Business process management (BPM) is a discipline that allows a business to exercise more control over manual and automated processes. By visualizing processes, leaders can make more effective, data-driven decisions and improve outcomes. However, process management requires accurate data — and clear objectives. Your goal for BPM shouldn’t be to punish unproductive employees or set up inflexible workflows but to make consistent, measurable improvements.
“Business process management is not about holding people to a standard,” says Jon Quigley of Value Transformation, LLC, a product development and process management consulting firm. “In other words, you’re not grading people on the output of the process. You have to look at your organization and what you’re trying to improve.”
Below, we’ll look at a few basic business process management examples and discuss factors that can help your organization build the right mindset.
Business process management examples
To optimize business process efficiency, you’ll need to break down the process into its component steps. For certain processes, this will be fairly straightforward — but when a process involves decision-making and other variables, your model can become much more complex.
Simple sales
Here’s a simple business process management model for a donut store:
Process starts.
Step 1: Bake donuts.
Step 2: Take customer’s order.
Step 3: Receive payment and provide receipt.
Process ends.
Here, we see some of the basic components of a business process model: Tasks flow in a predictable, repeatable sequence with a clear end event. With the process modeled out, leaders can monitor data and find methods to improve efficiency. For example, if the baking task isn’t complete when the customer places their order, employees should begin baking the donuts earlier in the morning.
Onboarding
Business processes often include variables, which can either change the outcome or extend the length of the process. Here are the basic steps of a simple onboarding process:
Process starts.
Step 1: Conduct orientation.
Step 2: Create training module logins.
Step 3: Deliver health and safety training.
Step 4: Test employee’s knowledge of health and safety.
Step 5a: If the employee passes the test, proceed with additional training modules.
Step 5b: If the employee fails the test, revisit Step 4.
Step 6: Employee provides feedback on the onboarding process.
Process ends.
When you’re able to visualize a process from start to end, you can experiment with ways to improve data collection, automate tasks, and streamline work. Even when processes have variables, mapping out the process can identify bottlenecks.
In the process above, there are several potential opportunities for optimization. The IT team could create logins prior to the employee’s arrival. The HR team could set up notifications when new hires complete training modules, and they could have onboarding feedback forms automatically sent to employees when they complete the health and safety test. Form tools with powerful integration capabilities — like Jotform — can limit the time spent on each task while reporting accurate data as the process progresses.
The importance of context
With every business process, you’ll need to identify every factor that might affect outcomes. Context determines whether a process is repeatable.
Quigly gives a good example of how a process out of context can go wrong: “A friend of mine has been doing some road work. His supplier is putting some equipment into a manufacturing facility, and they work with this equipment in their lab under a certain set of conditions. They follow a certain set of processes in the lab. When they fixed the equipment at the customer’s site, they followed their procedures as though they were in the lab. That led to an on-the-job injury — the process didn’t consider the context, which created a safety hazard. You can’t copy and paste processes unless the context is identical.”
Likewise, you’ll need to create an environment that promotes honest discussion and analysis. If your processes have unexpected outcomes, you’ll want to know why — but if you’re not monitoring results effectively, you’ll be unable to determine whether the outcome resulted from an inaccurate model. Wherever possible, you’ll need to remove unnecessary variables through automation.
Business process automation with Jotform
To optimize your workflows, it’s important to look for ways to streamline data collection and analysis across multiple channels. For example, Jotform’s forms can use conditional logic to move tasks to the next stage of a process, and automatic report generation can help provide more objective metrics. By automating tasks that rely on user input, you can easily make adjustments to meet your organization’s goals.
Jotform can help your organization improve key processes with fully customizable productivity tools. With ready-to-use templates, code-free customizable forms, and a growing library of integrations, we’re ready to help you improve your data collection and use that data more effectively.
Photo by: freepik
Send Comment: