When a large enterprise project kicks off, the hope of every project manager is that the customer organization has done a thorough and thoughtful job in defining their current business processes. Implementing a new enterprise solution usually means that some significant areas of the organization are going to change. Things have been done one way up until now and it is time that the organization change those things with the implementation of the enterprise solution that they are now incorporating.

 

 

 

 

To know exactly where they want to go and for you to know how to get them there, there must be an understanding of where they are coming from. That is usually going to come from subject matter experts (SMEs) within the customer organization and they will be the key individuals to define what those “as-is” business processes are so you can better understand how to get them to the “to-be” business processes that they want to experience.

 

 

 

 

Defining The As-Is Processes

 

 

 

 

Before a the customer can improve a process through a project such as we are discussing here, they must understand how it works. The most useful tool for studying the current process is a flowchart. There are other ways, but the key is they need to know how their business processes currently work in the area that will be affected by the project before they can truly help the vendor – your project team – implement an effective solution.

 

 

 

 

To develop an accurate flowchart, the team assigns one or more members to observe the flow of work through the process. If current SMEs are available, this step may be either unnecessary or very fast, but it has to be handled. It may be necessary for the observers to follow the flow of activity through the process several times before they can see and chart what actually occurs. This record of where actions are taken, decisions are made, inspections are performed, and approvals are required becomes the “as-is” flowchart. It may be the first accurate and complete picture of the process from beginning to end.

 

 

 

 

Here is a very vital piece of the puzzle: as the team starts work on this first flowchart, they need to be careful to depict what is really happening in the process. They don’t want to fall into the trap of flowcharting how people think the process is working, how they would like it to work, or how an instruction or manual says it should work. Only an as-is flowchart that displays the process as it is actually working today can reveal the improvements that may be needed. It’s easy start thinking too early about the “to-be” processes…the focus must be on the “as-is” processes.

 

 

 

 

When teams work on processes that cross departmental lines, they may have to talk to people at all levels across the command who are involved in or affected by the process they are working on. It is even more important to get an accurate picture of these cross-functional processes than those whose boundaries are inside a work unit or office.

 

 

 

 

The team can define the current situation by answering these questions:

 

 

 

 

 

 





     
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  • Does the flowchart show exactly how things are done now? If not, what needs to be added or modified to make it an as-is picture of the process?




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  • Have the workers involved in the process contributed their knowledge of the process steps and their sequence?




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  • Are other members of the command involved in the process, perhaps as customers? What did they have to say about how it really works?




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Summary

 

 

 

 

This is one way to go about it – and it may be done before you even get the project handed to you. However, it’s been my experience nearly 50% of the time that the customer organization has not done a very thorough job of defining their business processes. The overall affect to the project usually plays out in added resource effort resulting in a budget issue and added timeframes up front resulting in project timeline issues.

 

 

 

 

If the layout of processes is non-existent, it may even be necessary for the project manager to request a delay on starting the project to give the customer SMEs sufficient time to adequately analyze the current business processes in the organizational areas to be affected by the project. That will be painful, but it will pay huge dividends in the long run.