PAPER

A business process redesign story: Not just process modelling A candid discussion about the importance of a

structured approach to process improvement.

A publication of

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Let’s quickly improve the process! Shall we start modelling it now?

A candid discussion between a sponsor, project manager, external consultant, and

operations lead about the importance of a structured approach to process improvement

L to R: Maggie (project manager), Spencer (sponsor), Connor (process consultant), Lida (operations lead)

In the next four weeks, the following actors will embark on a process improvement journey

through a structured approach:

- Spencer is the project sponsor: he pays. A long-time employee of the organisation, Spencer, 42, is a rising manager with an ear out for the new trends in management practices. Having heard of BPM at a seminar, he decides to bring in Connor, a process consultant, to solve the issue at hand.

- Maggie is the project manager: she runs the show. Recently hired away from the competition, Maggie, 38, is now in charge of her first project in the new company and is looking for a win to make her mark. Not knowledgeable in BPM, she is worried the approach could affect the outcome of the project.

- Connor is the external consultant: he improves processes. A process consultant, Connor, 34, has had good successes with structured approaches to process improvement, but in different industries. Without much knowledge of the one at hand, he knows he’ll need to be convincing to achieve the mandated improvements.

- Lida is the operations lead: she gets the job done. Lida, 31, having joined the organisation four years ago, has a personal interest in process improvement, so far without having used it herself. A no-nonsense person, she has to make the change happen while continuing her ‘day-to-day’ job.

[Image made with www.toondoo.com]

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I. Overview of the project

Monday morning, week 1 – Spencer kicks off the project. He cheerfully addresses the team.

Spencer: Maggie, Lida, I present you Connor, a process consultant here to help us with some

process issues that we, as an organisation, have identified. We currently face the following

problem: our customer service is not performing as well as it should, and this is having an impact

on our reputation and, therefore, on our sales figures – and I want this solved. So if we, as a

team, could evaluate our customer-service related processes and propose solutions, we could,

ideally, roll them out before the next quarter. I have raised this with my superiors and they have

identified it as a strategically critical project – and they want results, fast. Timeline-wise, how

do you see this, Connor?

Connor: So, timeline-wise, we start with an in-depth analysis of what is happening by scoping

and identifying the major issues for around two weeks; then, focus more on the modelling and

analysis and, finally, on possible improvements. We’ll always be taking the stakeholders and

measures into account, so we can be sure we change the process for the better. That’s another

two to three weeks; so, around five weeks all up.

Spencer and Maggie look at each other, appearing a bit uncomfortable.

Spencer: Hmm. The process in itself is not that big. Is there a way to fast-track say, the analysis

phase?

Maggie: I agree. Maybe we can reduce the analysis side of things a bit, down to the few core

elements. We know the process well; we could probably jump to modelling the future state

more quickly. All we want to see is that the process problems are addressed, and the clock is

already ticking …

Connor: Well, yes. I agree that we need to address the problems and design the new process,

but moving away from a structured process analysis will only increase the risk of poorly

designed process. This will ultimately fail to address the problems in a sustainable manner. A

structured approach increases the likelihood of a successful project.

Maggie: I think we should stick to the fact that we have a problem, and we need to solve it

without getting distracted. I think a high-level approach might be more suitable. Let’s be very

practical and do only what is necessary to get the job done.

Connor: Okay then, let’s start with a session to identify scope. I’ll work closely with Maggie on

the scoping of the process at hand and deliver a high-level view as soon as possible.

Spencer: Good. Please schedule a meeting with everyone so we can help with the scoping of

the process to get on with it ASAP.

The team disbands with the promise of meeting the next day to analyse the scope of the

project.

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II. Contextualise and scope the process

Tuesday morning, 10 am, week 1 – The team reconvenes in a meeting room to scope the

process.

Spencer: Okay, let’s get started! Generally speaking, we know the process; it’s all about

customer service!

Connor: I would like to isolate that process and identify what’s within scope and what’s not.

Maggie: Sorry, Connor, but is this necessary? Lida can specify the current process since she’s

the expert. Do we really need to start so high-level? Why don’t we just dig into the actual

process?

Connor: Well, we need to make sure we are talking about the same thing – we need to agree

on the boundaries of the process we are working on. Zooming out and clarifying the scope –

with inputs and outputs, for example – helps to clarify the context of the process. As you’ll see

down the track, this exercise will help a lot. The better we understand what is around our

process, the better are the chances of providing a holistic solution to our problems – and not

just focusing on local optimisation.

Lida: I do like the idea of zooming out to start with. Too often, I feel like we are stuck in the

nitty-gritty of the work. (Looking at Spencer.) I do agree that it should be done quickly, though!

Maggie: Well, Lida, you are the one who deals with this process every day. Let’s get done with

it!

After a few sessions to get the final result, the four participants are looking at a simple, high-

level diagram that focuses on the customer service processes and highlights the predecessor

and successor processes, inputs and outputs, as well as the process stakeholders.

III. Identify and prioritise the process problems

Friday afternoon, 3 pm, week 1 – The entire team is sitting at the meeting-room table. The

afternoon meeting results in a tired group, eager to begin its weekend.

Spencer: Currently, I think our two problems are that we have a perceived poor customer

service and a decrease in our sales. I think those two issues are basically it.

Maggie: Agreed. Customer service and sales it is.

Connor: Okay, noted. These problems seem to be the main ones. Oftentimes, though, these

are only symptoms of underlying process issues; hence, the importance of further

brainstorming to identify other problems and how they are related to each other. Once that’s

done, we can prioritise them. On that topic, maybe Lida can provide us with a hands-on

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perspective of the process. I would also like to go through existing customer complaints,

escalations, and any other survey or feedback available. This will help us understand the issue

from customer point of view.

Lida: At the moment, there is a lot of ‘blame-game’ going on. The work environment is not very

positive – many believe that others are not doing their job properly, which results in a lot of

rework. Nobody wants to assume responsibility, and it’s hard to point out what’s really wrong.

Connor: Thank you, Lida. We can now already see another issue: a challenging environment.

Maggie: I wasn’t aware of this. We’ll need to communicate with the team to try to solve it.

Connor: Let’s take a minute with this. Jumping into solution mode is, actually, a common pitfall.

I’ll write this down as a possible solution for later, but we shouldn’t spend more time on it, as it

only addresses one symptom of the issue – it could potentially solve one problem while,

possibly, making the whole process worse. Right now, the objective is to list the issues and

prioritise them. On that point, I would like to interview some key operations people to

understand their perspective and capture the issues from their point of view.

The end of this session highlights that the process is actually facing more problems than

anybody expected. Connor arranged one-on-one meetings with some key operational people

so that the daily problems could also be identified, as these sometimes they get overlooked

while working at a high level. Through an analysis of the inputs and outputs of the process,

Connor comes up with a list of five major problems to address. Going through the customer

complaints also highlighted few critical areas in need of improvement.

IV. Agree on the target state and what it takes to get there

Thursday morning, week 2 – Meeting with the Sponsor, Consultant and PM to clarify the target

state.

Connor: Okay, next step, target state! As you can see from the documents I just handed to you,

we now have a clear scope and a good idea of the problems we are facing. Now the question

is: where do we want to get to? In a perfect world, how does this process perform?

Spencer: Well, to be honest, as good as we can! Let’s work to make the best process possible!

Connor: I understand where you’re coming from, but there is value in putting measures against

our objective – it will then be easier to track how we perform on those objectives. This exercise

is not that difficult in itself; one of the main things to do is describe what ‘good’ would look like.

Spencer: I think, for me, the ideal process goes faster. I mean, seventy per cent of our

customers complained that they waited too long to talk to somebody, or could not talk to

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anyone at all. So definitely a better response time. Also, it would be good to save money

because the process is rather costly – so, a lower total cost of operation.

Connor: Okay, that’s a good start. Now, measures are not the only important thing; for example,

what are you currently not able to do? Are all your staff trained well enough? In other words,

what sort or capability gaps do you see?

Maggie: One of the main issues has been the quality of our agents. There are only a few

experienced ones. Most of the new ones are not capable of resolving the issues and rely on

the seniors, thus keeping the customers waiting.

After this meeting, Connor builds a representation of the gaps between the current state and

target state in terms of measures and capability.

V. Document current state process

Monday morning, week 3 – Prior to the meeting, Spencer mentioned looking at the process

repository for previously mapped models as a basis for the meetings, focusing on the ‘as-is’

status. The team gathers for a long ‘as-is’ modelling session.

Connor: I have looked at the old models, and they give a good idea of how the process works.

Unfortunately, after double-checking with Lida, a lot of it no longer reflects the current

processes. I suggest that Lida and I go through the process together so that I can update the

models we have now.

Maggie: A lot of time and effort was invested on those models, and they are only one year old;

how can they be so different? It feels like we would almost have that part covered already.

Connor: Processes can change quite a bit in one year. Furthermore, Lida told me that the

models described the ‘ideal state’ of the process at the time, but not really how it happens in

real life. Let me have a couple of sessions alone with Lida, and I can show everyone the results

in a couple of days.

Lida: I’m happy to do that. I wasn’t involved in those models creation, but I know they don’t

reflect what we do on a day-to-day basis. I am happy to invest that time to clarify everything.

Connor then visits the floor operations and shadows a process executive to observe the

process closely. This was really useful to clarify some doubts that Connor had. Throughout the

third week, Connor updates the customer-service related processes with Lida’s help. The as-

is process models in focus are now available to everyone, and will be the basis for the

upcoming improvement work.

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VI. Gather and analyse any existing process performance

data

During the fourth week, the project team gathers and analyses existing process performance

data. Spencer initially has some doubts, as he and his superiors only care for financial results.

Connor starts with the measures already available, looking for the ones particularly relevant

for the project. With the help of the problem statement and the target state, Connor quickly

identifies the measures that could be useful to evaluate the current and target performance of

the process. Through those findings, Connor starts to convince Spencer of the value of the

approach – twenty-five per cent of the customers were put on hold for fifteen to twenty minutes

before being disconnected without talking to anyone! Lida, embarrassed, admits that her team

is sometimes overloaded, and that management has always downplayed any concerns she

has raised.

The measures gathered and logically organised by Connor create a ‘wave’ in the department.

Faced with the hard truth, Spencer’s superiors find a renewed interest in the project. Impressed

(but not too pleased) by the results, they start asking about how the team managed to get

those insights.

VII. Analyse current state process to find the root cause of

the issues

Wednesday morning, week 4 – Connor and Maggie are having coffee, discussing the project.

Spencer and Lida come by and start staring at the process models in front of Connor.

Spencer: I am quite happy of the progress so far – I can see that the outcomes have provided

a much more complete picture than ever before. We are running short on time, though; let’s

keep going.

Connor: As I was saying to Maggie, we are very close to being able to provide solutions. In the

meantime, we were brainstorming the issues Lida is facing: what causes them?

Lida: Well, I am pretty sure customers wait for too long because they only have one option: to

talk to an agent, and they are very busy.

Connor: Hmm, interesting. I’ll note that there is only one way to resolve complaints, and it’s a

pretty crowded way! Very good, we are getting somewhere! Any idea why our agents cannot

answer all queries? Are the questions too complex, or just too numerous? Can they be dealt

with by one agent, or are escalations often needed to answer a query? It would be good to

answer those questions related to that specific problem. To remain consistent, a good thing to

do would be to look at the different analyses that we have conducted so far – we can get a

good deal of insight into the problems we have stated thanks to the processes we’ve modelled.

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Furthermore, with the scope analysis, we can identify whether issues are caused by other

processes and, with the metrics, we can provide hard evidence for some of our assumptions.

Let’s go through the issues listed one-by-one to find out what’s really causing them.

The discussion continues to discover that the root causes are not at all what was expected.

VIII. Generate ideas for target state

Connor conducts few workshops with the operations people to generate ideas for

improvement. As operations people are closest to the process, they were able to provide very

good tips and tricks that could solve some of the issues. Connor also managed to collect some

ideas from customer feedbacks, queries, and surveys.

Friday morning, week 4 – The group is excited to finally begin discussing ideas for change.

Connor: So, here we are – time to think about a new process! I have gathered a few ideas from

the team members through the workshops, so we already have a head start. From my

experience, though, we should avoid looking at them right now, as they could influence our

creativity. I think we should start by looking at the current state for a minute, and then at our

issues list.

Maggie: Good idea. I feel that we rarely had the chance to see where the problems appeared

throughout the process.

Connor: With these in mind, let’s take a moment to brainstorm some ideas for change, which I

will add to the list. For the moment, don’t consider the feasibility of your ideas – the purpose is

to get the ideas flowing – evaluation comes later.

After 1 hour of brainstorming

Lida: I would never have thought we could get that many ideas! Some of them won’t work, but

I feel like certain ones could actually help.

Spencer: I agree. Some good things came out of that exercise. I am concerned, though, that it

only addresses part of the issue …

Connor: Brainstorming is only one way to think of new ideas. Now, let’s take our problem list

as an issue – as we all know, we have those five major problems at hand. So what I want you

all to do now is to pick your brains to find at least five solutions for each of those problems. It

might not be easy, but it will force you to think out of the box!

After few brainstorming sessions with the relevant stakeholders, the team is sitting in front of

a long list of possible improvements to the process. They also agree to explore the use of

social media and mobile solutions to improve customer service. Happy with the result, they

decide to reconvene the next Monday.

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IX. Model target state processes and related measures

Monday afternoon, week 5 – The team is sitting in the conference room for the target state

processes design. Excited by the previous week’s successes, they expect an easy workshop.

Connor: I have spent a bit of time since last week categorising the ideas for change, and you

have the results in front of you. The objective will be to use all the artefacts we have built to

create a new process that performs better than the current one.

Spencer: I think we have come up with many good ideas, but if we take a closer look, there are

a lot of localised improvements; there is nothing truly drastic, as I would have hoped.

Connor: This is a common thing. Many people think that the only way to get significantly better

processes is to make significant changes – but that’s not necessarily true. I often mention the

story of the delivery company, UPS, who saved millions of dollars in fuel by banning left turns1

– a small change in the trucks’ routes meant they would not wait for red lights, and had fewer

accidents. This small change had drastic results, and it can be the same in our case.

For the next two hours, the team starts translating the ideas into real process changes. The

results are good, even if some good suggestions could not be implemented.

Connor: Gentlepersons, I think we have a first draft of our process! We can fine-tune it over the

week but, before we leave, I’d like to go back to the measures side of things.

Maggie: More measures? We already have the data we need. Do we need more?

Connor: A short answer is that a changed process might require new measures. A longer

answer would be that these new measures will help us establish if we have truly improved the

process once it’s rolled out. Identifying how those measures will be captured and reported will

also help the management and governance of the process tremendously. Realistically, most

processes and measure require fine-tuning anyhow.

After two more sessions with the process stakeholders, the target state of the process is

finalised. While fine-tuning the new process, some additional measure work is done. From the

high-level measures previously identified, the team discovers new ways to ensure that the

redesigned process is performing better than the previous process through data. These

measures are organised in a matrix that allows anyone to see how a measure relates to

various stakeholders and other measures. On the Thursday of week 5, verifications are made

to see if the new process addresses all the major issues listed in the beginning of the project.

During the week, Maggie even came back with additional suggestions to improve the process,

addressing some of the minor issues listed. According to Connor, this was an all too common

occurrence.

1 http://compass.ups.com/UPS-driver-avoid-left-turns/

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X. Epilogue

The redesigned process is made available to everyone by putting it up on the wall. Feedback

from the potential changes is very positive, as customer service representatives believe it

should help them a lot. Because of the success of the approach, the company’s executives

request a presentation on BPM.

The process was rolled-out after a month of preparation. Thanks to the constant monitoring of

the process, certain unexpected issues were corrected before causing further damage, making

the rollout a success. As months go by, the process is even improved some more here and

there, thanks to Lida’s commitment to excellence.

Maggie, despite her initial reluctance to the methodology, has implemented some of what she

learned during the project for other projects, with Spencer’s full support. Following his success

on this project, Connor embarks on a new process-improvement project in another area of the

organisation, once again ready to take on the challenge of change.

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About the Authors

Acknowledgements Special thanks to Roger Tregear, Consulting Director at Leonardo Consulting, for his input on

the form and content of this newsletter.

Leonardo Consulting For 15 years Leonardo Consulting has been a trusted advisor delivering

quality education, technology and consulting services across many

industry sectors around the world. The Leonardo team of experienced

consultants is unrelentingly focused on helping customers achieve their

goals using business process-centric management approaches. The

approach is process-centric; the focus is performance-driven.

Leonardo Consulting has extensive experience, with proven methodologies and tools, to

help implement and sustain effective process-based management. Education programs,

management system design, coaching, mentoring, and implementation reviews are all

available from experienced consultants to establish and maintain contemporary business

process management best practice.

Andreas Havliza

Andreas is a Consulting Principal with

Leonardo Consulting. He joined the

Leonardo team 2010 after 10 years

working in consultancy in Europe.

Andreas is the Leonardo team leader in

Western Australia. His specialist areas of

experience and expertise are business

process management (BPM) and

governance, risk and compliance

management (GRC). Apart from process

management, Andreas believes that

exercise in the very early morning is

indeed the best way to start the day. He

also enjoys solid discussions with his

team about interdependency of

exercise and thinking capabilities – with

or without sugar intake.

Clement Hurpin

Clement has been a Consultant with

Leonardo Consulting since January

2013. With experience in process

modelling, analysis, improvement and

automation, he supports clients in

achieving their process goals. As with

everyone at Leonardo, he firmly believes

in process-based management and

supports to build process capability

within client organisations. Apart from

process management, Clement believes

in sugar in all its forms: cookies,

chocolate, sweets, etc. A firm diabetes-

denier, he believes that additional sugar

can help processes flow better and that

dentists will be happier.

Indrajit Datta Chaudhuri

Indrajit is a Senior Consultant with

Leonardo Consulting. With about 10

years of experience in business process

analysis and improvement, he helps

clients to improve process performance.

He firmly believes in process-based

management and supports to build

process capability within client

organisations. Apart from process

management, he believes that an extra

hour of sleep is better than running or

swimming, and happily comes up with all

possible excuses to avoid doing any

form of exercise. He believes that too

much of physical movement might

reduce his creative thinking capabilities.