MIRPUR UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (MUST), MIRPUR

DEPARMENT OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

Business Process Engineering
SE-353

Lecture 14: Select Processes for Improvement

Engr. Samiullah Khan & Engr. Fasih Javaid

(Lecturer)

Date: 26 February, 2021

 Reasons for Selecting a Business Process for
Improvement
• Selecting critical processes is one of the EIT's most important responsibilities
• In selecting the process to work on, there are five things you should keep in
mind:
i. Customer impact: How much does the customer care?
ii. Changeability index: Can you fix it?
iii. Performance status: How broken is it?
iv. Business impact: How important is it to the business?
v. Work impact: What resources are available?

Business Process Engineering 3

 Approaches for Selecting Critical Processes

i. Total Approach
• Some companies' BPI efforts tend to occur on an
organization-wide basis
• Management decides to make improvements in all areas of
the firm at once and launches various projects
• This approach is feasible in a small organization

Business Process Engineering 4

 Approaches for Selecting Critical Processes
i. Total Approach (Contd…)
• However, experience has shown that, unless the
organization manages the improvement effort very
effectively, such programs can be expensive and time
consuming
• The normal ongoing business is neglected
• Improvement effort tends to lack focus and coordination

Business Process Engineering 5

 Approaches for Selecting Critical Processes
ii. Management Selection Approach
• This approach is most often used to focus the improvement
effort on the processes that are:
a. Most critical to future business success
b. On the problem areas identified by management
• In this approach, the EIT develops a list of processes it
considers critical to business performance
• It then selects the 20 that are the most critical to the business
Business Process Engineering 6
 Approaches for Selecting Critical Processes
ii. Management Selection Approach (Contd…)
• A 2nd list, focusing on problem business processes, is prepared
• Again, the EIT selects the 20 processes that are presenting the
biggest problems to the organization and its external customers
• Then these lists are combined
• The resulting list will usually contain about 30 processes

Business Process Engineering 7

 Approaches for Selecting Critical Processes
ii. Management Selection Approach (Contd…)
• The reduction from 40 to 30 occurs because some of the most
critical processes appear on both lists
• The prime candidates for BPI are the processes that appeared
on both lists

Business Process Engineering 8

 Approaches for Selecting Critical Processes
iii. Weighted Selection Approach
• Another way is to have the EIT give each of the major business
processes a rating (from 1 to 5) in the following four
categories:
a. Customer impact
b. Changeability
c. Performance
d. Business impact
Business Process Engineering 9
 Approaches for Selecting Critical Processes
iii. Weighted Selection Approach (Contd…)
• A rating of 1 indicates that the process is difficult to do or that
it has little impact
• A rating of 5 indicates that the process is very easy to change
or that it has a big impact
• The ratings of the four categories for each business process are
summed, and these totals are used to set the priorities

Business Process Engineering 10

 Approaches for Selecting Critical Processes
iii. Weighted Selection Approach (Contd…)
• EIT then will decide which business processes should be addressed
immediately and which can be scheduled for later analysis
• Make sure to balance the work load within the organization
• This approach concentrates attention on:
• Critical issues
• Sets priorities for resources
• Ensures that the effort is manageable

Business Process Engineering 11

Approaches for Selecting Critical Processes

Business Process Engineering 12

 Approaches for Selecting Critical Processes
iv. Informed Approach
• World-class organizations continuously struggle to provide superior
products and services to their customers
• As a result, they ensure that all improvement efforts focus on improving
external customer satisfaction
• Because a BPI effort is a major concern for all organizations which directly
impacts the customer interface, it should be linked to customer satisfaction

Business Process Engineering 13

 Approaches for Selecting Critical Processes
iv. Informed Approach (Contd…)
• This approach is customer focused and based on aggressive mechanisms so
that business processes are truly world-class
• The informed approach is an objective method for setting priorities for
business processes, based on the:
a. Importance of the process (as determined by external customer
expectations)
b. The degree to which the process can be improved (as determined by its
current quality)

Business Process Engineering 14

 Approaches for Selecting Critical Processes
iv. Informed Approach (Contd…)
• This approach embodies the following principles:
• Linking improvement efforts to customer expectations
• Focusing on prevention, as well as correction activities
• Emphasizing the areas with the greatest potential for improvement
• Working on a manageable number of projects
• Using facts and evidences, not perceptions/observations, for selection
of projects

Business Process Engineering 15

THANKS