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Business Process Management

Better without the waterfall

Author: Dr Gregor Joeris, Product Manager of the SER Group

The modern working world knows both: the same structured

activities that work more efficiently when managed by process

models, and knowledge-based tasks whose completion demands

greater freedom during execution. Modern BPM provides support

for both concepts.

“Doing by Design” refers to the classic top-down process management for structured processes,

also known as the “waterfall model”

Business Process Management is tradi-

tionally understood as a normative

management of processes – derived

from the work-sharing production pro-

cesses in industry. Applied to office

work, normative BPM guides “producti-

on workers” as they execute strongly

regimented work steps. The modern

“knowledge worker”, on the other hand,

is confronted with a variety of tasks

that are by no means forced into a strict

process framework. Therefore, the

general automation of office work, in

contrast to industrial production, does

not necessarily lead to greater efficien-

cy. Due consideration should be given

to whether or not a process can be

automated. Only then, where the

sequence of routine work can be exact-

ly described, is automation possible, for

example often for auditing and invoice

approval. However, anywhere that

human decisions are best made, pro-

cess models that are too narrowly

defined can prove disadvantageous.

Here, “knowledge workers” need to

keep the upper hand in order to be able

to make assessments and provide inst-

ructions based on their knowledge and

skills. The knowledge work falls to the

person. Automation is often too inflexi-

ble and elaborate to reflect the comple-

xity of reality. With complaint manage-

ment, processing cases of damage or

selecting applications, decisions must

be made on a case-by-case basis. Com-

pletely managing knowledge workers

here using process models is not useful,

motivational or results-oriented!

There thus needs to be another process

model outside of automation, one that

does not focus on the process but ins-

tead the case, for which a goal has been

set. A case can be the customer, a pro-

ject, an order or a complaint.

To better clarify this, Business Process

Management distinguishes between

“normative” (“Doing by Design”) and

“adaptive” BPM (“Design by Doing”).

Both sub-disciplines of Business Pro-

cess Management are equally found in

company practice. The normative BPM,

also called “Production Workflow”,

addresses processes for which the

course of action can be determined

beforehand, while the adaptive BPM,

also known as “Adaptive Case Manage-

ment”, “Ad-hoc Workflow” or “Smart

Process Applications” (according to

Forrester), supports any activity carried

out by the knowledge worker proces-

sing a case. The definition of the EABPM,

an association of legally independent

national companies for the promotion

of Business Process Management, can

thus be understood as follows: “Busi-

ness Process Management is a syste-

matic approach toward entering, desig-

G R O U P

Business Process Management

Task Management (“Design by Doing”/Ad-hoc workflow)

  Situationally managing ad-hoc tasks and processes

  Processes also without process model

  Ad-hoc planning of tasks

  Refining tasks into sub-tasks

  Resubmissions

  Flexible search for tasks/task lists in workbaskets and pro-cesses

  Processes as document folders/main document functionality

  Determination and logging of decisions

Ablauf des Design by Doing

ning, documenting, measuring, monito-

ring and managing both automated and

non-automated processes, and thus

achieving process goals in accordance

with the company strategy over the

long term. BPM comprises the consci-

ous, joint and increasingly IT-supported

determination, improvement, innovati-

on and maintenance of end-to-end pro-

cesses.”

”Doing by Design” vs. ”Design by Doing”

The basic principle of the waterfall

models is as follows: the process model

defines the execution. Every exception/

alternative must be defined in the

model – or it will not be possible! This

design concept can be applied to pro-

cesses that never change, for example

order processing in online trade or acti-

vating mobile phones. The process

modelling is often too complex, e.g. for

application processes and many other

typically administrative processes.

“Doing by Design” is completely unsui-

table for the implementation of pro-

jects, for example, and for a situational

workflow management for which no

mandatory processes can be deter-

mined beforehand.

However, the knowledge work of the

knowledge workers does not take place

in a vacuum. Tasks such as processing

an insurance case or a customer request

cannot be strictly regimented. Yet no

administrator or customer advisor rein-

vents the wheel for each case. Instead,

he asks himself whether he has already

dealt with a similar case, which he then

uses as a guide and reference. Or he

asks a colleague: “I'm working on a simi-

lar project to you, can you give me your

project plan, I can change it around to

suit this job.” This “copy and paste”

method takes similar cases as a starting

point in order to generalise them and

extract them as best practice. This rea-

lity-based design principle is also known

as “Design by Doing”.

Integrated ECM & BPM

A modern BPM solution should combine

both disciplines – “Doing by Design” and

“Design by Doing” – in one architecture.

While adaptive and normative BPM is

discussed in theory, here at SER we call

the two sub-disciplines of our Doxis4

iECM Suite “Task and Business Process

Management”.

SER thus takes the approach of “Integ-

rated ECM & BPM” and sets itself apart

from Middleware and integration-orien-

ted BPM systems. In contrast to the

Middleware-oriented BPM systems, with

Integrated ECM & BPM there are no

additional SOA required in order to inte-

grate the BPM into the application

environment. Integrated ECM & BPM

solutions are used across the company,

from corporate development and orga-

nisation to the specialist departments

and IT in order to independently model,

manage, administer, optimise and exe-

cute document-based business proces-

ses, both ad-hoc and standardised. They

can also be used within individual orga-

nisational units, within a company and

across several companies. An import-

ant feature is the joint metadata plat-

form for all documents, records, pro-

cesses and tasks.

“Standalone BPM is dead”, declared

BPM veteran Tom Baeyens back in

2010. It is now time for “Integrated ECM

& BPM” to take over as the new genera-

tion of Business Process Management

in companies.

Business Process Management (“Doing by Design”/model-driven)

  Definition and execution of process models

  Two process engines: “State charts” and “Dependency graph” (dependencies between tasks) (just like project management/Gantt Charts)

  Support of automatic activities

  Combination of “model-driven” and ad-hoc tasks through refinement

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and SER Banking Software Solutions GmbH

© SERgroup Holding Europe GmbH

Subject to technical changes. Errors and omissions excepted, including misprints. All trademarks cited are registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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