Model business processes and related attributes

Viewing a process Websphere Business Modeler v6.1

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IBM Certification Test 992.2 - Modeling

 

1. How to model business processes and related attributes
   1. ReadMe First
   2. Review and document the current business process
   3. How to model business processes and related attributes
   4. Related links

 

How to model business processes and related attributes

Processes are representations of real-time business procedures that are composed of the following:

• Individual steps or activities
• The conditions that dictate when these steps and activities occur
• The resources required for the performance or execution of these steps and activities

 

A business process model is a visual/graphical representation of an actual business process that contains supporting information. To create effective models, you must have a well-designed modeling structure that ensures consistent and complete representation of relevant information, including normal operations as well as alternatives and exceptions to standard procedures.

ReadMe First

A business process model that you produce is only as good as your understanding of the actual business process itself. So before you model a business process you should first thouroughly learn and understand the actual business process itself.

 

Review the following links to gain an understanding of preliminary activities you should do before modeling a business process:

• Building process models
  There is a difference between simply modeling a process flow and actually capturing the business process. The latter requires that the analyst record all the key aspects of the process, including:
  • What is the process flow ?
  • What are the resources used in the process?
  • What business items are acted upon by the process?
  • What organizations and locations are involved?
• Developing a business process management solution
  The development of a solution to improve your business processes, manage them, and facilitate innovation frequently starts with process modeling. This scenario describes the steps involved in an enterprise-level project in which you accelerate the deployment of a business process management solution by modeling your processes for implementation and monitoring.
• Documenting business processes using WebSphere Business Modeler Basic
  With IBM® WebSphere® Business Modeler, you can document business processes in a way that conforms to recognized standards and gives you an in-depth view of your processes. This scenario describes a small documentation project with no currently planned IT implementation.
• ABC Company sample documentation project

  The ABC project sample is an example of a modeling effort by the ABC Company to document their customer order handling process for their telephone ordering system. This topic describes the steps that the business analyst followed to model the resources, business items, and activities involved in the process.
• Modeling your business processes

  Based on the requirements that were gathered, the business analyst creates process diagrams and associates the relevant business item, resource, and organization models with the task flow. Because developing business process models is iterative, the business analyst usually reviews draft models with subject matter experts (SMEs). 
• Modeling your own process

  In just a few steps, you can start modeling your own processes.
• Process editor

  The Process editor is a feature you use to graphically compose the details of a process flow.
• Viewing a process

  You can take a closer look at one of the processes of ABC Project.
• Below are examples of business process models created using IBM Websphere business modeler:
  • Example 1 (click to enlarge image)
     
       
  • Example 2 (click to enlarge image)
     

Review and document the current business process

You must investigate and fully document the current business process. By reviewing available data reports and interviewing each employee involved in the process, you can gain an understanding of how the process currently works, and where the problem areas lie. For example, you must monitor each stage of the process, observing the employees' interaction with customers, and the progress of orders through the complete order handling process.

You have to focus on recording all key aspects of the process:

• What work is being done? (What is the process flow and the main tasks/activities ?)
• Who or what is doing the work? (What are the resources used in the process?)
• What is the input/output of the work? (What are the business items acted on by the process?)
• Where is the work done and how is it organized? (What organizations and locations are involved?)

As you study the process and gather your data, record the following items:

• Main process tasks
• Descriptions of each task
• Data required for each task, including the inputs and outputs of each task
• Possible alternative tasks
• Roles and resources associated with each task

After you have gathered sufficient data, record the findings and map out a rough flow diagram of the current process. Make note of the output at each stage of the process, indicating stages where there is more than one possible outcome. List all of the activities, resources, roles, and business items involved in the process.

How to model business processes and related attributes

After reviewing and documenting the current business process (see above), you are ready to model it.

 

The task of modeling a process consists of defining the details of a business process flow, and modeling all the data, resources, and other elements that are used by the flow.

Modeling a business process consists of modeling the following:

• Modeling the Process flows (What work is being done?)
  WebSphere Business Modeler facilitates the creation of visually composed business process models by dragging elements you need into a process flow diagram. A process flow is described as a sequence of tasks and decision elements with multiple branches, linked by connectors. A process can also contain subprocesses.
• Modeling the Resources (Who or what is doing the work?)
  Using WebSphere Business Modeler, you can model each of your company's resources, such as employees, computers, vehicles, or electricity. Any person, equipment, or material used to perform a task or a project can be represented and used in your process models. Depending on the level of complexity you require in your process models, you can also specify roles, costs, and timetables for your resources.
• Modeling the Business items (What is the input/output of the work?)
  Process models can include any business document, work product, or commodity that is used for a particular business operation. You can model as a business item anything that is created, assembled, inspected, tested, modified, or worked on. Business items can also undergo changes (state) as they are passed from one step to the next in your process models. For example, a customer order could be specified as open, working, verified, and finally closed as it is passed from task to task in a particular process model.
• Modeling the Organization (How is everyone organized to do work?)
  An organization is an entity where people cooperate to accomplish specified objectives. For example, an organization can be an enterprise, a company, or a factory. A typical company consists of one or more organizations; the larger the company, the more organizations it will normally have. With WebSphere Business Modeler, you can model any identifiable organization within your business, such as companies, divisions, or departments. You can also save your organization definitions within a project in order to reuse and revise them as your organizations evolve.

Related links

• Business Process Management: Modeling through Monitoring Using WebSphere V6.0.2 Products
• WebSphere business process management zone (IBM Developerworks) 
• WebSphere Business Modeler certification exam 992 prep, Part 2: Model business processes
• Business process modeling (Wikipedia)
• Business process (Wikipedia)