Business processes - a new era in management? Process and system approaches to management

Any activity is always a certain process, as it has an extension in time, stages and a result. Therefore, from craft or cottage industries to modern high-tech companies, everyone is involved in processes. What has changed recently? Why has the topic of business processes become so relevant today? In this material, I will try to analyze the process approach to managing an organization and reflect the specific features of a new view of management that the theories of modeling and reengineering brought with them.

Background

Management researchers are invariably concerned with the question of the universality of theories and the provability of solutions. It is desirable, as in mathematics, to find axioms and constants that one could confidently rely on when searching for and making decisions. The second important topic is the language for displaying decisions related to organizational and management systems. The most successful attempts to make the science of management more harmonious are accounting and financial statistics. These are very valuable parts of management, but, unfortunately, not suitable for “mere mortals” who need not only to make the right decision, but also to communicate it to the entire staff. Here we can also talk about network planning and graph theory, but still this approach remains controversial for many.

In the 70s of the last century, in complex military projects, American specialists came to the need to visually structure activities, and since then the concept of a business process has been firmly entrenched in management practice. This period can be conditionally called “structuring” of the business, since the purpose of constructing visual activity diagrams at that time was to identify the logic, divide areas of responsibility, determine the flow of documents and products, and this action itself largely accelerated and simplified understanding, identified inaccurate places and ruptures.

At this stage, a business process was defined as a set of sequentially and/or parallel operations that transform material and/or information flows into corresponding flows with other properties. Of course, here we are not talking about the fact that for the first time they saw a process in activity (processes were already improved by Adam Smith in the 18th century, and Henry Ford perfectly built production processes), but about the fact that a tool for displaying and systematically analyzing the company’s activities through process diagrams appeared .

A visual reflection of an enterprise's business processes significantly accelerated and simplified automation activities, so in the 80s the emphasis shifted to the description of automated business processes. This was a period of active involvement of computers in all areas of production and management. Naturally, one description very soon became insufficient for managers, so a new level of complexity began to form - process management.

The process approach views management as the work of a special person (“process owner”) to design an effective sequence of actions to create a formulated result under given conditions and ensure the implementation of these actions (process). That is, the focus from managing people in process management shifts to managing flows of actions and results.

Modeling development stages

Having embarked on the path of streamlining business processes, management must sooner or later switch to process management on a company-wide scale, since the flow of activity, like the flow of water, cannot exist in a confined space where movement is limited. That is, the company is forced to conceptualize all its activities as a network of interconnected processes, to link them so that they strengthen and not weaken each other. This requires modeling of all activities in a complex. This stage began in the West around the 90s. Everything happens with some lag, but it depends greatly on the industry. Fast-growing industries (such as telecommunications) have long and successfully mastered these technologies.

A feature of process-oriented management is the definition of business processes as an interconnected set of works that ensure the achievement of the goals set by the company (implementation of the strategy), which is an order of magnitude more difficult than managing a local process. Here, the focus of management’s attention is transferred from production and logistics processes to “office” processes.

The assessment showed that design, planning, accounting, etc. processes are often the main culprits in low speed and high cost production processes. That is, they ultimately determine the properties of the processes that create value for the customer.

Thus, to achieve success, the company’s management itself must be subjected to modeling and optimization, but sometimes this is extremely difficult, since most often the following is observed:

high uncertainty in the actions of managers;
lack of necessary competencies in process management;
psychological unpreparedness of specialists and managers to “drive themselves into limits.”

Therefore, the next stage in the development of modeling tasks is inevitable - this is the initial competent design of all company processes as a single effective system - business engineering. Business engineering methodology views management as a service provider to the value stream, as it should be. At the same time, the implementation of the process approach occurs almost automatically and does not require efforts to overcome the resistance of any of the personnel groups (of course, if everything is designed correctly from the beginning).

I plan to consider the topic of business engineering in more detail in future articles. Here I would like to pay attention to the options and subtleties of the business process as a modern management phenomenon.

Managerial phenomenon

Having examined the dynamics of the development of the process approach to enterprise management, I think that no one doubts that this is serious and will last. My personal opinion is that the transition to process management is comparable to the transition from calculations on your fingers to calculations using records, formulas, and rules. As the management object becomes more complex, management technologies must inevitably become more complex.

But is it so difficult? Where does a modern manager encounter a barrier to the benefits of a process approach? My observations show that the manager, by virtue of tradition, imagines the organization in the form of an organizational structure, where the main information is about the division of employees into departments and about responsibility for each group. Let's compare what structure and business process diagrams look like, drawn using the same visual tools.

Structure

Obviously, the main difference between the schemes is the presence of a thread in the second scheme, which unites all participants with a certain logic. Managerial work is similarly different. With traditional functional management, this is a “division” of attention, work, and reward, which is a very labor-intensive task and does not guarantee anything.

When moving to a process-oriented approach to management, company management can no longer be considered as the work of an “overseer,” but rather as the work of a coach, conductor, director, etc. – that is, the task changes from separation and control to the formation of the best configuration of conditions for maximizing the flow of created value.

We can conclude that the whole difficulty lies in the habit of the traditional version of management, and partly in the fact that there are no visual ready-made process models, and their creation from scratch requires serious efforts of the management team.

Fundamental elements of process management

Identifying key performance results and comparing them with the company’s business processes.
Identification of clients of business processes and their requirements (in the future, it is necessary to establish a strong connection with them and continuously monitor their satisfaction, since it is the client with this approach that becomes the main measure of the quality of the process).
Creating a structure of business processes based on importance, nesting, and chronology of activities.
Determination of business process parameters.
Determination of those responsible and executing each process.
Designing logic – a technology that should ensure the creation of the desired result in the required time frame.
Setting up a system for synchronizing the activities of different processes (ideally, automation of planning and control of all process indicators).
Personnel training is the formation of readiness for group responsibility for results (often this requires a fairly strong restructuring of the motivation system).
Formation of a cyclical mode of design-analysis-adjustment of processes based on the results of the analysis - the so-called “rhythm of business”.

An important stage in the development and description of activities is the determination of the characteristics of business processes. Almost every methodology highlights the following elements.

Process boundaries, which are defined by starting events and inputs (resources), as well as ending events and outputs (results).
Regulatory documents of the process. These include both external legislation and company-issued rules, plans and instructions. Unfortunately, it is rare to find well-written management documents in companies, so the main delay in the transition to process management arises from the need to develop the required number of rules and instructions.
Process resources: performers and participants, equipment and tools, information systems and other important elements, without which the process is impossible or ineffective.
Process indicators – measured process variables and their standard values. These may include not only the volume of the result, but also the time spent on the process, the amount of material or money lost, the number of defects, customer satisfaction index, etc.

All this can be described in simple text or tabular form, but it’s not for nothing that designers use graphical methods. Any design, including an organizational one, will be much more deeply detailed and meaningful if it is presented visually and in the context of the activities of the rest of the system.

Visualization of processes in the form of technologies can be simple, as shown in the figure above, consisting of infographics accessible to any employee, or it can be more complex, performed using special process modeling tools. As part of this series, I plan to describe all the most interesting and accessible modeling notations. For now you can familiarize yourself with two of them - and.

In any case, the methodology provides direction and tools, while value for the company is created by the management team, which forms the management system. No even the most accurate technique guarantees that the mechanism will work like a clock if there is no master who understands, sets and maintains this “clock”.

I think no one has a question about whether business processes are needed or not and why they are being developed, since when there is a business, by definition there are business processes. Therefore, we cannot say that working with business processes is a fundamentally new era. But still, a shift in emphasis, new tools and technologies are significantly changing the essence of management work. Those who understand this have a chance to create a much more manageable, mobile and effective business than those who focus on managing the old fashioned way - often through psychological pressure on subordinates.

Annotation: Purpose of the lecture: Presentation of the process approach to organizing enterprise management

Introduction

Process approach assumes that the activities of an enterprise can be represented as a set of ongoing business processes. It is effective for enterprises whose production activities involve repeated repetition of the same chains of actions performed by different performers. Such enterprises are the majority of office companies engaged in various types of work with documents, for example, banks, insurance, investment companies, consulting companies, publishing houses. Also, the use of the process approach is effective in enterprises whose activities are described by detailed regulations, for example, in government bodies.

About a hundred different definitions of the concept business process are used in the literature. Therefore, in this course we will not give a general definition of a business process; we will just note that, as a rule, the definition assumes that a business process has a graphical diagram on which nodes and transitions (arrows) are located. Control points move along transitions.

The appearance of a control point in a node of a certain type corresponds to the execution of some action in the production activity of the enterprise. Transitions in the business process diagram, as well as nodes intended for branching and merging control points, are located in such a way that the actions taken into account in the business process are performed in a coordinated manner and in the correct order. Process approach does not imply mandatory automation of the enterprise. Business processes can be of two types: Business processes for analytical modeling of enterprise activities and executable business processes.

Business processes for analytical modeling actually represent a special language of communication between managers, business analysts and enterprise executives and are used to develop and explain basic decisions on organizing the business of an enterprise. Their task is to ensure the perception and understanding of these decisions by people, so they do not contain details, as a rule, they are limited to describing only frequently used sequences of actions that do not contain any deviations; the sequences of actions described in them are not intended for real execution.

Executable business processes, on the contrary, involve moving control points along a business process diagram in a computer environment in strict accordance with the actions performed in the enterprise. Such computer environments are implemented - business process management systems and. From now on we will call them SUBPiAR. In fact, SMS&AR distribute tasks to the executor in accordance with the movement of control points along the business process diagram and control the execution of these tasks.

Historically process approach At first it included only business processes for analytical modeling. As part of this approach, the enterprise's business processes were identified, the identified business processes were analyzed, and proposals were generated to improve business efficiency by changing business processes. Next, the modified business processes were implemented at the enterprise. As a rule, it took a long time and was complicated, through changes in job descriptions, organizational structure, and direct instructions from managers.

The advent of executable business processes has brought many new benefits to the process approach. The main ones are:

the use of SMS&AR as an analogue of a production conveyor and, as a result, a significant increase in the productivity of office workers
the ability to quickly change enterprise business processes in response to changing business conditions

In recent years, there has been an active implementation of SMS&AR both in business and in government organizations. Therefore, there was a need to train students of both economic specialties and specialties related to information technology in the process approach and work with SMS&AR.

This course focuses primarily on executable business processes. The course provides the definition and main characteristics of executable business processes, describes business process management systems and administrative regulations and their main components. The basics of developing enterprise business processes are outlined. It is expected that within the framework of this course, students will study the theory of executable business processes, the main components of a typical SMS&AP, become familiar with graphical notations for describing business processes, and gain practical experience in the development and execution of business processes.

A description of the main elements of business process management systems is given using the example of a free open source system – RunaWFE. RunaWFE is freely distributed along with its source code under the open LGPL license. The system is free, it can be freely installed on any number of computers and used without any restrictions. You can download distributions and source code via the Internet from the sourceforge free software developer portal. net at: .

The RunaWFE project website address is http://www.runawfe.org/rus.

Process approach to organizing enterprise management

Levels of process management

A modern view of process management involves dividing management across several levels.

At the first level, the overall strategic management of the enterprise is considered. This level uses business processes for analytical modeling. The task of business processes at this level is the formation of general ideas about the main business processes of the enterprise and the exchange of these ideas between managers. This level does not imply the actual execution of the developed business processes. At the first level, it is convenient to depict business processes in graphical notations IDEF0, IDEF3, DFD, EPC, and related ones. You can also use some of the BPMN 2.0 notation constructs at this level. As software tools for working with business processes at the first level, you can use, for example, programs such as Business Studio, Microsoft Visio or ARIS.

Sequences of actions in first-level business processes can be described simply in the form of text; such descriptions are called text regulations. However, people perceive visual information much faster and easier than text descriptions. Therefore, it is graphical representations of simulated business processes that are most widely used.

Simulation modeling tools are also used at the first level of process management. This class of programs does not provide for the actual execution of enterprise business processes in a computer environment. Simulation modeling systems contain a customizable statistical model of an organization's business processes. By setting various parameters of this model and repeatedly “playing out” business processes on conditional automatic users, it is possible to obtain the values of various performance indicators and thus predict changes in the real indicators of the enterprise in the future depending on certain changes in business processes. If the statistical model is built correctly, then simulation modeling can be a means of determining the optimal parameters of business processes.

At the next level, the enterprise's strategic business processes are translated into executable business processes. At this level, business process diagrams are usually depicted in BPMN, UML (Activity Diagram) and related notations. At the second level, the current activity of an enterprise is represented as a set of running instances of business processes. At this level, SUMS&AR are used. The main task of these systems is to distribute tasks to performers and monitor their implementation. Along with the task, the performer is given the information required to complete it. The sequence of tasks is determined by a business process diagram, which can be developed and then quickly modified with the help of a graphic designer. This diagram is similar to a flowchart of an algorithm. Control points move according to the diagram. At certain nodes of the circuit, tasks are generated for executors.

There are certain similarities between an executable business process and a computer program. Algorithms underlie both an executable business process and a computer program. For computer programs, as well as for business processes for analytical modeling, there are graphical notations (for example, the UML class diagram) that programmers and software architects use to explain various software and architectural decisions. However, computer programs themselves are not yet widely developed in the form of graphic objects; they are mainly written in the form of texts in programming languages. How is the situation for executable business processes different from computer programs? Unlike a computer program, the commands of which are executed by a computer, some of the actions of a business process are performed by people. They do this significantly longer than the computer, so business process instances run for a relatively long time and their state changes slowly. Moreover, unlike a computer program, during the execution of business processes, enterprise management can significantly influence their implementation, for example, increase or decrease the number of employees performing certain actions.

Therefore, it is important for executives and managers of an enterprise to quickly understand the state of the running instances of the enterprise’s business processes. This understanding is provided by a graphical diagram of a business process with the current positions of control points plotted on it, as well as the routes traversed by these points since the launch of the business process instance. For computer programs, such diagrams in most cases do not make sense, because the speed of movement of control points will significantly exceed the limits of human capabilities to track them.

The third level corresponds to the business objects of the enterprise. The state of the entire enterprise at the current point in time is determined by the state of all business objects of the enterprise at this point in time. The process approach assumes that the states of business objects are changed by instances of second-level business processes when performing corresponding tasks. For this layer, content management systems (ECM systems) or database management systems are traditionally used as storage. It is also possible to use ERP systems at this level (for example, you can use the 1C or Galaktika system).

In business process development examples, we will sometimes use Microsoft Excel document sheets as a storage for business objects. This is made for educational purposes to demonstrate the third layer concept quickly and easily.

Advantages of the process approach

The use of a process approach at the first level leads to the emergence of a common language for describing business processes for all managers of an enterprise, based on graphic diagrams. After enterprise employees master this language, they will be able to quickly read existing business processes, discuss their features, and propose various changes. After conducting a survey of the enterprise, identifying repeating sequences of actions and grouping them into first-level business processes, it becomes possible to analyze selected business processes, identify and correct unsuccessful decisions, optimize bottlenecks and critical areas of business processes. If the activities of an enterprise are not formalized and business processes are not described, then it is difficult to improve and optimize management.

Using executable business processes provides the following benefits:

Significantly increases labor productivity
Significantly simplifies the activity of monitoring work performed. Increases the transparency of the enterprise.
Improves the quality of the enterprise's products, because - due to automatic regulation and monitoring tools, compliance with all stipulated rules is ensured
Allows you to quickly change business processes in response to changing operating conditions of the enterprise
Allows you to solve the problem of enterprise-scale integration
Reduces the cost of enterprise automation work, increases the speed of development and reliability of software.

Let's look at these benefits in more detail.

Previously (before the advent of executable business processes), the execution of business processes in organizations was carried out mainly indirectly - through changes in job descriptions, the organizational structure of the enterprise, and direct instructions from managers. However, the degree of automation of modern enterprises allows for the direct execution of business processes in a computer environment. In this case, an analogue of a production conveyor appears at the enterprise, from which it is possible to obtain an increase in labor productivity comparable to that obtained from the introduction of a conveyor in production. Increased labor productivity is achieved due to the fact that this mechanism makes it possible to eliminate routine operations and ineffective procedures associated with searching and transmitting information from employee actions, and significantly increase the speed of employee interaction. Workers complete assigned tasks without being distracted by:

Obtaining from other workers the data necessary to complete the task
Transferring the results of your work to other employees
Studying job descriptions

Everything necessary appears in front of the employee on the computer screen. The sequence of execution of work elements is determined by the business process diagram. At the nodes of the circuit, the SUP&AR distributes tasks to performers and controls their implementation.

The use of executable business processes also allows you to quickly rebuild an organization's business processes. In many cases, task performers may not even be informed about a change in a business process, since this will not affect the nature of their work. That is, it becomes easier and faster to change the execution of processes. In this way, the enterprise can more effectively respond to changes in internal or external conditions.

A modern Russian enterprise, as a rule, already operates several heterogeneous automated systems that participate in some of the enterprise’s business processes. Since business processes permeate the entire enterprise, they will have to interact with all automated systems during execution. Thus, the task of implementing an SMS&AP turns out to be a special case of the task of integrating enterprise-scale computer applications. In other words, when implementing an SMS&AP at an enterprise, applications should appear that ensure its integration with existing systems.

SUMS is a central part of modern enterprise-scale systems. If the corporate information system (CIS) does not have a SUMS, then the logic of business processes turns out to be scattered across various elements of the system - databases, individual applications, etc., such systems are difficult to maintain and develop further.

At enterprises with stable, repeating chains of operations, the implementation, configuration and maintenance of systems based on SMS&AR turns out to be faster and cheaper than traditional automation, in which individual application components are developed for various tasks and departments. SUBPiAR allow:

Quickly adapt development to changing tasks and the emergence of new ideas during development
Reduce development costs by:
- Development of business processes using SUMS instead of writing code
- Elimination of interaction between programmers and the customer. A business analyst and a customer are much more comfortable interacting with each other when jointly developing the main elements of an executable business process diagram than a customer and a programmer when discussing the text of a technical specification
- In this case, the programmer is freed from routine tasks and can concentrate on developing complex graphic elements and connectors, which increases the efficiency of his work
Reduce technical support costs
Significantly reduce the cost of modifications and maintenance

In traditional development, the solution is described twice: once using text included in the technical specification or technical design, and again in the form of program code. The process approach allows you to describe the solution only once, in the form of an executable business process, and thus reduce automation costs.

These advantages (faster, cheaper, easier to support and maintain) coincide with the advantages of the object-oriented programming paradigm compared to the procedural programming paradigm, which has almost been forced out of practice. By analogy, automation based on executable business processes can be interpreted as a new high-level programming paradigm and one can expect a significant increase in the scale of its use compared to traditional automation.

Executable business processes and management system

Business process management is an actively developing field and many terms in it have not yet been fully established. Various authors resort to such concepts as SUMS, work flow management systems (Workflow), document management systems (Docflow), enterprise-scale integration systems (EAI - Enterprise Application Integration), etc.

We will use the term workflow management to refer to cases where only people perform tasks in a business process. We will consider the term SUBPiAR as more general in relation to work flow management: the executors of tasks of a business process or regulation in SUBPiAR are both people and computer applications. As a rule, the management system coordinates the work of all performers uniformly, without specially highlighting the work performed by humans or computer systems.

In addition to DBMS, document management systems, or DocFlow systems, have become widespread. Instead of control points, document management systems use a “document flow.” DocFlow systems describe the activities of an enterprise in the form of documents traveling between their editors along certain routes in accordance with given rules.

DocFlow systems are the successors of paper document flow. Hence their natural limitations follow: a limited set of actions can be performed with a document: approve/reject, endorse, delete, make edits, etc. Typically, document management systems are complemented by systems for storing images of paper documents and version control systems. The main advantage of document flow systems is the ability to quickly implement them in an enterprise if document flow is already well established there.

In document management systems, as well as in DBMS, there are graph-based schemes that consist of nodes connected by possible transitions. However, it is not control points that move along these graphs, but “baskets” of documents. In DocFlow systems, as a rule, data is contained inside documents that directly move through the document flow diagram.

In a SUMS, data does not move with the control point, but is contained in global (corresponding to the entire business process) and local (corresponding to one node) variables.

Currently, SUMS and document management systems are systems of different types, but gradually document management systems are approaching SUMS and AR in functionality. With the help of modern DocFlow systems, you can model many types of business processes, and with the help of SUMS, you can automate elements of document flow.

Executable business processes

The evolution of the development of SMS&AP has led to the use in modern systems of such concepts as business process definition and business process instance. Sometimes a business process definition is also called a business process template. The business process definition contains a business process diagram, business process roles, and rules for assigning performers to roles. During the execution of a business process, control points move along the diagram. The easiest way to think of control points and their movements is by analogy with moving pieces in a children's board game with a cube.

The business process definition also contains a description of data storage structures. During the execution of a business process, these structures contain specific data. Even in modern BPMS, the definition of a business process contains a description of the means of interaction of the business process with the task executor. Typically this is a graphical form for user interaction, or a software interface for interaction with an information system. Another element of defining a business process are business rules, which are used to select a specific path for further movement of the control point at route branching points.

For each business process definition, you can create and run instances of that business process. The differences between a definition and a business process instance correspond to the difference between a variable type and a variable instance in a traditional programming language. That is, if the definition of a business process contains a business process diagram, data types, role names, then in a running instance of a business process there are moving control points on the diagram, specific performers are assigned to roles, business process instance contains specific data whose types correspond to the data types in the business process definition. Also, in business process instances, specific task executors are assigned to roles.

Business processes that can be executed in a computer environment must be formally defined in a sufficiently strict manner so that they can be easily translated into a computer-understood representation. It is convenient to use mathematical concepts for this.

Let us give a formal definition of an executable business process, the basis of which is the ideas of S. Yablonsky and S. Bussler:

An executable business process is determined by specifying the following perspectives (points of view or layers/levels of consideration):

control-flow perspective
data perspective
resource perspective
operational perspective

Let us consider in detail all levels of the formal definition of an executable business process. In this case, we will use the “Payment of supplier invoice” business process as an example. With its help, we will try to explain all the prospects for the formal definition of a business process.

Control Flow Perspective

The control flow perspective corresponds to the business process diagram. Initially, a diagram was defined as a mathematical concept - a directed graph: a set of nodes connected by transitions (arrows). Business process nodes could be of two types - nodes corresponding to process steps and route nodes. The control point (a pointer to the active process node) moves along the transitions, guided by the business rules in the route nodes (business rules also apply to the control flow perspective).

The node corresponding to the process step contains an Activity node. If the control point has arrived at the action node, then the SUMS gives the task to the performer (employee or information system) and waits for a response (message that the work has been completed). After the performer’s response, the control point moves along the transition to the next business process node. A node corresponding to an action node can only have one incoming and one outgoing transition adjacent to it.

A route node corresponds to the appearance, removal, branching-merging of control points, or the selection of a transition along which the control point will be moved further. In such nodes, the management system selects, based on the business rules contained in the routing nodes, the next node(s) to which control will be transferred. Often these nodes have more than one incoming or outgoing transition associated with them.

The fundamental difference between a process step and a route node is that in a route node you only need to make a decision about the further path(s) of movement of the control point based on existing data, so the control point should not be in the route node for a long time. The control point may remain in a process step for a long time. An exception to this rule is merging route nodes, in which incoming control points “wait” for the arrival of control points along the remaining incoming transitions, after which all incoming control points are destroyed and control points are generated along outgoing transitions. However, if we assume that the control point that arrived at the merge node is deleted immediately, while the node stores information that the control point has already arrived along this transition, then this exception disappears.

A running instance of a business process can have multiple control points at the same time. In accordance with business logic, the management point in a route node can be divided into several management points, and management points can also wait for each other in a certain route node and then merge into one management point.

Later, with the advent of various business process-related standards and specifications, this definition was expanded:

Combination nodes have been added, which are the merging of a process step with one or more route nodes. For example, when merging an action node with a route node located behind it, which selects one of several possible directions, only the action node is placed in the diagram and the transitions that must leave the route node are directly attached to it.
Additional constructions have been added, the elements of which are not elements of the graph (hereinafter referred to as additional constructions), however, transitions and route nodes can be attached to these elements, or transitions can intersect these elements. For example, events and interrupt areas were introduced to encompass business process steps. When the control point is located inside the area with an interruption, an event may occur (the client may change his mind about placing an order, force majeure circumstances may arise during the validity of the contract, etc.). In this case, the control point can immediately move from any node located inside the area to a route node attached to the area and from there continue moving along the transition connected to it.
Nodes have been added that correspond to a process step, but are not action nodes. For example, waiting nodes in which no tasks are given to the process executors, the UPMS simply waits in these nodes for the occurrence of a certain event, after which the control point moves on. Subprocess nodes have also been added. For these nodes, a specific executor is not defined; in these nodes, the SMS&AR launches another business process as a subprocess of the current process and transfers the corresponding data to it.

With the additions, the control flow perspective can be defined as follows:

The control flow perspective represents a business process diagram. A business process diagram consists of a directed graph and possibly additional constructs. Business process nodes can be of three types - nodes corresponding to process steps, route nodes and combined nodes, which represent the merging of a process step with one or more route nodes.

Process steps are action nodes or additional nodes. Control points move along transitions. At the moment the control point arrives at the action node, the SUBPiAR gives a task to the executor. After the executor completes the task, the control point moves along the transition to the next process node. A node corresponding to an action node can only have one incoming and one outgoing transition adjacent to it.

A route node corresponds to the appearance, removal, splitting, merging of control points, or the selection of a transition. These nodes may contain business rules on the basis of which further paths of management points are selected. In routing nodes, the SUP&AR selects the next node(s) to which control will be transferred.

We will explain the behavior of the nodes most commonly used in business processes, and also provide their graphic images.

The "start" node corresponds to the start point of the business process execution. It has no incoming edges and one or more outgoing edges. At the moment of launching a business process instance, a control point is placed in the node, which immediately leaves it along the outgoing edge. There must be a single "start" node in a business process. Indicated by a “thin” circle (Fig. 1.1 a). In the case of multiple outgoing transitions, the node is combined by an exclusive gateway, so when starting a business process instance, the user selects one of the outgoing edges along which the control point will be moved further.

Rice. 1.1.

A "flow termination" node must have one or more incoming edges and no outgoing edges. When any management point hits this node, it is deleted. An instance of a business process in which there is no control point left is considered completed. There can be multiple thread completion nodes, but there must be at least one such node. Indicated by a “bold” circle (Fig. 1.1 b).

The “end” node corresponds to the end point of the execution of a business process. The End node must have one or more incoming Transitions and no outgoing Transitions. When control reaches Termination, all threads of this process, as well as all its synchronous subprocesses, stop. There can be multiple Finish nodes in a business process. However, this node is not required in a business process if there is at least one flow termination point in the business process. Indicated by a black circle inside a circle (Fig. 1.1 c).

The “action” node generates a task for the performer, is denoted by a rectangle with rounded corners, in the center of which the name of the node is written (Fig. 1.1 d), and can have several incoming and several outgoing edges. In the case of several outgoing transitions, the node is combined by an exclusive gateway, therefore, for each control point that arrives at it, when performing a node task, the user selects one of the outgoing transitions (edges), along which the control point will be moved further.

An exclusive gateway node can have multiple incoming and multiple outgoing edges. For each control point that arrives at it, it is selected along which of the outgoing edges it will be moved next. It is indicated by a diamond with a “cross” in it (Fig. 1.2 a).

Rice. 1.3. Example of a business process diagram "Payment of supplier invoice" (BPMN - notation)

In Fig. Figure 1.3 shows an example of the business process graph “Payment of supplier invoices”. The steps of the process are depicted as rectangles with rounded edges, the beginning of the process corresponds to a circle, and the end - a circle with a circle inside. The element "Pay the bill" is a combined node, which is a composition of a route connection node of transitions and an action node. The remaining rectangles with rounded edges are action nodes. Elements in the form of diamonds correspond to route nodes - places where control point routes branch.

At the beginning of the business process, the supply business manager enters the parameters of the expected payment (invoice number, invoice date, invoice amount, counterparty company, agent company, comment). Next, the department's budget execution is automatically monitored. If the current deal exceeds the budget, it is automatically rejected and the business process ends. If the department's budget is not exceeded, the transaction amount is compared with the payment limit. Further, if the limit is not exceeded, the invoice is paid automatically, after which the business process is completed. If the limit is exceeded, the payment must be confirmed by the financial director.

The following business rules correspond to the “Payment of supplier invoice” business process:

If the external application called in the "get data from budget" node returned the value "no" to the variable "Is the department's budget exceeded", then you should proceed to check the limit, otherwise go to the business process completion node.
If the value of the "invoice amount" variable is less than the value of the "one-time payment limit" constant, you need to go to the "pay the invoice" node, otherwise - to the "confirm payment" node.
If an executor belonging to the role “Financial Director”, filling out the fields in the appropriate form, returned the value “yes” to the variable “whether the manager approved”, then go to the “payment of invoice” node, otherwise - to the business process completion node.
business process management can also be complex and differ from the behavior of the control point in the traditional flowchart of the algorithm: in this example, if the application is approved by the boss, the control flow is divided into two parallel flows (the separation and merging of flows corresponds to a diamond-shaped element, inside which shows a “plus sign”), executed simultaneously, which then “merge” at one point.

Data Perspective

The data perspective corresponds to a set of internal business process variables. Business process variables can be input and output parameters in the interaction of the management system and information systems of the enterprise. With the help of variables, information is exchanged between process steps and, as a result, between external information systems, i.e., a business process can transfer information in a corporate information environment between heterogeneous information systems. Business process variables are also used when selecting a specific internal control point movement between nodes along any of the possible transitions.

Table 1.1. List of global variables corresponding to the "Bill Payment" business process, the diagram of which is shown in Fig. 1.1

Variable name	Variable type
Account number	Line
invoice date	date
Invoice amount	Number
Id (identification number) of the counterparty company (legal entity to which the invoice is issued)
Id of the agent company (legal entity that will make the payment)	Number - unique identifier

Process inputs are elements that undergo changes during the execution of actions. The process approach considers materials, equipment, documentation, various information, personnel, finances, etc. as inputs.

The outputs of a process are the expected results for which actions are taken. The output can be either a material product or various types of services or information.

Resources are the elements needed for a process. Unlike inputs, resources do not change during the process. The process approach defines such resources as equipment, documentation, finances, personnel, infrastructure, environment, etc.

Process owner– the process approach introduces this concept as one of the most important. Each process must have its own owner. The owner is a person who has at his disposal the required amount of resources and is responsible for the final result (output) of the process.

Each process must have suppliers and consumers. Suppliers provide the input elements of the process, and consumers are interested in receiving the output elements. A process can have both external and internal suppliers and consumers. If a process has no suppliers, then the process will not be executed. If a process has no consumers, then the process is not in demand.

Process indicators necessary to obtain information about its work and make appropriate management decisions. Process indicators are a set of quantitative or qualitative parameters that characterize the process itself and its result (output).

Advantages of the process approach

Due to the fact that the process approach creates horizontal connections in the work of the organization, it allows one to obtain a number of advantages in comparison with the functional approach.

The main advantages of the process approach are:

Coordination of the actions of various departments within the process;
Orientation to the result of the process;
Increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization;
Transparency of actions to achieve results;
Increased predictability of results;
Identifying opportunities for targeted process improvement;
Removing barriers between functional departments;
Reducing unnecessary vertical interactions;
Elimination of unclaimed processes;
Reducing time and material costs.

Improving activities based on a process approach

The process approach underlies several popular and quite effective concepts for improving the work of organizations. Today, four areas can be distinguished that use the process approach as the main approach to improving operational efficiency.

These areas include:

Total Quality Management(TQM) This is a concept that provides for continuous improvement of the quality of products, processes and management systems of the organization. The organization's work is based on customer satisfaction;

Process approach to management.

The essence of the process approach is that each employee ensures the functioning of specific business processes by directly participating in them. Responsibilities, areas of responsibility, and criteria for successful performance for each employee are formulated and make sense only in the context of a specific task or process. The horizontal connection between structural units is much stronger. The vertical relationship “superior-subordinate” is slightly weakened. An employee’s sense of responsibility changes qualitatively: he is responsible not only for the functions assigned to him by his boss, but also for the business process as a whole. The functions and results of the activities of parallel structural units are important to him. Responsibility for the result of the business process as a whole pushes him to be responsible to his colleagues, the same participants in the business process as himself.

When building a process-oriented management system, the main emphasis is on developing interaction mechanisms within the process both between structural units within the company and with the external environment, i.e. with clients, suppliers and partners. It is the process approach that makes it possible to take into account such important aspects of business as focus on the final product, the interest of each performer in improving the quality of the final product and, as a consequence, interest in the final performance of their work. The process approach to management ignores the organizational structure of managing an organization with its inherent assignment of functions to individual departments. With the process approach, the organization is perceived by managers and employees as an activity consisting of business processes aimed at obtaining the final result. The organization is perceived as a network of business processes, which is a set of interconnected and interacting business processes, including all functions performed in the organization's divisions. While the functional structure of a business determines the capabilities of the enterprise by establishing what should be done, the process structure (in the operating system of a business) describes the specific technology for achieving set goals and objectives, answering the question of how it should be done.

The process approach is based on the following principles:

The company's activities are considered as a set of business processes.

The execution of business processes is subject to mandatory regulation or formal description.

Every business process has an internal or external client and an owner (the person responsible for the outcome of the business process).

Each business process is characterized by key indicators that describe its execution, result or impact on the outcome of the organization as a whole.

The principles of the process approach to management determine the basic rules, guided by which it is possible to organize the effective functioning of a business aimed at the final result.

The first principle defines the vision of the company’s activities as a set of business processes. It is he who determines the new culture of perception of the organization in the process approach.

The second principle of the process approach, which requires mandatory regulation of business processes, is based on the fact that a regulation is a document that describes the sequence of operations, responsibilities, the procedure for interaction between performers, and the procedure for making decisions to improve a business process.

Isolating a business process is always associated with identifying a client or consumer of the process result that has a certain value for him. In addition to the client, each business process has an owner - an official who has the necessary resources at his disposal, manages the progress of the business process and is responsible for the results and efficiency of the business process. The owner of a business process is an official, a formal leader, therefore he has the necessary powers, has the resources required to implement the process, manages the progress of the business process and is responsible for its result. These advantages guarantee high performance of the organization, the management of which has a pronounced process-oriented nature.

Process-oriented management allows you to qualitatively change the activities of an organization at the operational, cross-functional and inter-organizational levels of its integration. Functional integration ceases to be a source of difficult to resolve interfunctional conflicts. The operational level of integration receives a new vision thanks to the network of business processes of the organization and allows:

a) more effectively delineate the powers and responsibilities of personnel;

b) develop an effective system of delegation of authority;

c) ensure standardization of requirements for performers;

d) minimize the risk of dependence on an individual performer;

e) reduce the workload of managers;

f) reduce costs;

g) increase the efficiency of personnel management;

h) identify sources of reducing costs and time for executing business processes;

i) reduce the time for making management decisions.

As a result, the controllability of the organization increases, the influence of the human factor and the cost of products and services are reduced. All this leads to a change in the quality of the organization itself and the formation of a process-oriented organization in which the entire team is a conscious participant in the continuous process of activity associated with the final result of the production of products or the provision of services.

The development of the process approach to management has received wide resonance; virtually all the leading organizations in the world are process-oriented organizations.

Based on an understanding of what business processes are carried out in an organization, it is possible to build an effective organizational structure for managing them. If the organizational structure has developed traditionally, the business operating system can help in analyzing its quality.

Thus, the lack of a process approach in management leads to spontaneous results that cannot be relied upon and which cannot be analyzed, since they are difficult to reproduce. It is the process approach that makes it possible to understand that the final product of a company’s activities is the result of the joint work of all its employees without exception; in addition, it allows you to eliminate gaps at the junction of processes, restoring the connection between them. The process approach does not reject the company’s existing management system, but determines ways to improve it and qualitatively modify it.

Advantages and disadvantages- a clear system of mutual connections within processes and in their corresponding departments; - a clear system of unity of command - one manager concentrates in his hands the management of the entire set of operations and actions aimed at achieving the set goal and obtaining the desired result; - empowering employees with greater powers and increasing the role of each of them in the company’s work leads to a significant increase in their productivity; - quick response of executive process units to changes in external conditions; - in the work of managers, strategic problems dominate over operational ones; - criteria for the effectiveness and quality of work of departments and the organization as a whole are coordinated and co-directed. - increased dependence of the organization’s work results on the qualifications, personal and business qualities of ordinary employees and performers; - managing functionally mixed work teams is a more complex task than managing functional departments; - the presence of several people in a team of different functional qualifications inevitably leads to some delays and errors that occur when transferring work between team members, however, the losses here are much less than in the traditional organization of work, when performers report to different departments of the company

Of course, it is impossible to achieve increased efficiency through the formalization of business processes alone, and the process approach is not a panacea for all the ills of an organization. It allows you to diagnose problems both throughout the company and the interaction of its various departments when performing a common task.

Bibliography:

1. Vishnyakov O. Process-oriented approach to organization management 2008.

2. Efimov V.V. Reflections on the process approach / V.V. Efimov 2004.

3.Repin V.V. Process approach to management. Standards and quality. - 2004. - 498 p.

4.Repin V.V. Process approach in practice. Standards and quality. - 2004. - No. 1. - pp. 74-79.

A company as a set of business processes that are interconnected and the purpose of its activities.

In modern conditions, more and more companies are coming to the conclusion that it is possible to manage a business as efficiently as possible not as a set of individual functions, but as a set of business processes, which represent the essence of the activity. This approach began to be used in management relatively recently due to increasing competition and increasing dynamics of the external environment. It aims to increase business flexibility, reduce reaction time to market changes, improve business results and better achieve goals.

The process approach to management is not the only possible option, since there are other approaches - situational or systemic, for example. Systematic considers a company-organization as a community of interconnected elements that are focused on achieving goals under regularly changing conditions. The situational approach states that the use of certain methods and actions is always determined based on the situation.

Process features of implementation at the enterprise

The implementation process at the company occurs according to the following stages:

a network of key business processes is identified (in the form in which they are at the beginning of using the approach);

processes are ranked by level of significance, a preliminary model is created;

all processes are analyzed and “bottlenecks” are identified, i.e. problem areas that should be worked out most carefully;

Based on the findings obtained, models are built that show the ideal course of the process.

This innovation can be implemented both throughout the enterprise and in a specific area.

Process approach: basic principles

Perception of business as a system:

an enterprise in any form is considered as a system, including its development;

solving local problems does not change the system; only the entirety of it can be changed.

Perception of activity as a process:

any activity can be improved - this is the goal pursued by process management;

in any activity there is a division according to the availability of material resources, personnel, time, and so on.

Development of standards and introduction of the principle of transparency of responsibility:

any activity is aimed at obtaining a result by transforming input products into output products;

In each process, the supplier of input and output products must be determined - this is necessary to determine responsibility. Also, the input and output product have their own consumer, who is interested in its maximum quality.

Standardization and transparency of responsibility:

responsibility for creating the system lies with the top management of the company;

each process has its own owner, who is responsible for the quality of its execution;

all processes must be standardized and transparent so that the problem can be quickly found.

The process approach to management includes a description of the business itself as a set of processes, as well as a system for monitoring, improving and managing these processes. We can say that to apply the process approach you need to describe, optimize and automate processes. This can be done most efficiently using special systems. The process approach to management especially helps in those departments where a high level of standardization is initially required and where all processes are as detailed as possible - these are accounting, economics, planning departments, and so on.