2009 08 31 BPM Prescriptive Guide

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IBM Business Process ManagementA Prescriptive Guide to Solution Design and Implementation

2

Business Process Management (BPM) Prescriptive GuideIntroduction

• What is it?– Simple, usable guidance on how to use IBM’s BPM products to deliver a solution

into production within 60-90 days, assuming commensurate scoped process– Focused on Line-of-Business (LOB) departmental projects that are weighted

towards interactive process design and human-centric processing scenarios– Emphasizes the role of LOB participants in the activities that lead to a business

driven implementation of a departmental BPM solution

• How should this guide be used?– IBM Services, Business Partners, and Customers can leverage this guide in

delivering departmental BPM solutions– This guide may also be used as inspiration for planning larger scale projects,

incorporating the full set of built-in BPM capability

• What this is not intended to do ..– Replace business partner or customer design & delivery methodologies but

rather to feed into those methodologies as best practices on product usage– Not intended to replace product “how to” guides which go into a lot more detail

on product usage

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Overview of Iterative Solution Design & Process ImprovementBusiness Driven Activities

Discover your business intent; Map intent to business capabilities and processes; Identify and prioritize options

Story board the user interaction by capturing and defining as-is process and to-be processes; Specify business measures & KPI‘s; Mock up forms to validate and visualize human interactions

Experience/visualize the solution via elaboration and refinement of business measures and KPI’s; Add operational characteristics to future state processes; Interactively validate elaborated processes in IT sandbox

Manage real-time performance by empowering business users to customize their experience, managing KPI’s and alerts based on changing business conditions

Collaborate, Iterate, Refine & Validate

Business Leader

Business Analyst

Business Analyst

Process Owner

Business Users

Business Analyst

Process Owner

Business Users

Business Leader

Related Participant Roles Related Participant Roles

Related Participant Roles Related Participant Roles

44

Overview of Iterative Solution Design & Process Improvement IT Driven Activities


Put solution into production ...

• Setup IT Environments• Prepare and Deploy Production

Artifacts • Unit Test Solution• Monitor health of your solution to

ensure process integrity

5. Deploy

IT Leader IT DeveloperIT

Architect

Note: IT Production Level Activities happen in parallel with business activities

Related Participant Roles

5

60 Day Solution Delivery Timeline ..

Wk 1 Wk 2 Wk 3 Wk 4 Wk 5 Wk 6 Wk 7

Discover

Story board

Experience

Manage

Production

Wk 8 Wk 9

IT Activities are related to getting the production

environment ready

Manage is an ongoing process that starts here but continues beyond the 60 day solution

timeline

Solution in Production

Note: This is only a sample timeline. The timeline might need to adapt according to resource availability, skill, and complexity of process

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1. Discover Collaborate, Iterate, Refine & Validate

Discover your business intent ..

• Capture Business Intent• Map Business Capabilities• Create High Level Process Maps• Identify options/ Prioritization

Business LeaderBusiness Analyst


Discover

Story board

Experience

Manage

Production

Wk 8 Wk 9

7

DiscoverDetailed Activities

Detailed Activities Timeframe Role Product Deliverable1. Identify Business challenges• Work with business leaders to determine which

business challenges may need to be addressed.• Prioritize and asses the challenges and document them

Week 1,Day 1, 2

Business Leader, Business Analyst

•May use existing documents/materials •Document and store in publishing server/business leader space

Document

2. Strategize on solution• Create strategies related to business challenges in

order to determine their relationships to downstream goals and capabilities based on priorities

Week 1, Day 2, 3

Business Leader

Publishing Server/Business Leader Space

Strategy Map

3. Define Business/Solution Goals• Identify specific, measurable goals to ensure that the

solution is meeting the business needs

Week 1, Day 3

Business Leader


Strategy Map w/ Goals

4. Define Business Measures• Based on the identified strategy and goals, define

business measurements, such as KPI’s, business SLA’s, and metrics that can be tracked and monitored periodically to ensure solution is meeting the specific business goals identified.

Week 1, Day 3

Business Leader


Strategy map w/ Measures

5. Create Business capability maps• Prioritize capabilities based on business challenges

Week 1, Day 4

Business Leader/Business Analyst


Capability Map

6. Create high level processes for high priority business capabilities

Week 1,Day 3, 4, 5

Business Leader, Business Analyst


High Level Prioritized Process Maps

7. Obtain executive sign-offs & approvals• Ensure that executive level sign off is achieved in order

to proceed to the next set of phases

Week 1, Day 5

Business Executive

Document/Approval in Business Leader Space

Business Sign Off

Collaborate, Iterate, Refine

& ValidateBusiness

Leader

Business Analyst

8

DiscoverInteractions & Screen flows

Create High Level Process Flow Define Business Capabilities

Create strategy Map

Create High Level Process Flow

Add Solution Goals and Metrics to Strategy Map

WebSphere Business Modeler Publishing Server

9

DiscoverDeliverables and Hand-offs


Business LeaderBusiness Analyst

• Strategy Maps• Capabilities Maps• Executive Sign Off to Proceed• High Level Process Maps imported into Modeler


Discover

Story board

Experience

Manage

Production

Wk 8 Wk 9

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2. Storyboard Collaborate, Iterate, Refine & Validate

• Capture/Refine Current State Process; Examine alternate ROI to determine best approach

• Define Future State Process• Define inputs and outputs and

mock up forms for human interactions

• Validate and visualize human interactions

Business Analyst

Process Owner

Story Board user interactions...


Discover

Story board

Experience

Manage

Production

Wk 8 Wk 9

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Storyboard (1 of 2)Detailed Activities

Detailed Activities Timeframe Role Product Deliverable1. Capture/Refine Current State Process• Import existing high level process models from either business

leader space, visio, or other tools if possible.• Search for reusable artifacts such as business services and forms.• If not begin to define the current state process from a blank slate.

Ensure to keep the scope of the process in terms of the solutiongoals

Week 2, Day 1, 2

Business Analyst working with SME

WebSphere Business Modeler

Current State Process Diagram

2. Examine alternate ROI to determine best approach• Leverage case analysis to determine which usage scenarios/use

cases best fit the goals that were defined during discovery and focus on defining those paths

Week 2, Day 2, 3, 4

Business Analystworking with SME


Case Analysis Reports

3. Capture Roles• Capture all relevant human roles that perform steps in the process• Capture cost and duration information and associate them to the

human steps in the process

Week 3, Day 2, 3

Business Analyst working with SME


Future state process with roles

4. Define/Refine Future State Process• Define, simulate, and refine future state business process models

that achieves the closest results to the ROI alternative chosen from case analysis.

• Generate dynamic analysis reports to quantify/validate gains derived from future state process and support business case for implementation

• Use design principals that include only portions of the model that are candidates for the end to end solution. Other modeling elements may be included but used for documentation purposes only

Week 2, Day 5

Week 3, Day 1, 2

Business Analystworking with SME


Future state process and Business Impact Report


& ValidateBusiness Analyst

Process Owner

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Storyboard (2 of 2)Detailed Activities

Detailed Activities Timeframe Role Product Deliverable

5. Identify process steps as candidates for business rules• Identify steps in the process that are candidates for implementing

business rules logic.• Look for steps or multiple decisions that could be combined in order

to create rules. • Create simple rules• Rules may also be created in order to determine the appropriate

staffing definition

Week 3, Day 2, 3

Business Analyst WebSphere Business Modeler

Future state process with business rules steps

6. Define task inputs and outputs and mock up forms for human interactions

• Create business items that include business data and associated them as inputs and outputs to the various steps in the process.

• Generate simple form mock ups using forms designer based on the inputs and outputs for the tasks

Week 3, Day 1, 2, 3, 4

Business Analyst WebSphere Business Modeler/ Forms Designer

Future state process with business items and mocked up forms

7. Validate and visualize human interactions• Perform storyboarding using simulation to validate with process

owners the flow and content of the human steps within the process. Obtain sign off and approval in order to move to the experience phase

Week 3, Day 3, 4, 5

Business Analyst working with SME,Process Owner,

WebSphere Business Modeler Publishing Server with sign off or Document


& ValidateBusiness Analyst

Process Owner

13

StoryboardInteractions & Screen flows

Storyboard Human Interactions

Perform Case and Comparison Analysis

Capture and Refine Future State Process

Capture Refine Current State Process


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StoryboardDeliverables and hand-offs


Business AnalystProcess Owner

• Current State Process Model• Future State Model elaborated with business design information• Business Impact reports• Mocked up forms


Discover

Story board

Experience

Manage

Production

Wk 8 Wk 9

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3. Experience Collaborate, Iterate, Refine & Validate

Experience/visualize the solution …

• Elaboration of Business Measures and KPI’s

• Add operational characteristics to future state process

• Refine Forms• Interactively validate elaborated

process in IT sandbox

Business Users Business Analyst

Process Owner


Discover

Story board

Experience

Manage

Production

Wk 8 Wk 9

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Experience (1 of 2)Detailed Activities


1. Add operational characteristics to future state process• Refine and fill in high level process steps, process logic, error

handling, and data flow to support process execution. • Process data should reflect the fields & content needed to support

the process from storyboarding

Week 3, Day 3, 4, 5

Business Analyst, IT Architect


Process Models,Metric & KPI definitions, Role Definitions,Form Mockups

2. Define Constructs for execution on future state process• All process control flow (i.e., gateways) should be refined to reflect

decision logic based on process data. • Define Business Object Model• Look for reuse opportunities• Business roles for human tasks should be mapped to the

organizational directory. • Finally, technical attributes should be added to the process model

to prepare for runtime deployment• Publish models to repository

Week 4 Business Analyst, IT Architect


WSRR ALE

Process Models,Metric & KPI definitions, Role Definitions,Form Mockups

3. Elaboration of Performance Measures, KPIs, and Business SLAs

• Introduce additional measures of process performance against theexpanded operational process; this typically includes adding measures for activities, process branches, and other aggregated measures introduced during process refinement.

• Task escalations should be added in accordance to business SLAs.

Week 4 Business Analyst


New metric & KPI definitions


& ValidateBusiness Users

Business AnalystProcess Owner

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Experience (2 of 2)Detailed Activities Collaborate,

Iterate, Refine & ValidateBusiness

UsersBusiness AnalystProcess Owner


4. Refine Forms•Working with UI development, the form mockups are built out as afully functional end user experience. •Forms are typically exported separate from the process for the hand-off; the end result is a collection of fully functional forms that can be handed in a single web-ready (WAR) package to IT.•Publish forms to repository

Week 4, 5 Business Analyst,IT Architect,*UI developer*

WebSphere Business Modeler, WebSphere Integration Developer, Lotus Forms Designer (standalone)WSRR ALE

Business user ready forms. Two options:1)All packaged in a separate WAR2)Imported back into the model project to replace the mockups

5. Interactively validate elaborated process in IT sandbox•After adding operational characteristics for the first time or for subsequent iterations, the process model can be deployed (directly by LOB) to a test environment for end user interaction & validation. •A mockup can also be created of an appropriate business space for interacting with the process, which can provide guidance for IT.

Week 4, 5, 6 Business Analyst, IT Architect

WebSphere Business Modeler, WebSphere Process Server (sandbox)

(Optional) Exported Business Space mockup

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ExperienceInteractions & Screen flows

Create Forms in Forms Designer

Test application in Sandbox environment

Add Operational Attributes to Process Models in WebSphere Business Modeler

Deploy directly from WebSphere Business Modeler

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Experience Deliverables and Hand-Offs


Business Users Business AnalystProcess Owner

• Process Models• Metric & KPI definitions• Role Definitions• Form Mockups• Business user ready forms (two options):

• All packaged in a separate WAR• Imported back into the model project to replace the mockups

• (Optional) Exported Business Space mockup


Discover

Story board

Experience

Manage

Production

Wk 8 Wk 9

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4. ManageCollaborate, Iterate, Refine &

ValidateManage & Optimize performance ...

• Empower business users to customize end user experience

• Assign access rights; Optimize work assignments; Govern change

• Manage real time business performance, KPIs and Alerts based on changing business conditions

• Take corrective actions against process instances

Business Users Business LeaderWk 1 Wk 2 Wk 3 Wk 4 Wk 5 Wk 6 Wk 7

Discover

Story board

Experience

Manage

Production

Wk 8 Wk 9

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Manage (1 of 3)Detailed Activities


1. (Optional) Empower business users to customize end user experience:

• For collaborative business environments, configure role-based access in Business Space to enable business users to create, modify, improve upon, or personalize their BPM experience as business needs evolve.

• Customer-specific templates can replace out-of-the-box templates in Business Space to simplify the creation of new spaces by end users.

• This step is optional and not appropriate for business environments where the end user environment is locked down and strictly regulated.

Week 5 Solution Administrator, Business Users

WebSphere Process Server,WebSphere Business Monitor

Configured in Business Space

2. Assign Access Rights for System Capability• Configure role-based access control to process & system function and data

according to the business organization structure. This configuration should reflect the separation of concerns in the business: who needs access to what data and what actions those users can take on the data.

• Access rights should be fine tuned along the following high-level areas: i) Process configuration and decision making, such as business rules

and calendarsii) Visibility into data about the process, such as monitor models &

process administrationiii) Interactions with the process managed by the BPM system, such as

human task rolesThe mindset at this stage is defining the ‘realm of possibility’ for whatprocess users are allowed to do.

Week 5 Solution Administrator


Administrative Configuration

3. Optimize Work Assignments: • An ongoing process of looking across the allocation of human tasks among

organizational team members to shuffle work around and respond to changing business conditions.

• Insight into work allocation can be achieved through a combination of team-based task views and monitor visualizations that can optimization decisions.

• Efforts to optimize work can be performed by a business user playing a supervisory role or as part of a empowered peer organizational structure.

Ongoing for life of process

Business Users, Business Leaders


N/A


& ValidateBusiness

Users Business Leader

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4. Govern Change:• Artifacts should be stored and managed in a common repository in

order preserve traceability across tools and changes being made.. • Key stakeholders should be identified and a review process put in

place to govern change.


Business Users, Business LeadersIT developers (setup)

WSRR ALE N/A

5. Manage Real-time Business Performance: • Monitoring of the process provides insight into types of business

transactions, identifies bottlenecks within the process, and allows drill-down from high level business views to individual processes of interest.

• A typical performance management dashboard will have a set of KPIs that measure process performance against business targets, durations for key activities–e.g., human steps–in the process, and dimensional analysis that allows for analysis by different business attributes of the process (such as channels, customer type, etc.).

• Dashboards will also typically incorporate some drill down enabling users to locate business transactions of interest. Drill down may start from high level views or data analysis, to visualizing a process flow, to locating individual human tasks in the process and taking action to reallocate work.



WebSphere Business Monitor

N/A


& Validate

Business Users Business

Leader


23

Detailed Activities Duration Role Product Deliverable

6. Manage KPIs & Alerts Based on Changing Business Conditions:• As the business environment evolves, KPI performance targets and

critical situations requiring user attention will change. • Users can leverage KPI & Alert management to create new

performance targets as needed from a web interface without IT involvement, and customize their process visualization accordingly.



WebSphere Business Monitor

N/A

7. Take Corrective Action Against Process Instances: • Administrators can locate individual process instances or failed

process transactions, correct the in-flight transaction, and continue the process through to completion.

• Dynamic changes to a specific process instance include modifyingbusiness data for the process instance, skipping steps, or redoing steps within the instance.

• Any processes that failed due to transient IT conditions (e.g., network failure) or bad data can be corrected and resubmitted for processing, with the net effect that no transaction is lost.


Solution Administrator

WebSphere Process Server

IT Space

N/A


& Validate

Business Users

Business Leader


24

ManageInteractions & Screen flows

Manage Real Time Business Activities and Optimize Business Performance

Monitor Business Performance In Real Time

Manage User Access Rights and Staffing

Govern Change

Business Space

25

Manage Deliverables and Hand-Offs


Business Users Business Leader

• Configured in Business Space• Administrative Configuration of users• Future improvement Suggestions


Discover

Story board

Experience

Manage

Production

Wk 8 Wk 9

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5. Deploy

IT LeaderIT DeveloperIT Architect

Put solution into production ...

• Setup IT Environments• Prepare and Deploy Production

Artifacts • Unit Test Solution• Monitor health of your solution to

ensure process integrity


Discover

Story board

Experience

Manage

Production

Wk 8 Wk 9

27

Deploy (1 of 2)Detailed Activities

Detailed Activities Timeframe Role Product Deliverable1. Assemble End User Experience• Decide the optimal technology for Forms, implement the Forms and

Configure the Business Space, based on the inputs from Story Boarding

Week 1 UI Developer Lotus Forms/WebSphere Integration DeveloperBusiness Space

Business Space ConfigurationCompleted Forms

2. Perform IT Assembly• Compose the remaining components of the application through the

construction of new processes and services as well as through the use of existing services.

Week 1-2 Solution Developer/Integrator

WebSphere Integration Developer

Completed SCA Application

3. Instrument Process for Monitoring• Creating Business Measures in Modeler will automatically turn on

events to monitor. If more fine grain detail is desired, utilize the WID tooling to turn on events for SCA, BPEL, and State Machines as desired.

Week 1-2 Business Analyst, Solution Developer

Modeler/WebSphere Integration Developer

Completed Business Measures and Monitoring Model

4. Generate Monitoring Models• Generate the J2EE ears necessary for all of the Business Measures. It

is possible to test in the iterative development environment prior to this step, but deployment requires that these artifacts be generated. This allows for the KPIs and other data to be collected, and for the Business Space Widgets to be configured properly.

Week 2 Solution Developer/Integrator

WebSphere Business Monitor Toolkit

Monitor J2EE .ear files

5. Test in the UTE-Testing• The amount and kind of testing performed depends on whether the

effort can be completed using the Interactive Process Design capability. If not, then one can use the component testing capability in the WID environment

Week 2Week 3

Business Analyst/Solution Developer

WebSphere Business Modeler/Business Space/WebSphere Integration Developer

Tested WebSphere Process Server and Monitor Artifacts

Solution

DeveloperBusiness Analyst UI Developer

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Detailed Activities Timeframe Role Product Deliverable6. Prepare Production Process• Create a staging environment for testing on the full topology. This

environment will be created with as close to the production topology as possible.

• The same topologies, database configurations, messaging resources, and repositories should be utilized as for production.

• The ‘Golden Topology’ is the recommended topology, as it is applicable for 90% of all cases.

• The product stack to install includes Process Server, Monitor, and WSRR.

• Once testing is complete, perform any and all installation needed on the production topology.

Week 1-3 Integrator WebSphere Process Server, WebSphere Business Monitor, Business Space, WSRR

ConfigurationTopology

7. Generate Deployment Artifacts• Create the application ears for the application, both for Process Server

and Monitor. Export any needed Business Space Artifacts

Week 3 WPSAdmin

WebSphere Integration Developer, WebSphere Business Monitor Toolkit, Business Space

Configurationtopology

8. Deploy Artifacts• Deploy the artifacts to the production topology and perform the

necessary configuration. Configure the endpoints as needed, configure WSRR with the needed artifacts, configure any resources (databases, supporting applications and services) as necessary.

Week 3 Integrator WebSphere Process Server, Business Space, WebSphere Business Monitor

GeneratedArtifacts

9. Ensure the Transactional Integrity of your process• Administrators can deal with problem instances of processes using the

WebSphere Administrative tooling.

Week 3-N WPS Admin

WebSphere Process Server

Testing

10. Monitor the Health of Your System• Look for throughput and performance problems, adjust your system to

provide scalability and reliability.

Week 3-N WPS Admin

IT Space Report

Integrator WPS Admin

Solution

Developer

Deploy (2 of 2)Detailed Activities

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WDPE Interactive Process Design CapabilityWebShpere Business Modeler

Assemble End User Experience Perform IT Assembly in WID Generate Deployment Artifacts in WID

Instrument Process For Monitoring in WID Generate Monitoring Models in MME Test in the UTE in WID

Prepare Production ProcessDeploy Artifacts to Admin Console Ensure Transactional Integrity in Admine ConsoleMonitor System Health IT Space

DeployInteractions & Screen flows

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Deploy Deliverables and Hand-Offs

IT LeaderIT DeveloperIT Architect

• Configured Business Spaces• Assembled BPM Applications• Generated Monitor Models• Fully Tested BPM Applications• Configured Staging Environment• Configured Production Environment• Deployed BPM Application• Steadily functioning Application)• Reliable, performing application running on the chosen topology• Dashboards with KPIs and Metrics• System Performance data from Health Monitoring from production environments

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Some Tips On Using The Prescriptive Guide

• Pick The Right Process and scope• Consider ROI and opportunities for immediate impact• Executive approvals• Avoid solutions requiring complex IT infrastructure• Avoid scope creep!

• Line up the right team and resources ahead of time • LOB leaders, business analysts, IT developers, and SME’s• Include a BPM Architect who can oversee the solution and ensure it

is achieving the business goals from start to finish• Perform the IT activities in parallel• Requisition of hardware/software and infrastructure requirements

Documents

2009 08 31 BPM Prescriptive Guide