STEPS IN DEVELOPING THE PROCESS PLAN AND STRATEGY

Following are the steps for assessing the process and developing the plan
and strategy:

•
Step 1: Analyze the current process and develop a process score card.
This
gives you a good idea of the existing issues and opportunities that a new
process and system can address.
•
Step 2: Develop a general concept about the new process.
The concept out-
lines what roles of organizations and types of automation are appropriate.
•
Step 3: Develop the process plan.
The plan addresses how you will progress
in concept from the situation in Step 1 to that in Step 2.
•
Step 4: Define the business process strategy.
This defines how the plan is to
be achieved.

You could spend months analyzing every transaction in the process in great
detail. This would be a return to the 1920s industrial engineering. You should
instead cover only a sample of transactions and only 5 to 10 steps per transac-
tion. Gather information by being trained to do the process. Perform the process
yourself if you can, given health and safety considerations. As is emphasized in
Chapter 3, avoid interviews. They are too formal and rigid.
What are the benefits of this work? First, you will have an idea of the poten-
tial for improvement. Second, you can identify and eliminate those processes for
which there is little room for improvement or for which technology does not ap-
pear to have great potential. Third, you can raise the level of interest among
managers and employees in fixing the process in addition to the system. Fourth,
you pave the way for estimating benefits and gathering requirements. You are
likely to develop substantially more process plans than you will initially handle
for project work.
It seems obvious that you would not want to embark on getting a new system
without a process plan. Yet, people often approach it this way. Why? They think
inside the systems box. They do not consider the process to be part of their
puzzle. This is wrong.