A process is a defined set of sequential or parallel activities or behaviors to achieve a goal. Process analysis is creating an understanding of the activities of the process and measures the success of those activities in meeting the goals. Process analysis is accomplished through various techniques including mapping, interviewing, simulations and various other analytical techniques and methodologies.
The process analysis, becomes an essential tool to show how well the business is meeting its objectives. It does soby creating an understanding of how work (the transformation of inputs to outputs) happens in the organization.
The information generated from this analysis will include the following:
- Strategy, culture, and environment of the organization that uses the process (why the process exists)
- Inputs and outputs of the process
- Stakeholders, both internal and external, including suppliers, customers and their needs and expectations
- Inefficiencies within the current process
- Scalability of the process to meet customer demands
- Business rules that control the process and why they must exist
- What performance metrics should monitor the process, who is interested in those metrics and what they mean
- What activities make up the process and their dependencies across departments and business functions
- Improved resource utilization
- Opportunities to reduce constraints and increase capacity
- When to Perform Analysis
The need to analyze a process can be the result of continuous monitoring of processes or can be triggered by specific events. The impact occurs :
- Continuous Monitoring
This continuous analysis benefits the organization in numerous ways. First, it alerts management to potential poor performance of the process and can help point to the cause of the poor performance such as system deviations, competition, environmental factors, etc. Next, the real-time feedback through continuous analysis provides a measurement for the human performance and reward systems.
- Event-Triggered Analysis
The following are just a few of the events that may trigger a process analysis.
– Strategic Planning
– Performance Issues
– New Technologies
– Startup Venture
– Merger/Acquisition
– Regulatory Requirements
- Process Analysis Roles
Several additional roles are also necessary to perform a process analysis and are defined below. One of the first steps in a process analysis is to establish and assign those roles. The individual or group ultimately responsible for the performance of the process, whether it is the process owner or the executive leadership team, should carefully select those who will lead and manage the team in the various roles to ensure successful completion of the project and that the analysis is comprehensive and accurately represents the state of the process.
- Optimal Team Attributes
- Responsibilities of Analysis Roles
– Analyst
– Facilitator
– Subject Matter Experts
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