What to predict and how to measure the results of business process

related projects ?

Ilia Bider, IbisSoft

Erik Perjons, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)

Proceedings: http://bit.ly/18d5rje

What to predict and measure?

Money-related properties • productivity• turnover• profit

People-related properties:• communication/

collaboration• human resource usage• knowledge gathering &

sharing

People-related properties

• Collaboration between employees

• Collaboration between departments

• (De-facto) organizational structure

• Quality of planning

• Distribution of workload

• Stress

• Initiativness

• Transparancy

• Utilization of previous experience

• Goal and result awareness

Model of organization

Department

Department Department

Activity Activity Activity Activity

Process

• Organization• Employees• Departments• Managers• Activities• Process• Process participants

Department

Department Department

Activity Activity Activity Activity

Process

Model of organization

• Goal of the process• Result of the process• Communicate/Collaborate• Activity - carried out as a reaction on

events• Activity - planned and carried out • Replanning activitie

Collaboration between employees

• Participation level – the number of employees that have been enganged in the processes divided by the number of activities that have been completed in the processes

• Interaction level – the number of completed passes between employees divided by the number of completed transitions

• Collaboration between employees – is reflected by the avarage values of participation and interaction level over all processes in an organization

Department

Department Department

Activity Activity Activity Activity

Process

Pass - a transition between employees Activity

Collaboration between departments• Interdepartemental participation level – the number of departments

that have been engaged in the processes divided by the number of activities that has been completed in the processes

• Interdepartemental interaction level – the number of completed interdepartemental passes (between employees from different departments) divided by the number of completed transitions in the processes

• Collaboration between departments – is reflected by the avarage values of interdepartemental participaction and interaction level of all processes in an organization

Department

Department Department

Activity Activity Activity Activity

Process

An inter-departe-mental pass

De-facto organizational structure

Department

Department Department

Activity Activity Activity Activity

Process

• Standing (of an employee) – the number of requests issued by an employee divided by the number of request received by the employee. A low value indicates that the employee is governed by others

• De-facto organizational structure – is reflected by the distribution of standings over employees. If the differences in standing is high, it is an indication of a hierarchical structure

Issue a request – an employee asks somebody to complete an activity

Quality of planning

Department

Department Department

Activity Activity Activity Activity

Process

• Re-planning act – the act of changing the timeframe, changing the related employee, or removing an already planned activity

• Level of unrealistic planning – number of re-planned acts divided by the number of planned activities

Distribution of workload

Department

Department Department

Activity Activity Activity Activity

Process

• Workload – the number of activities completed by an employee

• Distribution of workload – reflects how well human resources are used in a given organization, e.g. whether there are overloaded employees, while other are ”underloaded”

Stress

Department

Department Department

Activity Activity Activity Activity

Process

• Level of stress – a subjective feeling of an employee that he/she has more activites to complete than he/she can handle

• Stressfullness of environment (for an employee) – the number of activities that are planned for an employee divided by the number of completed activities

Initiativeness

Department

Department Department

Activity Activity Activity Activity

Process

• Self-assigned activity – an activity completed by an employee and that he/he was not obliged to carry out

• Initiativeness – the number of self-assigned activities divided by the total number of completed activities

Transparency

Department

Department Department

Activity Activity Activity Activity

Process

• B-visible activity of A – an activity (planned or completed) assigned to employee A that another employee B has the right and possibility to observe

• A-transparency – all B-visible activities of A divided by the number of activities (planned or completed) for A

• Transparency of all employees – the average value of A-transparency for all employees

AB

Utilization of previous experience

Department

Department Department

Activity Activity Activity Activity

Process

• Utilization of previous experiences – an act of using information in archives during completion of an activity

• Level of utilization of previous experiences – the number of completed activities the involve utilization of previous experiences divided by the number of activities completed

Previous experience

Goal and result awareness

Department

Department Department

Activity Activity Activity Activity

Process

• Goal awareness – the number of processes for which a process participant know the goal of the processes divided by the number of processes in which the employee participates

• Result awareness – the number of finished processes for which a process participant know the result of the processes divided by the number of processes in which the employee participates

Volume-related parameters• Example of volume-related parameters:

– the avarage number of activities per process

– the avarage number of started processes per time period

– the average of ongoing processes

– the avarage number of finished processes per time period

• Why do we need volume-related parameters?

Department

Department Department

Activity Activity Activity Activity

Process

Measuring parameters

• How to measure

– Methods based on investigation of (arti)facts, e.g. mining system logs (if they exists)

– Methods based on measuring personal opinions and feelings (interviews and questionnaires)

• What to measure

– Absolute values

– Changes in values

Questions for a questionnaireQuestion: How often have you been contacted by colleagues in your daily work, for example to inform about something, answer a question or carry out a working task? We have divided up the question in four sub-questions depending on categories of colleagues. Mark one alternative in each of the subquestions a), b), c) och d).

a) colleagues on your department

[ ] never

[ ] sometimes

[ ] often

b) your manager

[ ] never

[ ] sometimes

[ ] often

c) colleagues on some other department

[ ] never

[ ] sometimes

[ ] often

d) person that you are managing

[ ] never

[ ] sometimes

[ ] often

Comment: The question aims at investigating the following parameters: Collaboration between employees, Collaboration between departments, De-facto organizational structure.

Question: Are you distributing work-related information to your colleagues, even though it is not part of your working tasks? [ ] always [ ] often [ ] sometimes [ ] never Comment: The question aims at investigating the parameter: Initativeness.

Thank you for your attention!

Ilia Biderwww.ibissoft.com/English

Erik Perjonswww.dsv.su.se/en