The business process is what? Development, modeling, optimization of business processes

Modern methods of company management increasingly borrow foreign methods and technologies. And not because it's fashionable, but because it's convenient and effective. One of these techniques breaks down all routine work into elementary components and then describes in detail each business process obtained. It takes quite a long time, but the derived scheme allows you to find and weaknesses, and overly inflated functional duties, and unclear tasks. Having once spent time, management can transfer part of its responsibility down the hierarchy, freeing itself time for strategic planning.

Living according to plan

Another thing is that the personnel of firms often do not understand the significance of this procedure and does not welcome the desire of management to determine the main business processes. Nevertheless, it is increasingly necessary to understand the modeling and description of the elementary operations of each unit, and even the employee. Even worse, if the staff of the company there are employees who are studying the company's business processes. They constantly ask about something, distract and in every possible way interfere with the performance of direct functional duties of all personnel. What to do?

Let's start from afar. Every morning, before most of us, the task is to come to work. To successfully solve it, you need to wake up in time, get together and take a place in some kind of transport (no matter whether it's a private car or a subway car). Then each component can be divided into even smaller procedures: in order to wake up in time, you can set an alarm clock, and you can ask someone to wake you up, etc. Regardless of the method of solution, the result (timely awakening) will be achieved. But the upsurge, fees and the way to work differ in the method of solution and the end result. Actually, we came to the first definition.

Why all this is necessary

So, the business process is a certain sequence of simple actions that transform resources into a useful end product. In our example from life there are three different processes, each of which requires its initial information and after certain manipulations gives the desired result. Let's move on to the enterprise. Regardless of the scope of activity in each firm, the work is determined by the professional relationships of the employees: the transfer of information, the determination of the need for the product, the analysis of production and resources, etc. And here it is important to note that all of the above matters only if three conditions are met:

- the information is transferred to the employee concerned in it;

- this is done at the right time;

- the form in which the information is presented, is simple enough and understandable.

If you summarize all of the above, you can argue that the business process is a flow of information that answers three questions: what, where and when. It is necessary that the work is carried out smoothly and continuously, it is necessary to determine its components. In this case there will be no duplication of tasks, no artist or idle time.

When the business process is clearly defined, each employee ceases to be irreplaceable. Remember how many times you had to wait for someone from your colleagues to leave the hospital (or come back from vacation); In your absence at work, the phone literally does not stop ringing, and everyone is trying to understand what and how you are doing. And if you reacted to the management's request and made a fairly detailed description of business processes, you can cheer up calmly, and relax, and sometimes just have dinner ...

Turning to the formal language of definitions, we will argue that when describing business processes, the enterprise sets such goals:

• To understand the general structure of the organization of activity and to determine the dynamics of its development;
• Identify current problems and opportunities to overcome them;
• Create a system of goals and objectives that is understandable for all participants (developers, users, customers, etc.);
• Formulate the requirements for the necessary software.

Of course, the description of business processes in itself is of no interest. But here for reengineering it is a paramount task. Only after understanding the structure, interconnections and ways of flow of information flows, one can talk about a rethinking of the semantic load of both the enterprise itself and its individual units. But reorganization should be carried out for the sake of achieving some goal: improving the quality of customer service; Reduce costs; Granting greater freedom in decision-making to the executors (reducing the deadlines for performing work), and so on.

Simple classification

Most often, the need to describe information business processes appears in enterprises with a functionally oriented structure. The fact is that the goals and tasks of different departments can contradict each other. And this will lead not only to a decrease in the company's profitability, but also to a drop in its competitiveness.

The modern approach to management is increasingly process-oriented. All work is considered as a certain set of processes (each of which consists of one or several simple operations). For the formalization and standardization of this approach, these categories of processes are adopted (the classification takes place in relation to the added value of the product):

• The main ones are those with which the enterprise receives income: production, marketing, supply;
• Managers - those that set goals and objectives for units and specific executors;
• Supporting - those that provide production of resources, but do not add value to the final product: training and selection of personnel, financial support, legal protection, etc.

In addition to the already mentioned independence from the human factor and simplified adaptation of new employees, the description of business processes makes it possible to more efficiently manage the company's operating expenses.

Properties

Now it becomes clear that to manage an enterprise it is necessary not only to identify the interconnected flows of information, but also to clearly describe all activities. Since we already know that the business process is part of the overall work, moving from one employee to another (within its functional unit or not, it does not matter), then we proceed to the fact that everything in the world can be unified. A professional activity - even more so.

Regardless of the scope of activity, each business process can be described by the same characteristics.

- The border is the beginning and the end of a simple operation.

- The owner is a company employee who not only owns the necessary resources for work, but also plans, analyzes, manages the process; And most importantly - is responsible for the result.

- Input - an information message received in any form adopted at the enterprise, which determines the need for information and marks the beginning of the process.

- Output - information or materialized part of the product that is consumed by the client external to the contractor.

- Executor - the personnel of the company engaged in one process.

- Resources - the material or information part of the activity that does not change during the operation (but only facilitates the transformation of incoming information into the final product).

- Quality control - sectoral or internal (taken by the company's management) indicators, allowing to determine the effectiveness of the work.

Mandatory selection of elementary processes

Of course, not every company needs a description of business processes. Nevertheless, there are a number of cases in which one can not do without this tedious occupation. Let's name the main:

• The activity of the enterprise is automated. In this case, the business process diagram translates the customer's needs into a language understandable to the programmer.
• Improvement of the company's activities. Not only the modernization of equipment and technologies helps to improve the final product; Optimization of business processes provides an opportunity to identify all the strengths and weaknesses of the work and make appropriate management decisions.
• Certification of the organization by international standards (ISO). A uniform quality management system is created for all employees.

How to present a description to the customer

Modeling of business processes requires the description of each element. How can this be done painlessly for the organization? In world practice, three main methods are adopted: text, graphic and tabular.

Text includes a description of the entire course of work in a simple and understandable sequence. The form and content can be both free (if international or industry standards have not yet been developed) or regulated documents. For example: the sales department transfers the reporting documentation for the period to the planning department; Employees of the planning department carry out analytical work to determine the dynamics of sales and the need to make adjustments in production; The obtained result from the planning department is transferred to the marketing department, where the reasons for the growth (fall) in sales are analyzed, and so on.

The graphical diagram of the business process allows you to visualize the result of analytical work. There is no need to remind that visual perception of information is most effective. Therefore, all sorts of graphs and diagrams enable us to quickly understand what is happening and find the right solution.

In cases where the main task of reforming activities is the optimization of business processes, it is worthwhile to use the tabular form of their description. With its help it is easier to understand the sequence of actions and directions of information flows. A typical table contains not only a description of the function of a staff unit, but also graphs of incoming and outgoing documents, the executor (you can specify both the whole unit and a specific employee), etc.

How to correctly describe the business process

It is not enough to conduct an analysis of business processes. The most important in this case is the correctness, but at the same time, the simplicity of the description. First, the name of a single process should be clearly stated. This will help to understand its main characteristics, the logic of implementation and place in the overall chain of production activities.

Then you should specify what input information is required for the normal execution of the task, and also list the resource provision. The recorded sequence of simple operations, of which the process consists, will help you not to miss anything and not forget.

Modeling of business processes can not do without indicating the owner of the process and the system for monitoring the progress of its implementation. For this purpose, it is necessary to note the regulatory deadlines for the work in the description and to list the documents that are transferred to the next link. If to simplify, the description should look like this: "... after carrying out the sales analysis for the reporting period, the employee of the planning department fills in the established form (table), which passes to the marketing department ..."

Simplified diagram of the description of production processes

When writing a description, employees are often faced with the fact that they do not know how to verbally convey the content of their work. To make the system of business processes clear and structured, you can create a memo. It reflects those questions, on which it is necessary to give a clear and maximally detailed answer. So, what are these questions?

• What? Describes what exactly is being done in this operation.
• What for? Transmits the purpose of the operation.
• When? Determines who initiates execution.
• Who! He calls specific performers.
• How? Lists the necessary resources.

The development of business processes assumes that all methods of description can be used. Thus, we will get the most detailed scheme of work execution. The graphical version will reveal the interrelationships of functional units, and the tabular and text will convey the content of each operation. Unfortunately, automation of business processes is impossible without this time-consuming preliminary work.

How to collect information

In practice, there are many ways to get the information you need. First, you need to analyze the regulatory documents that guide the company's employees. Then, personal interviews should be conducted with each immediate performer in order to describe the content of his work. Further, to clarify and clarify the controversial points, the analyst consultants should use the observation of the progress of business processes.

If we approach the problem in a comprehensive manner, the automation of business processes will not seem so tedious and useless.

Working group

And still, if the main task of the enterprise is automation of business processes, but management does not intend to involve external consulting companies, the question arises: "Where to start?" First of all, a working group is created from the company's employees. It is desirable that the members of the working group have excellent analytical skills and ability to listen. After all, as already noted, most of the work consists in conducting personal interviews with executors of business processes.

Further it is necessary to make a real picture of the functioning of the system. Since before the modernization the enterprise worked and made a profit, it is probably not necessary to talk about the perfect restructuring. Therefore, it is necessary to fix the system and directions of information flows at the time of optimization.

What the description consists of

In order to avoid confusion and misunderstandings in the description of business processes, experts recommend using process maps. These are standardized documents that make it possible to unify all actions regardless of the sphere of influence of the performer and the complexity of the operation described.

Any description can be divided into such components:

• Unified form of the process (most often the table);
• Business process map (can be represented in any form - text description, graphic object or table);
• Routes (incoming and outgoing streams of information, resources and finance);
• Matrixes of various business processes (the table of interaction of different processes, which allows you to identify the main and secondary flows and operations);
• Flowchart (algorithm for running a business process);
• Expanded text description;
• Documentation (creation of documents confirming the implementation of the process);
• Identification of business process indicators (search for characteristics and indicators, through which you can control not only the progress of performance, but also the quality);
• Regulations (simply, job description).

Indicators

As already noted many times, any process must be something measured. It is necessary first of all for an estimation of efficiency of all activity of the enterprise. Most experts recommend testing business processes for four indicators: time, costs, quality and quantity.

But business process models are dynamic and diverse. Therefore, it is often not enough to estimate only the speed of the work; It is necessary to take into account both working conditions and the infrastructure of the enterprise. In addition, virtually all industries can not exist without suppliers, finance, logistics and partners. These are also measurable indicators.

And, of course, we must not forget about information and the human factor. The higher the level of specialist training, the less time it will take to familiarize yourself with instructions and incoming information.

At the heart of most modeling methodologies are now the principles of structural analysis and design (SADT - Structured Analysis and Design Technique), as well as some algorithmic languages. You can talk about the existence of several basic models of business process analysis:

- Business Process Modeling - actually, modeling - reveals the functional side of the firm's existence.

- Work Flow Modeling - describes the workflows and is similar to the drawing up of flowcharts.

- Data Flow Modeling - unlike the previous one, describes data flows (information); Is designed to compile a sequence of operations.

The Shouhart-Deming Cycle

Large business processes (1C allows you to select them from the general list) are recommended to describe in a separate document, called the "Work Schedule." Everything that is less significant or consists of a small number of simple operations is usually described in job descriptions.

When drafting regulations, it is necessary to take into account the conditions of the cycle of continuous improvement of the enterprise's activity (the Shuhart-Deming model). Its provisions state that optimization and improvement are endless processes. That is, in the management of the enterprise there is a certain closed cycle, consisting of such management decisions: planning, implementation, control, adjustment.

When drafting regulations, one should take into account the principles that ensure the conformity of the Shuhart-Deming model:

1. Calculation of planned indicators for the future period.
2. Analysis of the dynamics of deviations and documentation of the alleged causes.
3. Determination of corrective operations and analysis of their effectiveness.

The development of the model should be carried out in accordance with business rules. As the generally accepted rules, the normative and legislative base of the state on the territory of which the enterprise operates operates. The second basis of the model is the company's corporate policy.

Implementing the quality management system, it is necessary to take care of the development and unification of business processes. As already noted at the beginning of the article - not always the company's personnel understands the importance of the modernization begun. Bringing to each employee the importance of creating an effective model of business processes is the task of top management.

After all, a well-established and thoroughly developed system will not only make it easier for an enterprise to obtain certificates of compliance with international quality standards ISO 9001: 2008, but also significantly improve the efficiency of each employee's work.

Both of these factors lead the company to increase competitiveness in the market, which, in turn, has a beneficial effect on both investors and customers.