Objective:

To describe a process using a Scope Diagram and create a Flow Diagram for such with BPMN.

To identify potential process problems by examination of the Scope Diagram and Flow Diagram and make recommendations for improvement

Business Scenario:

Consider the following process scenario for Gemini & Associates (GA), a BPM consulting company. GA assists organizations with process improvement initiatives at the enterprise and process-level. Founded by Paul Gemini, GA has a full-time staff of a dozen consultants. GA is a virtual organization, with the full-time staff working from home, living in five different states across three US time zones. GA works with a partner firm when a clients engagement requires additional professional staff resources. This is often the case when client engagements require migrations to cloud computing

Here is their current AS-IS scenario for GAs Contract On-Boarding Process:

When the business development officer (BDO) from Gemini Associates receives a contract proposal from a potential client, it follows the following sequential steps:

1.A potential client submits a contract proposal request to GAs Business Development Officer (BDO).

2.The BDO and the Project Manager (PM) review the contract proposal separately and each log it in their respective Project Logging Databases for tracking purposes. The Proposal is given a Lifecycle Stage status of Proposal Received in each.

3.The Resource Staffing Manager (RSM) then reviews the proposal request and determines if GA has the capabilities required for the contract proposal (i.e. is the proposal within the scope of GAs expertise). If it is not, the BDO then contacts the potential client and declines the contract, and both the BDO and PM update their respective Project Logging Databases to reflect a Lifecycle Stage status of Proposal Declined.

4. If the RSM determines the proposal requests scope is within GAs capabilities, the BDO determines a contract cost.

5. The BDO updates her Project Logging Database with the Lifecycle Stage of Proposal Costed and Accepted.

6. The RSM then checks the availability of qualified staff resources from within GA.

7. If staff resources are available within GA, the RSM assigns the staff resources to the project and then the DBO then notifies the client of the accepted contract, including start date and cost, and then the PM begins preliminary project start tasks.

8. If the RSM determines staff resources are not available within GA, then the RSM will contact the partner firm to backfill required staff resources.

9. If the partner firm is able to provide staffing resources, the RSM assigns the staff resources to the project, and then the BDO then notifies the client of the accepted contract including a revised start date and cost (use of partner resources is more costly and do not likely have the same availability as internal resources), and then the PM begins preliminary project start tasks.

10. If the partner firm is not able to backfill staff resources, then the BDO speaks with the potential client to determine if they can wait for staffing resources to become available and secures a drop-dead date, the last possible date upon which the engagement must be completed.

11. If the potential client can wait, then the BDO updates her Project Logging Database with the drop-dead date and the Lifecycle stage status of Project Accepted and On Hold.

12.If potential client cannot wait, then the BDO thanks them for considering GA, and updates the Project Logging Database with the Lifecycle State Status of Project withdrawn.

Part III IGOE Improvement Descriptions

Harmon discusses 4 generic process problems (Chapters 8) dealing with Inputs, Outputs, Guides, and Enablers. Please identify and briefly describe at least two potential problems you see in each of these four generic areas. You may need to make some reasonable assumptions because you lack specific details in the scenario. Just provide some reasonable problems and a sentence or two that clearly explains them. Submit the problems as an ordered list in each generic area.

Note some problems may become more apparent after examining the Flow diagram.