Benefit #2: Organizational Efficiency

In my experience, few organizations have a concentrated and ongoing focus on processes, and their integrity. Frequently, the creation of detailed processes for a business area will yield inefficiencies that can be easily corrected. Reports or procedures that are “leftover from a situation long since resolved” which ultimately go into the wastebasket unused, are identified and can be removed appropriately. In addition to the project benefits being discussed here, simply the creation of process models can pay for themselves in reduced waste across the organization!

When an organization has created a sound set of “to-be” process models, the introduction of the product of your project is a known entity to those who participated in the modeling, increasing the efficiency with which the changes are assimilated. Also, the benefits of those changes are capitalized upon more thoroughly and more quickly, enhancing the return on investment for the project.

Benefit #3: Requirements Verification

One of the recurring issues with project requirements are the everyday details that get overlooked in requirements collection sessions, Joint Application Requirements (JAR) workshops and other requirements gathering exercises. The creation of process models enhances the probability that details won’t be missed, because the step by step actions that facilitate actions in the business are being examined. Differences or “gaps” between the existing and new processes are also examined, so unintended omissions or unintended consequences occur much less frequently when process models are used as part of the requirements gathering and verification exercise.

Benefit #4: Testing Integrity

The control and measurement procedures included in a complete process model are perfect elements for deriving and verifying the integrity of the project’s product. Test cases can easily and efficiently be created from segments of each process model. Completeness of testing can be assured via checking each “pathway” through a process model and insuring that a test for that path is created and successfully executed. These benefits for testing have positive “side effects” as well. The customers of your project who may be apprehensive of their abilities to successfully test a product will more likely “come to the table” and participate in testing. The process models give a natural checklist to the customers, and the confidence that a complete evaluation of their business area can be produced. The creation of process models therefore leads to a well staffed and higher integrity testing stage for the project.

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