Complete Understanding of a Business
19 July 2010 2 Comments
The best business modelling considers the business from different aspects:
1. business processes (the inputs, and steps that produce the outputs)
2. decision points and associated business rules
3. measures (KPI and operational) and controls for the processes
4. data definitions, status and life cycles
and for a human driven business:
5. roles, responsibilities, and levels of authority
It is very rare I see these in one place and without all 5 parts, there is an incomplete understanding of the way the business works.
Without that complete understanding it is difficult to assess if an upgraded system solution will give real benefits or simply give a need for different work rounds.
About 3triangles
Change: Programmes, Projects, Processes 
This is a very good summary and ties in very well with my experience and my Enterprise Modelling “viewpoints”:
Process, Governance, Performance, Knowledge/Information, Organisation/Roles
I would also suggest adding one further viewpoint – Technology – in the “As-Is” it is existing technology and for the “To-Be” its new/requirements plus technology to be retained:
i.e.
– Functionality, Features, Usage, Requirements, Data Elements,
– Systems, Applications, Tools, Platforms.
I model this using my BOTiCMAP Enterprise Modelling toolset – see http://www.botic.co.uk
One of the reasons for not including technology in my list is because that can cloud the view. I’m working on the principal of “first define the problem” before looking at a solution.
Business modelling is often done to gather requirements for a system. If you include the old system in the model, you constrain yourself to a particular way of implementing the solution. If you are going out to competitive tender, you’ll bias the competition towards one supplier’s way of doing things and potentially miss out on improvements.
And to be fair to everyone else, other modelling tools are available.