Lecture 8 Process Redesign (1)

In this lecture 8, we have learnt the phase 3 of BPR methodologies, which is called Process Re-design. It involves five steps which are Scoping, Modeling, Analysis, Redesign and Integration.  In this journal, we only focus on Scoping.

Scoping includes 7 activities which are as follows:

• Operationalize process performance targets
• Define process boundaries
• Identify key process issues 
• Understand best practices & define initial visions
• Familiarize participants with BPR software
• Outline data collection plan & collect baseline data 
• Plan for modeling phase

• Operationalize process performance targets

There is a template for the operationalize process performance target, they are process redesign goals, process redesign targets and binding management decisions.

Writing the goals is relatively important in this template, because the process performance targets and their measures can be easily written when the goals are written correctly and precisely. Then, we need to prioritize them. For each goal, we identify the related process performance targets in concrete terms and its explicit tangible measures

Finally, we complete the template by filling in the part of binding management decisions. This part is optional since the process going to be redesigned might not have any constraints in the redesign project.

• Define process boundaries

This activity builds an initial common high-level representation of the process scope. It can also provide the BPR team with pointer for collecting data for the modeling phase. As reengineering an end-to-end process involves multiple functional areas and organizations, we may discover that a BPR project cannot be completed within a certain period of time. By clearly define the business boundaries, the above situation can be counteracted.

There is another template for this activity. The following elements should be included:

• Process trigger (types of inputs)
• Enterprise units (which touch the process)
• External partners (which touch the process)
• Customers of the process (segmentation)
• Process deliverables (types of output)

• Identify key process issues

In this activity, we need to do research on real world that we should get customers' input, such as current expectations, process problems, process credits, time and efforts expended by customers, future requirements and etc. It will be much better that applying strategies management analysis to this activity, such as SWOT or PEST analysis etc.

• Outline data collection plan and collect baseline data

The BPR team needs to consider about the source of data. Data collection involves many people and spends much time. To avoid wasting time and effort in collected unnecessary data, we should have a better plan. An organized data gathering plan and early start in data collection can prevent the delay for baseline modeling phases. The data collection can be difficult as people may not give enough attention to BPR effort or the people in the process are the first time to describe the process.

Before collecting the data, we also need to select the case categorization criteria, define types of data needed and data collection methods. The data collection methods includes: existing data, structured interviews and questionnaires.

Data for analyzing both the TO-BE system and AS-IS system (baseline data¬) are necessary.  To collect the baseline data, we can use the default or typical case, squeaky wheel process cases or exhaustive processes cases.



Case Study
In this part, I will use an example to simply demonstrate the activity “Operationalize process performance targets”

Take HSBC as an example, the counter waiting process will be redesigned. According to the template, the process redesign goal should be set first. The goal for this example is to shorten the counter waiting time. Second, the process performance target should be set. The performance target is to improve the counter waiting time, and the measure is limit the counter waiting time to 10 minutes per customer.

Lastly, the binding management decisions should be considered. The binding management decision should be number of staff will not be allowed to increase.