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Business Processes

Understanding Strategy as a Key Business Analysis Tool: It’s Not Business Process!

by Ronald G. Ross on May 8, 2012

John Matthias recently wrote this about our new book, Building Business Solutions: Business Analysis with Business Rules[1]:
“I especially liked the discussion about the mission and goals. I still see business process analysis in organizations I visit where the goals are not articulated well, and the results are not useful. (I’ve done it myself.) It’s [...]

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To-Do Items, Checklists and Out-of-Tolerance Business Events … Business Process Problems?

by Ronald G. Ross on May 3, 2012

Does a to-do item constitute a business process? No. Does a checklist constitute a business process? No. Does an out-of tolerance event constitute a business process? No. Analysis of the following case study illustrates.
The take-away: “Process” shouldn’t be force-fit to every aspect of business operations. That kind of ‘Big-P process’ perspective as I frequently [...]

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R.I.P. Straight-Line, Old-School Processes!

by Ronald G. Ross on May 1, 2012

Consider the business rule: A vehicle must not exceed the posted speed limit. Some of the issues for this business rule are (a) how do you detect a violation and (b) how do you respond to a violation.
These issues raise the question, whose process is it? Are we talking about the process of the person [...]

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How Many Different Ways Can Your Organization Be ‘Silo-ed’? Why You Need to Address Every ‘Silo-ing’

by Ronald G. Ross on April 10, 2012

‘Silo’ is so common as an industry buzzword we mostly just take it for granted. The usual sense is ‘functional’ silo or ‘organizational silo’.
I recently heard ‘no man stands alone’ (‘alone’ = ‘silo-ed’) as a common-sense justification for Big-P process. (See http://goo.gl/Cuk3s) That logic is simply flawed. Here are other ways your business can be [...]

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How Business Processes and Behavioral Rules Relate: The Fundamental Insight of Business Rules

by Ronald G. Ross on February 29, 2012

In football, when a referee throws a flag, the results of the most recent transform (play) are undone. In effect, by enforcing a rule, the referee prevents or negates the new state (yardline and sometimes the down) and enforces some other state. That’s the way behavioral business rules[1] work. Speed through a school zone and [...]

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What Should Business Stakeholders and Business Analysts See (and Not See!) in a Business Process Model?

by Ronald G. Ross on February 27, 2012

I was recently asked the question above. It’s a good one. It arose in response to another post, “What is the best way to simplify business process models?”. See http://goo.gl/gWnO0 for a very brief, very dramatic case study.
Here’s my answer. Business people (and business analysts) should see only the core set of transforms (business tasks) [...]

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Externalizing Semantics from Business Processes … Why the Procedural Approach is a Flawed Paradigm for the Knowledge Economy

by Ronald G. Ross on February 24, 2012

For IT professionals the state of processes has always reigned supreme. In procedural approaches the internal state of a process is represented by some token. Most computer languages use that approach (the token generally falls through lines of code sequentially). Many current approaches to business process modeling do as well, at least implicitly.
But why should [...]

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Want to Make Your Business Process Models Less Complex and More Approachable? There’s a Proven Solution!

by Ronald G. Ross on February 21, 2012

The best way to simplify business process models is to take the business rules out and address them separately.
Example: For a large pharmaceutical client, we reduced a complex 28pp model to just under 4 pages by doing that – nearly an order-of-magnitude reduction in size (and probably even more in terms of complexity). Everyone [...]

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How Business Process Models and Business Rules Relate … What State Are You In?

by Ronald G. Ross on December 11, 2011

Business Process Models: A completed transform often achieves a business milestone and a new state for some operational business thing(s). Example: claimant notified.
Fact Models: In fact models (structured business vocabularies) such states are represented by fact types, for example, claimant is notified (or claimant has been notified if you prefer). A fact model literally represents [...]

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The ‘Process’ of Business Analysis is a Great Example of a Social Process

by Ronald G. Ross on November 29, 2011

In a recent post, Jonathan ‘Kupe’ Kupersmith said:
“In manufacturing following a process step by step is a good thing. In our world [business analysis] this is not the case.  Following an A to Z process for every project is a bad thing.  Every project is different.  Different people, different risks, different priorities, etc.  You need [...]

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