Today, the fact that a business process approach to work organization is considered to be a modern, innovative solution that, if implemented, helps improve the quality of work and increase the company's profits, has become commonplace. I have already written more than once about business processes and systems for working with them (BPMN, BPMS). For example, in the article “What is a Business Process” I describe the basic concepts, features and advantages of this approach. And now I decided to talk about the shortcomings of the implementation of the process approach, about what a negative effect awaits the company and its employees if this approach is implemented.
It would seem that a specialist was hired to work - a business consultant, or a business analyst, he knows his business. You can relax, experts will do everything "as it should." But in fact, everything is not as simple as it may seem at first glance. And in case of erroneous solutions to the problem, it is the client and his employees who are waiting.
Before reading this article, I strongly recommend that you read my previous publications on this topic: ')
But first, I would like to add some clarity and respond to the comment that was given in the previous article. It is important to understand that business process notation is always graphics. Only after creating a graphic notation can we say that a description of the company's business processes has appeared, after which you can begin to implement an optimized work model.
Of course, you can try to describe the company's work with text, even algorithmization, i.e. in fact, the description of the processes can also be implemented in text form. For example, some experts prefer this approach to work. And that is their right. But to call the textual list of actions of employees for solving different types of tasks by notation is unacceptable. Description (notation) of business processes are subject to certain rules, have, as any language, their own "syntax" and "vocabulary". But if, for example, in programming languages, “rules” and “words” are a set of text commands, in BPM notations, this is, first of all, graphics.
Why is this so important? In addition to the established and well-established rules, there is also a logical explanation. The graphic picture is easier perceived as a whole. But only after we saw and managed to understand the overall picture, we can say that we described the business processes. The situation that is depicted in the picture, begins to exist only after we painted it. This is the essence, including when describing business processes.
And therefore I propose to agree:
If I speak about the description of business processes, we are talking about business processes described graphically in one of the notations.
But back to the main topic of the article, and let's try to figure out what are the disadvantages of using business processes in practice, why they arise and what they can lead to.
How to create a business process description
Most often, the invited business consultant is working on the creation of a business process description. This specialist knows his business, and, of course, before creating the notation, he studies the work of the business, its features. But it is necessary to understand that even the best invited expert in the short time spent on research cannot become an expert in the field of activity of this company. I immediately explain this to the customer, in order to remove the negative and misunderstanding:
For example, I was invited to describe the business processes of a sewing enterprise, but at the same time I do not have expert knowledge in the sewing business, i.e. I cannot sew anything on my own. I also worked with a travel company, but the process of accompanying a child to rest in a summer camp for me and now is just a “kind of process”, I have never done it myself. I also worked with a medical center, and here also I can’t tell you exactly how patient information is collected for the operation, because I am not a doctor.
A little about the terms used in this article.
Before continuing, it is necessary to clarify the picture of what is happening and the role of that person or group of people in the work on optimization.
Employee - the essence of representing a person or a group of people who are the source of information. The employee is competent in the business process, has no right to make a decision and is usually not competent in modeling.
A business analyst is an entity representing a person or people who are modeling a business process and may in some cases provide recommendations for improving the business process. In most cases, they are not initially competent in the process and do not have the right to make a decision.
A leader is an entity representing a person or a group of people who are responsible for making a decision. The manager is competent in making decisions, and is usually incompetent in the business process and modeling.
Notation / business notation is a language describing business processes.
Someone can correct me that one person can be both a good employee and a good business analyst. I will immediately say that I have not seen such people, and it is difficult to imagine a person who would be equally good in two disciplines like business analysis and all the activities of a company.
For clarity, I give you a table (the sequence of columns and rows does not matter):
Table of Entity and Competencies
Entity / Competence
Process knowledge
Business modeling
Decision-making
Employee
*
Business analyst
*
Head
*
Why do you need a guest business analyst?
Business modeling is necessary in order to get a vivid picture of how a business works now, i.e. "as it is". At the same time, “thin spots” and segments in which it is possible to carry out optimization become noticeable.
To draw up a notation, the analyst studies the work of the company, compiles a description of the business process “as is”. Further, taking into account the wishes and perspectives described by the company's management (customer), it defines “how it should be”. And with the help of graphic elements of the notation, it can reveal where and what really change in order to move from the first state to the second.
The following components are necessary for drawing up the competent notation:
Knowledge of business analysis and ability to work with notations.
Information on the operation of a particular process.
Requirements for optimization: what the company seeks to achieve the result.
Knowledge and ability to work with notations is the competence of a business analyst. Information about the company's work is provided by its employees and management. In doing so, the business analyst does some data gathering work. He uses company reporting, conducts interviews with managers and employees of various departments, strives to get the most complete picture possible. The result depends to a large extent on how well this work is done, and how actively the representatives of the company are willing to contribute to obtaining the necessary information. This is a separate work, with its own specifics and techniques.
It is also important to understand that the decision on which of the proposed options for optimizing work will be implemented in practice is taken by the business manager, and the final result depends not less than on the quality of the business analyst’s work.
Examples
Next, I will show with examples how wrong the original data leads to wrong conclusions. And why such aspirations to get rid of a person often end sadly. I gave the first example to demonstrate how it works. The second example is to make it clear that even the scale of the company can not save from problems.
Example 1. Automation online store
A very common situation is the optimization of the online store.
Initially, several people worked on order processing:
Operators who manually transferred orders received from the site to the accounting system.
Warehouse worker directly involved in shipping orders.
After the optimization, the need for operators disappeared, since the order is automatically transferred to the accounting system, where all the necessary documents are also created without the participation of the person and the goods are reserved.
As a result, a person engaged in the shipment of orders, without the help of operators, can independently print out documents and prepare a list of goods for shipment. Operators are generally not needed.
"On paper" it all looks perfect. The system is implemented, the operators are dismissed. Warehouse worker add a list of duties (print documents), and if very lucky, increase salary. The company saves money by reducing several rates, eliminating errors associated with human factors. Everything should work better than before.
In practice, it turns out that the situation is not so rosy.
If earlier the number of orders received by the collector at the warehouse was limited by the speed of the work of people-operators, now orders are formed automatically, almost instantly, and accumulate “in stock”.
The number of orders processed per day is now limited only by the capacity of the warehouse worker. A person sees a constant "queue of orders." She is also observed by his superiors, and habitually expresses discontent.
Even if there is no negative “from above”, a person himself sees a permanent “blockage”, he has to work more than before. Of course, this is partially offset by a salary increase. But still, due to the increased load, fatigue accumulates, including psychological. A man is not a machine, he cannot work ideally every day without interruptions. Each person has a certain maximum - how many orders he is able to process per shift.
As a result, warehouse workers begin to quit one by one. There is a turnover that leads to additional problems, delays in sending orders, errors associated with the work of inexperienced and tired employees. Instead of the expected optimization of work, the company incurs losses and reputational losses.
And all because, fascinated by the beautiful “simplified” notation, the analyst and the head of the company did not consider any mechanisms for regulating the speed of work, did not take into account how much the load increases, i.e. employees were perceived not as real people, but as abstract “business processes”.
Example 2. Taxi automation
Today, there is often talk that in the near future taxis will operate without a driver. Uber and Yandex-taxi experts talk about this. In principle, both of these companies are already on the path of automation and the abandonment of the human factor wherever possible.
As a result, you can come to the following scheme:
Order a taxi - automatically, through the site or application without the participation of the dispatcher.
Customer delivery to destination
Payment - automatically, from a bank card or online money after a trip based on GPS data.
Of course, at the same time, people still work in the taxi service itself (technical support operators, software and hardware service technicians, feedback moderators, etc.). But in the business process described above, if they refuse drivers, they cease to participate at all.
On the one hand, everything turns out convenient and profitable. No people - no random errors, the cost of creating jobs and wages.
On the other hand, if people are completely excluded from the chain, then many risks arise. What happens if the driver's program crashes and the person is driven to the wrong place? And how will the robot react in the event of an accident, especially if some kind of hardware node is damaged due to an accident? And if criminals or terrorists decide to seize and use a robot taxi for their own purposes?
As you can see, for all external benefits, the exclusion of a person from the chain leads to unpredictable consequences and requires the introduction of some protective mechanisms, as a result of which (or even non-implementation) the company incurs additional costs, the result is the opposite of what was planned.
The main causes of errors and problems
It is necessary to understand that in the process of creating a notation, any business consultant tries to simplify the notation as much as possible, “reducing” the steps and actions that, from his point of view, are not too important and can interfere with the understanding of the picture as a whole. After all, it makes the process that should be clear to the consumer and specialists. One of the principles goes like this: “One should not multiply existence without necessity” (the so-called Occam's Razor).
On the part of the company, the notation is studied by the business leader On the one hand, he knows much more about his field of activity than the invited specialist. On the other hand, he is also not an expert on the work of each department and employee. As a leader, he sees the whole picture, and is also prone to simplification. In addition, it is necessary to understand that in the business now there are a large number of random people who got into the business either by accident or have a non-specialized education.
As a result, a simplified business model is created, which is created by a person who is competent in modeling, but not competent in the specifics of the work of a particular field of activity. His work (business notation) is taken by the head of the company, who is not an expert in business modeling, and therefore, without careful joint study of all the details, he cannot say for sure where simplifications are permissible and where not. In addition, the business leader is also in most cases not an expert in certain processes taking place in the company. He may be a great organizer, but not a doctor. Or a connoisseur of fashion and style, but - not a seamstress, etc.
Unfortunately, in the process of working to optimize business processes, the main goal is usually not so much improvement of work (as it should be), but first of all - reduction of expenses. The management of the company, which applied to a specialist in business process optimization, seeks to reduce costs. And it almost always means - to reduce the staff unit. This usually sounds like the “Human Factor Reduction”.
There are many more examples like these above, all of them are united by several important factors, which lead to sad results:
Lack of competence analyst in matters of a particular business;
Lack of competence of the manager in understanding business processes and unwillingness to delve into the details;
Too much confidence in the graphic notations (they give the degree of freedom that allows you to cover the process as a whole and see the optimal solutions, but do not take into account people who in reality act as arrows and black boxes);
Excessive confidence in technology (an error inherent in many modern people).
The result is a business process that, in theory, looks perfect, at some stage or the other begins to falter.
Another important factor that combines the above examples:
In drawing up the notation and the implementation of the process approach, the analyst and the head of the company did not take into account that the organization necessarily consists of people. As soon as people are excluded from the process, it ceases to be a business process, it becomes a technological process. And for this type of process there are own description rules, security requirements, etc. Describing them as business processes is unacceptable.
Simple solution: value people
The easiest and most obvious way is to take care of your employees and treat them humanely. Determine adequate work standards, do not completely exclude people from the business process, reduce their number of functions, for example, let them control, check and print documents or perform other auxiliary types of work. Shorten their working day, for example, make shifts of 6 hours. People will not overwork, will have time to do everything on time, the process will be under control.
Of course, this way the savings will be smaller compared to the complete refusal to participate in certain processes of employees. But you are guaranteed to avoid many problems. At the same time reducing the burden on employees with a high probability in itself will bring you a profit. A person who does not overload and has a good rest time works much better. It is more effective, makes less mistakes, is ready to work creatively, to do more and better.
However, any experienced manager will confirm this. If you force a person to work 8 hours in a row without interruptions, then his performance drops significantly. Forcing employees to work "for wear" is not only inhuman, but, in most cases, not profitable. People will quit or, in certain cases, you will be forced to dismiss them, as they begin to do the work very badly, as they say about such employees, they “burn out”. We will have to spend time and energy on finding a new person, his training, and so from time to time. Permanent loyal company employees will bring much more benefit and will cost less than regularly changing personnel.
Be careful with technology.
At the very beginning of the article I pointed out the main mistake - excessive trust in modern technologies, including business modeling, in combination with the desire to simplify everything that is possible, leads to the accumulation of errors.
Delve into the details, especially if you are planning on replacing a person with a program at some site. Make sure that this does not lead to loss of control or natural adjustment of the load of adjacent units. You should not "blindly" trust modern software and technology solutions simply because we live in the age of mass automation.
Business modeling and IT-sphere
In the end, I would like to say a few words about how business modeling and related features relate to the work of IT professionals. I believe that just for IT specialists these tools can be very useful. Business modeling helps to understand how the organization works as a whole, to see the big picture before the start of automation.
Such an analysis helps to propose and implement optimal solutions for the work of various organizations and individual departments.
Despite the fact that the article is devoted to the shortcomings of business modeling, I personally believe that it is not only possible to apply business processes and notations in optimizing and automating the work of organizations, but it is really necessary.
But at the same time it is important to understand that, like any tool, business modeling can also work in both directions, and bring not only benefits, but also harm. As you know, from the fact that you can cut yourself with a knife, not a single person has ever thrown out all the knives from their kitchen. So here, study as deeply as possible the tools, remember the possible disadvantages of using business process notations, avoid unnecessary simplification. And do not forget that these notations describe the work of the organization, i.e. first of all, people, and only then - their work with technologies.
I would also like to note that when I write about the lack of competence of a business analyst or business executive, I do not claim that one of them is a low-skilled specialist. I say that in certain areas they may have a lack of knowledge.
Thus, a business analyst may not be sufficiently competent in the field of client activity. And if this coincides with the lack of attentiveness of the head of the company to the details, with the unwillingness in difficult or doubtful cases to consult with the employees responsible for one or other activity, then this may result in the sad way described above. Moreover, as you can see from the examples, negative factors may equally affect a small business (an example of an online store), and a large company (an example of a large taxi service). You must understand that this is just another example of the division of labor for greater efficiency in solving the problem.