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Business Process Management: A Rigorous Approach
Businesses need to adapt constantly in order to remain competitive, but are often held back by static IT systems that aren't designed to change with the business. The challenge is to create systems that can. Business process management (BPM) is an important emerging technology that overcomes this problem. With the advent of the technology, new methods
are required to exploit it effectively. Riva is a pioneering method addressing the major emerging technology of Business Process Management that is business-focused. It is a method for designing, modelling, analysing and recording business processes. It is about modelling organisational behaviour in a way that is revealing and communicative, showing exactly what processes there are and how they interact. The architecture is derived from an understanding of what business the organisation is in, rather than its current structure or culture. Once the architecture is understood, it becomes apparent what is required from the IT systems supporting these processes The sorts of process models that Riva generates are designed to be of real practical use in a number of BPM situations, whether that's the reengineering or re-design of business processes and operations in a radical change or for improvement in an incremental change or somewhere in-between. The methods described in Business Process Management: a Rigorous Approach work on a business level, but they are IT-orientated, making it essential reading for both IT people involved in understanding business processes as a first step in developing requirement for IS (Information Systems) and BPM solutions, and for business-focused people involved in requirements definition, or engaged in process improvement or process design work. Business Process Management: a Rigorous Approach is an in-depth practical guide divided up into two parts. The first builds up the theory, with lots of examples from real life, while the second puts the theory into action, showing use in process discovery and definition, diagnosis and improvement, design, support and enactment. What makes this book different: Business Process Management: a Rigorous Approach helps those who want to improve, or design new business processes or organisational structures, to identify IT solutions, especially those involving BPM systems, workflow or document management and who are preparing process definitions intended for a Quality Management System. With its roots in business theory, rather than software development, the Riva method has gained a reputation for addressing the business aspects of processes in a way that is accessible by the everyday user, whilst giving the analyst powerful tools for process understanding, diagnosis and design. Riva is a pioneering method addressing the major emerging technology of Business Process Management. Riva addresses current industry concerns over the quality of support given by IT systems to a business and the recognised need to be able to represent and think about business processes in a rigorous fashion. Concern about business processes has become more prevalent in the wake of increased interest in BPR, TQM (Total Quality Management) ISO 9001, and enabling technologies such as ERP and workflow management.
Contents:
Part 1 - Underlying Theory 1
Basic process concepts Which things do we model and which do we leave out? What are the features of real-world processes that we want to reflect in process models? 2
Modelling a process Provides all the 'vocabulary' necessary to represent a single process in a Role Activity Diagram (RAD)
3
Dynamism in the process Highlights the levels of in-process concurrency that can be captured in a RAD
4
Process relationships Examines the types of dynamic relationship that processes can have and illustrates how we represent them on RADs
5
The three basic process types Describes the three main types of process - case process, case management, and the case strategy process
6
Preparing a process architecture Describes how to construct the process architecture of an organisation, a concept of central importance for reengineering, for overall process design and for steering process initiatives
7
Dynamism in the world Shows how the process architecture captures all the between-process concurrency in the world
Part 2 - Putting theory into practice 8
Managing the modelling Provides guidance on running a process workshop and conducting interviews in order to prepare a model of a process, for whatever reason
9
Discovering & defining processes The practical use of the approach in determining what processes an organisation has, in eliciting those processes (onto RADs) and in the use of RADs in Quality Management Systems, tying into ISO 9001
10
Analysing for process improvement Covers using the approach at both the architectural and the process level for asking questions about processes and their performance and for driving tactical process improvement
11
Designing a process The design of a new process architecture and new processes starting from a blank sheet of paper
12
Processes and information systems The role of the approach in constructing an IT strategy for an organization and in the design of traditional information systems
13
Processes and process systems Covers the role of the approach in developing Business Process Management systems in which agile and mobile processes replace static data structures.
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