Process management: tools, standards and training

In this article, we would like to introduce you to the topic of process management and business process modeling and share some valuable learnings from our day-to-day project work with you. To this end, we will address the following questions:

1. Selection of a tool: Modeling business processes in the BPMN standard
2. Designing processes: First steps, process best practice, workshops and reviews
3. Staff training: The go-live preparations
4. Outlook: Optimizing your operations – detecting and eliminating process inefficiencies with process mining

Selection of a tool: Modeling business processes in the BPMN standard

There are a large number of modeling standards and tools for modeling business processes. UML and SysML are widely used, but always have an academic character as they are often taught at universities. This is why the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN 2.0) standard has become increasingly established in recent years. We are therefore concentrating on the BPMN standard. BPMN bridges the gap between business and IT and enables the appropriate level of abstraction at both strategic and operational levels. For the selection of the modeling tool, we would like to compare the Signavio Business Transformation Suite, Camunda Enterprise Platform and viflow 6 and highlight special features.

Signavio Business Transformation Suite (process modeling with Process Manager)

Founded in 2009, the Berlin-based company grew out of a project at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam. The Berlin-based company now has more than 1,000 customers, several locations within and outside Europe and has already won numerous awards for its software (e.g. Gartner Cool Vendor, Deloitte Fast 50, Silver Stevie).

Camunda Enterprise Platform (process modeling with camunda modeler)

Camunda is the second Berlin-based BPMN company on our process management software shortlist. Originally started as a consulting company in 2008, camunda now offers a comprehensive product range with the camunda modeler and the camunda engine at its heart (little treat: these modules are available free of charge!).

Workflows as a unique selling point:

• The Workflow Engine enables you to orchestrate business processes across different software solutions, moving away from the monolith and towards microservices, i.e. the optimum solution for the respective process stage.
• With cawemo , camunda now also offers a cloud solution that enables collaboration in process modeling.

Recommended: If you want to map individual business processes with powerful IT in order to become best in class.

Summary: What characterizes the respective tools?

Designing processes: First steps, process best practice, workshops and reviews

The following section provides four practical tips for getting started with process modeling, best practice examples and tips for process workshops.

The first steps in process modeling with BPMN: 4 practical tips

Getting started with the BPMN standard is very intuitive and is strongly supported, for example, by the syntax checks integrated in Signavio. I have also listed four tips that will make it easier for you to get started:

• The BPMN2.0 poster provides a good overview of the symbol palette. If several people are involved in the modeling, it is advisable to reduce the number of elements actually used.
• The optimal size of the process diagrams depends on the intended use: A large, printed diagram is easier for your staff to read than a large number of A4 process diagrams, between which they have to jump back and forth. On the other hand, neatly encapsulated processes on A4 are often clearer and more closely aligned with IT processes.
• The number of modeled processes usually increases rapidly, so think about your process hierarchy. If you want to follow a standard, the SAP solution (clear structures: end-to-end processes and modular processes) or the SCOR framework (aligning processes along the supply chain) are suitable. Depending on the project, different frameworks will lead you to your goal.
• The official BPMN2.0 documents of the OMG are relatively extensive and not the right starting point for your first questions. A good place to start is the Practical handbook BPMN: With introduction to CMMN and DMN by the two Camunda managing directors Freud and Rücker. The name says it all – Freud and Rücker regularly build a bridge to practice and introduce you to the topic in quick steps.

Best practice and the question of standards

Do you consider your processes to be more complex than average and have many of your structures and workflows grown historically? How can the standard help? Don’t worry, you are not alone with this challenge. I would like to give you a rule of thumb that regularly makes the decision “standard” or “individualist (away from the standard)” easier for us.

The Standard

SAP’s best practice examples provide a good starting point for the introduction of S/4HANA or Extended Warehouse Management (EWM). As part of the best practice solutions, a large number of standard processes are published that should form the basis for developing your own processes. I find it particularly helpful that process diagrams in BPMN are also published in addition to the summary.

The individualist

Suppose you run an online mail order business. Will you be satisfied with a standard order-to-cash (O2C) process? The answer is hopefully no, because this is where you gain regular customers – and drive them away again. An individual O2C process is a clear competitive advantage over your competitors and provides the necessary differentiation. On the other hand, classic support processes such as maintenance for your online mail order business are not a significant competitive advantage for customers → stick to the standard. However, please avoid pigeonholing at this point: the maintenance of your machinery can be very important if you are a contract manufacturer, for example. Your accounting processes can become a competitive advantage if you take over financial accounting as a service provider.

Staff training: The go-live preparations

In the weeks before the go-live, the number of cycles increases noticeably. Do you remember the estimated 2 working days per week for your process managers? Forget the guideline, because now it’s time to get down to business. After the design freeze of the software, your main task until the go-live is to qualify the employees concerned. Estimate training costs early enough: if you are responsible for production, for example, you will not qualify hundreds of employees as a one-man show. In the past, entire books were used as training materials, but today there are a few tools that can help you with training. The first is SAP EnableNow. This in-house tool can be used to create interactive training content within the SAP environment, which can then also be tested within the tool. Secondly, the aforementioned Signavio Collaboration Hub, which scores highly as a comprehensive process documentation and reference tool.

Outlook: Optimizing your operations – detecting process inefficiencies with process mining

The first few weeks after the go-live can be painful, remember the example of Liqui Moly in the introductory words. But then – done! Are you already feeling like you’ve reached the end of the journey and want to send process managers back into operational business? Stop! In recent years, an increasing number of young companies have entered the scene under the term process mining, which utilizes data generated in the process. The top dog in this field is the Munich-based company Celonis, but Signavio also offers process intelligence to influence your processes.

Are you already working on the continuous improvement of your production processes? Then you should also apply this to your digital processes. By evaluating all digital booking data, deviations from the desired target process suddenly become transparent. This enables you to continuously improve and keep your processes permanently lean. In addition, process mining often lays the foundations for robotic process automation.

Summary

I really enjoy talking about our experiences and sharing them with you. I hope that this article has provided you with a concise overview and introduced you to business process management as part of an ERP implementation. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have on this topic.