Using technology to improve the way you do business

Documenting "to be" processes

By Michael Burns

As you might recall, we looked at the swimlane flowcharting technique in the June/July 2007 issue of CAmagazine. Swimlanes are often used to document “as is” (i.e., current) and “to be” business processes. Although you’ll find swim-lanes very useful as a conceptual tool, you will still come up against one major obstacle, especially with the “to-be” version. This obstacle is of the human variety: gaining consensus.

Some people may not have a clue what should be done. Others might get mired in the details, missing the big picture. Others still may want to protect their turf and stick with the status quo. Others still will come up with grandiose or expensive solutions. You could have a real battle on your hands. Moreover, changing the swimlanes can be labour intensive.

Brainstorming is one technique that can improve your chances of success. It will work with people who are not worried about their careers, are enthusiastic about embracing change and can think creatively. Best practice (or what is considered optimal business process for a specific industry) can also be useful, but it’s dangerous. What’s good for one organization can be a disaster for another, depending on its size, strategy and value proposition (its unique mix of products and/or services, customer relations and corporate image).

Large companies have the time and resources to create their “to be” business processes, then to either build what they need or customize new systems with the required functionality. Smaller companies don’t have the time or budget to build from scratch and would rather just improve their existing systems. Assuming the business process relates to your ERP or accounting system, it’s advisable not to build the “to be” business process without the help of the organization responsible for your ERP or accounting system (let’s call it your business partner). Why reinvent the wheel, when your business partner already has a solution or can easily leverage processes already embedded in its system?

Be careful, however, not to place your business partner in a conflict of interest. If you ask it to document your process and to identify opportunities for business process improvement, it could be compromised in recommending solutions that are also to its advantage. A better option might be to engage your auditors or another independent source to document existing process and to identify opportunities for improvement. Then you should take your “as is” documentation and problems to your business partner and give it the first crack at recommending a solution. Your independent auditor or adviser could also help you evaluate the recommendations by your business partner.

Assuming you have a business case for improving your business processes, you will want to update your “as is” flowcharts and create “to be” versions. Tools such as Visio will allow you to do this, but it won’t be easy. You will need to move and resize symbols manually and generally fiddle with the diagrams. Another tool you might want to investigate is allCLEAR from Proquis Ltd. (www.proquis.com). It has the advantage of being a text-based system, so it can join all your arrows and align all your boxes automatically. If you enter a question mark, the system will create a decision box with Yes and No arrows. If you enter a colon, it will automatically create a series of choices. (See www.camagazine.com/tobe for an example.)

Although allCLEAR will speed up the process of updating your flowcharts, it’s not a recipe for instant swimlanes. It gives you a template containing the background lanes, but you will still have to move the symbols to their respective lanes and resize them. It does, however, provide tools to simplify the process.

Developing and documenting “to be” business process can be a challenge, but the rewards are well worth the effort. Don’t let business process improvement be a question of “to be” or “not to be.”

Michael Burns, MBA, CA, is president of 180 Systems (www.180systems.com/), which provides independent consulting services, including business process review, system selection and IT audit. Contact: 416-485-2200 or mburns@180systems.com.