| When performing business analysis, specification | | | | exception handling |
| development, and project planning there are several | | | | - They are less visible in nature and have a tradition of |
| process improvement fundamentals that I always take | | | | individuality and freedom that makes problems harder |
| into consideration: | | | | to identify and fix |
| 1. The business process must be fit for the purpose it | | | | - They are characterized by a lack of meaningful and |
| is intended: | | | | actionable data for decision making |
| - Fundamentally it is free from quality defects and | | | | - The computer application supporting the business |
| steps that add no value to the process | | | | process does not capture the necessary metrics to |
| - Its steps are well defined and as straight through as | | | | support a root cause analysis and continuous process |
| possible | | | | improvement. |
| - It manages exceptions and hand-offs with minimal | | | | - They seldom follow a best practice model |
| motion | | | | - They often fail to ensure customer privacy or |
| - It follows industry best practices and meets | | | | facilitate segregation of duties (e.g. SOX compliance) |
| regulatory and compliance requirements | | | | 4. Business process owners and their staff cannot |
| 2. The application design and particularly the underlying | | | | articulate their needs to the level of detail needed to |
| data models: | | | | complete a specification: |
| - Must support continuous process improvement | | | | - They seldom have sufficient knowledge of the |
| - Must support actionable business intelligence and | | | | process objectives |
| data driven decision making | | | | - They fail to remember the exception processing |
| - Must support regulatory and compliance requirements | | | | which is a real killer |
| without burdening the process or the people working | | | | - They do not thoroughly understand the elements of |
| within the process | | | | risk mitigation in a project |
| - Must facilitate a regulatory or compliance audit | | | | The bottom line is that it is the Business Analyst and |
| 3. Business processes are difficult to analyze and | | | | not the end user that is responsible for ensuring that |
| automate because: | | | | the computer application will meet the business |
| - They are typically slow because there is too much | | | | objectives. Therefore he or she should hone their skills |
| work in process, too much time spent on | | | | on understanding the traditional drivers, typical |
| non-value-add work (e.g. over-lapping internal controls | | | | exceptions, and continuous process improvement |
| and re-keying of data), and they are rife with | | | | requirements, for each step in a business process. |