So, you’ve completed a BPM pilot project, and now it’s time for development and technology implementation at the corporate level. This process is too complex to describe in one article, so we will take a closer look at one step – modeling standards. It will help you organize the beginning of your movement, and we will provide recommendations for planning and integrating innovations into your business processes to speed up and facilitate standardization.
Why modeling standards are necessary
Before moving on to implementation, let’s briefly consider the goals of standardization.
- They help reduce the adaptation time for new team members by providing documentation and specific examples necessary for their work.
- They reduce the costs of technical support, as any team member quickly understands the logic of another worker who applied established technologies, norms, and templates.
- They facilitate business involvement in BPM projects. In most organizations, non-technical business representatives will be involved in unfamiliar ways compared to traditional projects. Basic training in standardization allows them to understand process models and make a valuable contribution.
Who should lead the development of standards?
The equipment supplier should act as a consultant. Most of them provide practical recommendations directly in technical documentation and specific examples. Unfortunately, some suppliers charge for this service.
All equipment supports various functions and unique characteristics, especially performance. The supplier is better than anyone else at understanding these parameters.
You should also look for books, articles, and websites with recommendations from independent experts. If you look at several sources, you will notice differences of opinions. How to choose from conflicting advice?
If possible, try to understand the author’s background. What are their goals for their recommendations, and do they align with yours? If the advice of an unknown expert contradicts the supplier’s advice, listen to the supplier.
Implementation: Deployment
Defining a set of standards is just the beginning of a long process. The team must apply them daily. Start by creating a guide/documentation. We recommend a numbered list of basic rules. We suggest the following format:
- Statement of the rule, ideally one sentence.
- Diagram illustrating correct practice.
- Pair of diagrams showing incorrect approach.
- One to two paragraphs of explanation.
You can organize this on an internal website. For productivity, group related laws into a hierarchy. The number of rules is important, and practice shows that 30-50 is optimal.
Include both positive and negative control elements: do X, don’t do Y. Focus on actions in which your team has the right to act individually and needs guidance.
The developed norms and rules will be applicable in several areas, especially in user interfaces. Don’t duplicate, but refer to existing ones. Use the same terminology in documentation and examples.
Continued use and training of new employees
New team members will be helped by mentors. BPM will require different approaches to problem-solving. An expert organizing the start-up process will help avoid frequent misunderstandings. For example, if developers say they can do it faster in Java, mentors can justify a different, predetermined way and avoid skepticism.
Expert evaluation will identify whether the strategy meets the functional requirements of the business. Study the often violated rules to improve documentation and training and add updated conditions.
Further development: Automated data collection
As BPM projects grow, automated data collection becomes increasingly necessary. Gradually, you can launch queries and reports to identify trends in all projects. Next, you will come to automate most of the data collection.
Productive BPM implementation is a long road, and not always able to realize potential. A reliable way to move forward is to learn from examples. We hope that the ideas presented here will help you move forward.
