Painting the Business Process Modelling Canvas
“A picture is worth a thousand words”
‘Draw and tell’ is a great way to showcase and brainstorm the idea while talking to the business. Business Process Modeling(BPM) is a technique of capturing the business processes and establishing the relation between those processes. To implement BPM, we use Business Process Modeling Notation(BPMN) which is a graphical representation specifying business processes. Although there are numerous pictorial representations used in BPM, here we would stick to five main diagrams to start an idea at a high level and take it further to a granular level marking the flow of each transaction.
- Context Diagram: Context Diagrams are a high-level representation of how the organization would fit into the external world.
This diagram presents the organization (as a trigger point) to the external stakeholders.
Prerequisite: Identification of external entities, stakeholders, and data flow among them in terms of process or relationship.
Process: Consolidating all the stakeholder's list.
Benefit: It would provide the 0-level information representation to understand the relationships and functions with stakeholders.
Pitfall: It does not indicate internal functionality, timings, or any kind of system interactions.
2) Mind Map: Mind maps are graphical representations of information with multiple legs of an idea generated.
Prerequisite: All the information regarding and idea is mapped and consolidated in a single place; be it doc or excel. Another way is for stakeholders and Product managers to meet to conceptualize the idea.
Process: Brainstorming. A lot of brainstorming but a group of business development people. A tip to draw a mindmap is to make 5 branches of 5Y and start putting content into it.
Benefit: It would provide a canvas full of information around the idea or maybe pros and cons but it will clarify the thinking. They display hierarchy, show relationships between individual ideas, and enable them to see the “bigger picture” at a glance.
Pitfall: Mindmap cannot be used much as a formal diagram. It would not give data points but a way to store all the information on the idea.
3) Functional Flow Diagram: Functional Flow Diagram is next in place after context diagrams which are intended to show each functional area of the respective stakeholder. Starting from external stakeholders, it would capture the sequence of activities marking the transaction complete between stakeholder and organization.
Prerequisite: Identification of stakeholder and organization activities.
Process: Start thinking about how the organization would involve stakeholders. For example, if a customer buys a product, would it refer to just the merchant or billing system or payment gateway. Noting down all the departments would also provide the activities done by them. One way of achieving an understanding and consensus on activities is by conducting workshops and interviews.
Benefit: They would create a consensus between stakeholders and organizations. It would identify opportunities for improvement.
Pitfalls: Validation is quite difficult, Often we end up with conflicting statements.
4) Flow chart Diagram: Flow Chart is one of the most powerful business tools and most commonly practiced as compared to other tools. It’s a visual representation of the sequence of steps and decisions needed to perform a process.
Prerequisite: Identification of each and every detail much before it's available.
Process: Conducting workshops, questionnaires, and interviews provide a lot of information that could be mapped in flowcharts.
Benefit: Flowcharts are details-oriented diagrams so they provide clearance on data flow and sequence of transactions.
Pitfall: A lot of times assumptions may provide the wrong decision making which may impact the flow and require a lot of changes in the end. Multiple interviews with different actors may make it a hybrid version that might not give a clear picture.
Types of Flow charts: Swimlane flowcharts, Data flow diagrams, Influence diagrams, Workflow diagrams, Process flow diagrams, Yes/no flowcharts, Decision flows
5) UML: Although Unified modeling language(UML) lies more towards software engineering but some of its diagrams like process flow and activity diagrams are often used in BPM.
Prerequisite: Enthusiasm to make the audience understand and understanding UML. Ofcourse, UML notation understanding and identification of respective blocks for transactions that would be required.
Process: Identification of blocks for which the diagram would be done.
Benefits: They are very useful to clarify the internal design of software, identification of activities required to mark any transaction complete.
Pitfall: UML is time-consuming and not very apt for agile Methodology as they are very detail-oriented, hence, cannot be done as evolving documents.
Types: Class diagram, Component diagram, Composite structure diagram, Deployment diagram, Object diagram, Package diagram, Profile diagram, Activity diagram, Communication diagram, Interaction overview diagram, Sequence diagram, State diagram, Timing diagram, Use case diagram.
Although, Pen-n-paper and whiteboard are the best tools to start with BPM but there are some really cool digital tools that can be utilized for BPM naming Lucid chart, kissflow, MS Visio, smart draw, draw.io. Even Google extensions like Google Draw which can be used for BPM on the go.
Next time you think of writing verbose docs and the mapping them, start with a mindmap what are you thinking, go ahead with context diagrams to know your stakeholders, transverse with functional flow diagrams and flowchart to know the granular details of transactions and information flow. A lot of will be clear to you and the audience.
After all, “ A picture is worth a thousand words.”
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