Process Characteristics Analysis

Description

• A technique to identify and assess attributes of business processes, which potentially influence the candidacy of these processes for redesign.  The characteristics supplement other, purely “business impact” considerations, by recognising additional constraints or influences (e.g. prohibitive regulations) which must be weighed into the selection decision.
• For example,  a process may be voted as having a high impact on the Critical Success Factors (see Process Impact Analysis).  However, if that process is highly regulated and changes in the regulatory environment appear highly unlikely, management may decide to focus its efforts elsewhere (thus eliminating it from the scope of the BPI initiative).

When to Use

• Process Characteristics Analysis is used in conjunction with the Process Impact Analysis to identify Focus Areas for the BPI program.

Guidelines

• Limit the number of process characteristics used in the analysis to the four to six, which have most significant contribution to Critical Success Factors. Consider the following points in making decisions.
• Customer service impact
• Financial impact: as measured by the cost of executing the process, or the amount of funds controlled by the process (such as procurement, materials management or accounts-payable processes).
• Number of steps or approval levels
• Duration: elapsed or applied cycle time
• Legal and regulatory constraints: While such processes may not be easy to redesign, do not  rule them out if the business impact is high and the organisation is in a position to influence/lobby for changes to the regulatory environment.
• Degree of automation – Be aware that processes that are already highly automated may be poor candi­dates for redesign.  Also, organisations may be reluctant to change radically those processes in which heavy investment in technology has recently been made.