Reengineering Principles
The standard Reengineering principles are as follows -
1. Organize work around its end results, not tasks
According to this principle, it is optimal to determine the work’s end result rather than dividing the work into small tasks & units. We try to rearrange the work process so that a single person can perform all the steps involved. This eliminates wastage of time due to trailing of work processes through many hands and also puts workers in control of processes. Organizing work around end results reduces the number of intermediate levels of approvals and assign a single concerned personnel to perform all the tasks.
2. Capture data only once when it is first created
According to this principle, the company shall capture & store data only one time when it is first created. In other words, the should avoid redundant data. The company should avoid accepting the same data via input forms that has already being entered in the enterprise database. The use of IT enabled systems such the EDI systems, OLT systems DSS, data warehousing systems EIS etc will help to setup the appropriate information management system for the enterprise that deals with data consistency, integrity, correctness and avoiding data redundancy.
3. Allow decision points where work is performed
In usual work setups, the processes are completely controlled by the managers and supervisors. This often fasten hierarchical management structures. The actual doers are assumed to lack the knowledge or responsibility o take a process to completion. The reengineered process argues that the people who actually do the work should be the ones to make many of the decisions about it, and that the controls over the decisions should be built into the systems that workers use.
Such an approach to work will reduce layers of organizational bureaucracy and changes the roles of workers and supervisors. It empowers the doers to better control their own work environment.
4. Incorporate controls into information processing
While reengineering a business process, we allow the people who collect the information to process the information too. Such controls are incorporated to the information processing system in such a way that usually a single computer could process and store all the related information of a process. The single computer shall process all the data in seconds and at a single location, thus avoiding the process to stretch along the various functions. Now, the person handling the computer system is responsible for the whole process and usually this change in responsibility is a boon to efficiency. Instead of allowing a discrepancy to pass through to several people within an organization, it can be stopped at the source.
5. Make people who use a process do the work
Over specialized and complex processes brings in bureaucracies and will cause people to spend undue time and energy following company policies and strict functional approaches rather than common sense. Make people who use a process do the work means that the reengineered process lets users get their own supplies and information by building controls into the system. If, for eg:, the accounting department requires some stationary items, it should not have to go to another department to administer the process. Instead, the purchasing group shall setup master accounts in a computer system to deal with any sort of purchasing in any other departments indirectly via distributed computer applications and this allow the accounts department to buy the stationary by itself and get the necessary data updated in the purchasing department’s master account.
6. Work in parallel instead of sequentially and later integrate the results
Reengineered business setup enables multiple work projects to be handled in parallel so that the individual projects are linked & coordinated in such a way that the end product development is accelerated without any breakup in between. Reengineering enabled by IT solutions such as the enterprise wide intranets, CAD/CAM systems, manufacturing automation systems, ERP systems, EDI systems, work group internet works etc, supports this work in parallel and integrate results methodology.
7. Treat geographically dispersed resources as one
According to this reengineering principle, the reengineered system will enable the enterprise to integrate the geographically separated resources (man, machine, money, information) and provide a centralized control over these resources. Consider the case of enterprise’s information management setup in the reengineered system. The enterprise wide intranet integrates the distributed data sources and data stores by allowing data sharing, peer-to-peer communication between data applications and a centralized control over the intranet by the IT department. When we take the case of the workforce, we may integrate the workforce of the enterprise towards the common goal of the enterprise by enabling the workers to interact with each other and with the related process via the intranet.
Shared databases, telecommunication networks and standardized processing systems now make it possible to gain the benefits of scale and centralization while maintaining the advantages of the flexibility and service that come from being dispersed and close to the customer.
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Categories: Business and Management, Information Management, Process Improvement, Reengineering, Uncategorized Tags:
Why Companies Do Reengineering?
Companies are doing reengineering since they want to remain stable in the dynamic business environment while facing changing strategies, financial crisis due to weak / poor / outdated business processes, technological changes, change in customer demands & business competition. Everyone is going for reengineering since it usually provides a quick fix for the present problem by a suitable business transformation. Everyone has great aspirations while reengineering one’s business, since reengineering surely brings out various potential benefits that usually breakeven the costs of reengineering. The following are the potential benefits brought about by reengineering that inspires every business enterprise to go for it.
Benefit level 1: Provides a quick fix for the present problem
Benefit level 2: Business processes are refined according to the improved strategies
Benefit level 3: Refined business processes creates high quality products & services, reduced paperwork, reduced manual labor and reduced process cycle times.
Benefit level 4: The above benefit creates high quality and value added products and services shipped to the customers in time. This improves customer satisfaction and customer support. The company now tends to care more for its customers.
Benefit level 5: Cash flow is improved which leads to easy realization of ROI and business profits and gains.
Benefit level 6: This leads to business prosperity and stability.
Article Copyright – Deepesh Joseph (2010)
Categories: Business and Management, Information Architecture, Information Management, Process Improvement, Reengineering Tags:
Creating Process based Organizations via Reegineering
While reengineering a business enterprise, we create a process based organization structure for the enterprise to avoid the inefficiencies and time wasting business process cycles as in a functions based organization. ie – the business process information systems and the enterprise wide information infrastructure are integrated in such a way that the people of various functions or departments could easily form teams for related activities and project works. Such a process based system enables faster business process cycles, workflows and data flows that creates a total quality business setup. The business enterprise is now able to produce its products and services faster and with added value to satisfy its customers.
Often, when we reengineer a business enterprise, a process that took 3 days and 6 persons to get completed, will require say only a single person and a PC and say only 2 hrs to finish the process with all formalities satisfying the business rules.
Copyright (c). www.getallarticles.com – 2011
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Basic approaches to Reengineering
The three basic approaches to reengineering are as follows -
1. STREAMLIING
2. INTEGRATING
3. TRANSFORMING
1. Streamlining – Streamlining approach to reengineering the business offers a basic, segmented, quick-fix methodology for reengineering. It cleans up and treats symptoms but doesn’t necessarily transform a process nor find a cure for a bad process. It doesn’t change the way a company conducts its core business nor does it impose whether certain processes should exist at all. For eg: while reengineering an accounts payable process, we may reduce the staffs from the existing number to 7. If we follow a thorough transformation approach, this would require total number of 17 sign offs. The streamlining approach of reengineering the accounts payable process may also increase the level of spending authorization for managers. Another approach would be to translate the current workflow and dataflow via electronic means such as EDI. In essence, the streamlining approach to reengineering is simple, functional and makes operations go faster or better.
2. Integrating – The integrating approach to reengineering integrates discrete business processes, replacing them with a unified process that frequently cut across functions and department responsibilities i.e, it creates a process based organization of workflows within the reengineered process. For eg:, when we reengineer a sample business process that formerly required the functional trailing of workflows among various departments such as accounting, purchasing and warehousing, we re-order the workflows so that the individual functions are closely related by reducing redundancies, cycle-times and unnecessary retention of separate receiving logs and lists of prices. Now, the reengineered process will cut across all the functions and will now require only lesser number of persons and manual labor and lesser process cycle times to perform the tasks. But when we consider the business as a whole, the reengineering by integrating has only changed the accounts payable process, but it doesn’t change the way the enterprise produced / manufactured products nor does it directly affect other major functions of the enterprise, but it has a profound influence on the jobs of the people performing the accounts payable process.
3. Transforming - Transforming approach to reengineering transforms the company as a whole. When such an organizational transformation is carried out, the projects should get complete commitment and sponsorship from the top management and support from the working staff. New strategies, policies, objectives and plans will have to be devised to effect the complete transformation. The enterprise shall search for the appropriate technology and workflows to setup the transformed system. The company shall benchmark its existing system with that of another similar company which has already applied reengineering in its system. The company shall seek help from IT consultants to bring in the right infrastructure and IT solutions.
Copyright (c). www.getallarticles.com – 2011
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Importance of formal project planning
One of the projects that I executed for one of my employers was an internal employee goal tracking system. The system enables employees from CEO to bottom level, enter their goals supporting their superior’s goals. According to user levels, there is ability to view/edit/approve/reject goals and there are mechanisms to conduct performance management. This project was a pet project of one of the VPs and he wanted to get it done as soon as possible bypassing all SDLC and PM phases. There was no proper planning as how to conduct requirement analysis, whether to use the existing user hierarchies in LDAP or create hierarchy on the fly, when should the system be implemented, when should the system testing start, how many people should work on the project and whether to use ajax based web development or normal html form based.
This project came in with very vague requirements and tight deadlines to complete design, coding and testing. Since this was an internal project (not for a client or strategic applications/products), no effort was made to follow formal process and I was told to bypass it. The priorities kept on changing due to shifts in management positions and due to changing system requirements. The project trailed along due to lack of effective planning as to what needs to be done towards implementing and integrating the system. There was constant schedule conflicts when one activity deliberately crossed over another (eg. Database design phase was interrupted when complete working prototype was required). The system was designed, developed and implemented without meeting the expected deadlines and went into UAT. The funny thing is that the system still awaits testing due to conflicts in management levels regarding the extra work that the system brings in.
The project would have greatly benefited from formal planning process and scheduled development. Project activities could have been clearly identified and sequenced. Well defined project plan could have reduced the uncertainty and could have lead to more realistic resource allocations and milestones. Appropriate means to manage schedule adjustments, especially schedule compression by Fast Tracking could have been beneficial.
Copyright (c). www.getallarticles.com – 2010
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When a tech person is promoted to Project Management position – Gotchas and how to avoid it
Scenario: Nicek is a senior technical leader and got a recent promotion as Project Manager, but was not given appropriate training in PM process. Below is what happened and some advice to avoid the gotchas.
I think, the main problem in the case was the lack of PM focus in company’s work culture. There was no explicit PM process or process methodology followed. Looks like the company liked the idea of cost cutting by making people to do multiple roles without clearly defining their roles and without appropriate motivation and compensation. Nicek’s role was no different. He was assigned the PM, but was never communicated of the PM process that he need to follow to satisfy the management. He was expected to create a ‘quick and dirty’ solution, which he did (within time and cost).
There was lack of secured communication channels. The new PM sends a confidential info. by email and it ends up in disaster. Nicek became a scapegoat of the eroded PM work culture in the company.
Now, if you ask whether Nicek was a good PM, I would say no – because he lacked experience. This was his first assignment as a PM, and he definitely needed training and catch up on his PM skills. He should have tried to approach the management to seek out what are his roles and responsibilities as a PM and what exactly the upper management expected from him.
The senior management should have focused on better employee training when they promote people from technical ladder to PM level. They should have established minimum PM processes which is well communicated to the Project Managers. PM process should control and coordinate the product development process, not the other way round.
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Samlple WBS (Work BreakDown Structure)
Below is a sample work breakdown structure for an online attendance management system that I worked on in the past -
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Sample Scope Change during a project and its impacts
Project background: Developer xyz was in the middle of a project that went several scope changes while in UAT. The project is about implementing capability in the current Underwriting software to do pre-issue Medical Underwriting. The project was initiated by client request to modify the software to account for some new insurance product feature. The system was developed according the initial system design which was based on the BRD signed by user.
What caused scope change UAT testing was scheduled one month ago and is done by the Underwriting specialist who is very demanding and an excellent tester. While testing, she started coming up with new scenarios which was not supported by the processing and reporting modules of the system. eg: the system was designed for to underwrite an employee for a single coverage belonging to a specified group of carriers and product types. During testing, she pointed that sometimes, there would be requirement to underwrite a life coverage for the employee and supplemental dependent coverage for the spouse, at the same time to account to for some GI (guaranteed issue) calculations. The new system supported underwriting of one individual at a time, first employee and then spouse. This requirement was not recorded initially since she was not invited during the JAD. If she would have, then this point would have raised and would have included in scope and thus the BRD.
Effect on Project’s conduct and outcomeThe effect was that the situation called for a major design change, that ended in 2 week of extra coding. The project missed its deadline and was allowed extra 5 weeks to account for fixing and testing. The incurred extra cost for the company in terms of time and resources.
Lesson Learned: Involve the end user upfront in the JAD sessions and make sure that he/she signs off the scope.
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Mind Mapping technique to prepare WBS
I would prefer the mind mapping technique to arrive at WBS (work break down structure), due to my liking for problem solving by visualization and modeling techniques. Another reason to like that technique is that it is very much similar to various modeling tools that we use during the System Analysis phase of product development and I have been closely working in this area. I would compare mind mapping method of creating WBS to preparing a context diagram. Just like a context diagram forms the basis for the high level and detail level data flows, a mind map forms the basis for high level and detailed level tasks. One great advantage of mind mapping model is that they account for easy translation to structure and plan since they work similar to translating our thoughts into sensible actions.
I haven’t personally used mind mapping since I haven’t prepared an official WBS on any project. However I sometimes use mind mapping technique for my own scheduling.
Copyright (c). www.getallarticles.com – 2010
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Sample Project Management problem resolution
Project description: Project for xyz that included development, maintenance and enhancements to the official web site and web-based intranet applications that supported integrated work flows within various departments. I was leading a team of team members including developers, web-designer and Mr X.
Communication Issue: During my tenure leading the project, I have encountered situations where I had to study and resolve conflicts that arise from communication issues. There was this team member X, who was very zealous and enthusiast about the job that he does. He was so multifaceted that he was put into parallel tasks such as HTML web page design, customer support and user training. Lately, there were many issues that came up since Mr. X was very aggressive while dealing with people at the client departments, where he was supposed to communicate politely and more responsive to user questions and call for support. This caused severe conflicts and constraints in project progress. There was constant delays in User acceptance tests (UAT) and final user approvals before the product can be delivered and deployed. All in all, this trailed the project hours, increased the operational expenses to work extra hours and delayed the project turnaround time.
How it could be resolved: I would like to use the ‘Confrontation’ method to resolve the issue, which would target at problem resolution and creating a win-win situation for Mr X., project and the project stakeholders. I would see how I could utilize Mr. X’s skills more efficiently in some other area and fill his position with a cheaper resource who will just do UATs and trainings and who can be more patient and understanding while doing the UATs and training. This way, I can satisfy his desire to be aggressive, at the same time offer a solution for the users who expect patience and understanding. We would offer Mr. X a position in project sales team where he has chance to utilize his aggressive nature and his communication skills. This new arrangement of task activities among Mr. X and the new hire will have profound impacts on the project turn around time. The ultimate effect would be – satisfied Mr X. and happy users – thus less conflicts and least project delays.
Note: Actually, this is what happened in real time. I didn’t know what kind of formal conflict resolution I was using to solve the communication issue. But, now I know. Another big indirect impact of applying this conflict resolution was that Mr X., now working in sales team, started bringing in new projects utilizing his sales skills, which was rather unnoticed.