Introduction to Business
Process Modelling
Edited by
Robert Pergl for KOM
from materials provided by
Marek Skotnica
FIT CTU
Nov 2022
Systems and Process Thinking
System (General) Process (General)
• An interconnected set of • A series of actions or steps taken
elements that is coherently in order to achieve a particular
organized in a way that achieves end. (source: Oxford Languages)
something (function or purpose)
(source: Donella Meadows)
Source
A Shoe Maintenance System
• Goal: Ensure that my shoes are clean and last long
• Tools
• Shoes
• Shoe cleaning tools
• Cedar shoe trees
• Todoist application
• Processes
• When I come home, I put shoe trees inside the shoes
• Every two months, I clean and polish all my shoes (Todoist recurring task)
• When I come home and the shoes are dirty, I clean them immediately
Why Systems Work?
Scientific approach – try if something works, measure, improve, start again
- Reduces a cognitive load and achieves predictable results
Whole is better than a sum of its parts
- A human body is better than billions of its individual cells.
- A SpaceX company (system) can send a rocket to the space. No
individual can.
In larger scale systems, people are disconnected from the outcomes of their
actions and are unable to correct themselves.
Business Systems
and
Business
People involved in Lead
Generation
Processes
Source
Permitting Process for a
Federally-Founded Highway
Project in the U.S.
Case Study
Complexity
10- to a 20-year process
16 different approvals,
29 different statutes,
5 different executive orders
that all apply to this process
Process Portal at the Czech
Technical University
Case Study
Summary
Systems and processes are everywhere, and they have many different
forms
Various degrees of process formalization and automation
Systems and processes allow to learn from mistakes (ours and others)
in a systematic way
Business Process Management
Process Notations
Plain Unstructured Text
Most used way to describe process
Customers present themselves at the counter of the pizzeria or make a telephone
call. In both cases, Mia writes down the name of the customer, the ordered items,
and the total price on an order form. On the counter lies a menu of the available
pizzas and their prices. Usually, she produces this list every year during the holiday. In
the case of an order by telephone she also notes the telephone number. Moreover,
she repeats the ordered items and informs the customer about the price and the
expected time that the order will be ready. If necessary, she also tells the customer
about the assortment of pizzas.
In 2018 only the EUR-Lex database of European Union legal documents added a total
of 368 017 documents in 24 languages
Flowchart
UML Activity Diagram
BPMN
Bank consists of cca 150 huge BPMN
processes (Portugal Bank)
Good for software system specification and user interaction –
people can kind of understand it.
Eriksson-Penker Model
Enterprise Architecture
Focuses rather on concepts than processes.
Design and Engineering Methodology for
Organizations (DEMO)
Archimate
Lecture on Archimate at the CTU
https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/92c7380
c-6b0e-4d6a-b051-f021b3711d82
Notations Summary
So many notations for different views on organizations
Mostly represented as word documents, enterprise architecture, and
knowledge of employees
It takes a lot of work to create and maintain large process maps.
Business Process Management
(BPM)
BPM
1. Design (Conceptual Modelling)
As-is process modeling
To-be process modeling
Usually analytic (non IT) work that takes months/years
2. Modelling (Operations Modelling)
What-if analysis
"What if I have 75% of resources to do the same task?„
"What if I want to do the same job for 80% of the current cost?„
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJAHrU_GvOk
3. Execution
Things happen according to a discovered and modeled business process
Can be done manually or automatically or by AI
End to end processes happen across multiple departments and IT
systems.
4. Monitoring
Measuring of process KPIs
Financial - Profit, cost, sales by region, …
Customer – Customer aquisition cost, customer retention, …
Process – Number of tickets, Percentage of product defects, …
People – Employee satisfaction, Response to open positions, …
5. Optimization / Re-engineering
Measure what is going on based on real data and propose
improvements
Then go back to step 1. and start again
Capability Maturity Model
Capability Immaturity Model
0 : Negligent – Do not follow up at any plans, fails to deliver a product.
-1 : Obstructive – Processes, however inappropriate and ineffective, are
implemented with rigor and tend to obstruct work.
-2 : Contemptuous – The internal chaos and lack of competence is
hidden behind fake reports and certifications.
-3 : Undermining – Internal politics…
Further Reading (Optional)
Role of Business Processes in IT
Where do we write the code?
Model Driven Development
VS
Business Process Management Systems /
Low Code Platforms
Business Process Automation
Automating complex tasks (Excel)
Eliminates boring and repetitive work (Email + Excel)
Robotic Process Automation – A buzzword for UI tests like Selenium to
do work on behalf of people. (Legacy systems without API)
Summary
IT can be a great tool to support and automate business processes
Business and IT alignment
Main Takeaways
What are systems and processes?
How to manage business systems and business processes?
How are business processes related to IT?
The End
Sources
https://visual.ly/community/infographic/economy/amazon-fulfillment-process
https://qz.com/1054612/donald-trumps-incredible-infrastructure-flowchart-of-federal-building-permissions
/
https://buildazure.com/end-end-ci-cd-automation-using-azure-devops-unified-yaml-defined-pipelines/
https://sparxsystems.com/resources/tutorials/uml/business-process-model.html
https://www.uml-diagrams.org/document-management-uml-activity-diagram-example.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArchiMate#/media/File:ArchiMate_example.jpg
https://www.opengroup.org/togaf-standard-version-92-overview
https://www.multi-support.com/en-us/blog/bpmn-whats-it-to-us-br-part-1-of-3?Action=1¤tPage=3&
M=NewsV2&PID=10382
https://zeebe.io/what-is-zeebe/
https://integrationtraining.co.uk
https://camunda.com/
https://www.whatmatters.com/get-examples
Bonus: Designing Good Systems
Important System Concepts
• A well-defined goals
• A feedback loop to improve the goals
• System should start simple
• In startups minimum viable product
• Don't go for the shiny new things and too much automation early
• Appropriate modelling technique
• Good execution
Goals and
Purpose
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
https://www.ted.com/talks/john_doerr_why_the_secret_to_success_is
_setting_the_right_goals/transcript?language=en
https://www.whatmatters.com/get-examples
Company-Wide OKRs
Sales OKRs
Engineering OKRs
