that ensure it can readily adapt to change.
The Ultimus BPM Suite features Ultimus Process Designer for modeling and design, Ultimus BPM Studio for development and automation, Ultimus Director for adaptive rules management, Ultimus Administrator, and Ultimus Reports. Ultimus worked hard to create a distinctive value proposition with its Adaptive Discovery, but now it will need to work on its marketing to sell this value.
SOURCE:-
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/delivering-adaptive-discovery-for-business-process-management-18762/
BPM solutions generally follow one of two approaches: human-centric, or system-intensive. BPM suites that have to deal with changing processes and work habits are often solutions that have high human-centric involvement. Human-centric BPM involves work done by people while interacting heavily with underlying databases, business applications, and documents. Human-centric systems thus focus on processes such as claims processing, mortgage approvals, and customer service. System-intensive processes, on the other hand, often involve high-volume, repetitive transactions which require no or minimal human interaction. These transactions take place between different applications. This article focuses on the human-centric BPM solution, and how it adapts to process changes.
Automating Processes
Automated processes represent the first step within BPM, and provide the primary business cost savings. The initial legwork captures and documents the inputs and outputs of the current workflows within the organization. After documenting the processes, organizations should analyze the processes to determine which should be eliminated, which should be automated as is, and which should be reengineered to improve processes and workflows within the organization.
Describing the processes in detail, rather than automating them, is the challenge. Discovering all the rules, flows, and exceptions takes a long time and much effort, resulting in delays to deployment. Even though the automation aspect is not trivial, once the processes are defined (together with the rules, roles, events, conditions, and scenarios), process automation is relatively straightforward. The difficulty comes afterwards, when the solution becomes part of the organization's culture and its people's habits. Processes need the ability to adapt to change, so in order for a BPM solution to fulfill these requirements, it should incorporate flexible out-of-the-box functionality that responds to business agility and environmental changes.
Automating processes often requires programming skills. BPM solutions already have built-in, out-of-the-box functions and features that enable the automation of processes, and these simple workflows require minimal technical skills, which enables business analysts to create workflows without interference of information technology (IT) departments. This results in accelerated deployment within the organizations.
Figure 1 shows how BPM reduces inefficiency and business costs, resulting in savings. The vertical axis shows the cost of doing business, and the horizontal axis represents time. Initially the business cost is high, but after the automation process and the deployment of these processes, the business costs will drop significantly, due to better process efficiency, which in turn will result in direct savings.
Figure 1.
Source: Ultimus Inc.
There are complex processes that take more time to develop, to optimize, and to execute within the organization. A longer development time for complex processes, and the "analysis paralysis" of the long discovery period will lead to slow deployment of these specific processes within the organization, resulting in a longer adaptation phase and a longer time frame before the savings are realized, as figure 2 demonstrates.
Figure 2.
Source: Ultimus Inc.
What happens after the deployment when the processes are in place and the BPM solution is implemented? While BPM deployments typically take less than six months, the life cycle of the BPM solution after deployment will be much longer. Organizations will need to see how actual users will adapt to these changes, so the time after deployment becomes a significant element of the BPM life cycle.
Adoption
The deployment of a new solution within an organization to optimize processes, increase efficiency, and reduce costs sounds simple enough. Unfortunately, this doesn't always reflect the reality. The human part of the processes is extremely important in the phase after the deployment, as the actual people executing the tasks have to use the new way of working, by adapting to the solution and the workflow. Workflows should reflect natural ways of performing tasks, to make sure employees actually use them. Otherwise, the results are workarounds, poor execution, and low adoption rates for the BPM solution (this is represented in figure 3).
Figure 3.
Source: Ultimus Inc.
Adaptation Organizations want to accelerate the deployment and adaptation of automated business processes. The challenge is that processes within an organization change frequently. As soon as a process is deployed, people will change the process, enhance the process, or overcome exceptions to the processes as found. Consequently, BPM systems need to be highly adaptable. Systems should be able to meet the changing demands of the business. Otherwise, employees will be forced to work around the system. Users often will develop workarounds of the automated process to meet their needs, or even will revert back to their old way of executing the tasks, resulting in poor adaptation of the processes, thereby diminishing the potential savings. Figure 4 illustrates the effects of poor adaptation.
Figure 4.
Source: Ultimus Inc.
About Ultimus
Ultimus, headquartered in Cary, North Carolina (US), is a leader in adaptive discovery for BPM solutions. Indeed, Ultimus has developed a patented technology called Adaptive Discovery. This technology simplifies the discovery effort, shortens deployment cycles, and enables process changes to be implemented quickly and easily. Adaptive discovery shortens the effort required to deploy a successful BPM solution by continuously improving and adapting processes.
Ultimus started with a workflow module, but has created broader functionality than other companies such as Lotus Software, and offers small businesses (and even large enterprises) an organization-wide automated workflow solution. Founded in 1994, Ultimus has grown from a workflow solution into a comprehensive BPM suite. It has created its solution completely on a .NET environment, and is one of the leaders in .NET BPM solutions.
Ultimus' worldwide business operations consist of a network of more than 85 partners in 60 countries, with over 1,500 customers. Its solution is localized in twenty languages, with local offices all over the world, and a 24x7 support group is available. With its solution, Ultimus is the only BPM solution provider with a human-centric focus tackling both the automation and the adaptation cycle.
The Adaptive Discovery technology helps discover when a change occurs within a certain business process. This is the most important part of the adaptive discovery process.
The Ultimus BPM Suite is a mature seventh-generation enterprise-class application. The Suite provides an easy-to-use collaborative environment that includes all components of BPM (see Business Process Management: How to Orchestrate Your Business). Ultimus has architected the product to add value across the entire BPM life cycle, to enable rapid automation and integration, as well as innovative adaptive technologies that ensure it can readily adapt to change.
The Ultimus BPM Suite features Ultimus Process Designer for modeling and design, Ultimus BPM Studio for development and automation, Ultimus Director for adaptive rules management, Ultimus Administrator, and Ultimus Reports. Ultimus worked hard to create a distinctive value proposition with its Adaptive Discovery, but now it will need to work on its marketing to sell this value.
SOURCE:-
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/delivering-adaptive-discovery-for-business-process-management-18762/
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