How To Improve Business Processes Using Process Monitoring

Process discovery and automation are first steps towards a continuous journey of improvement. Beginning this journey is important for any organization, staying on the right path and knowing what the journey is all about is even more important.

So how do you know you are on the right path? You continuously monitor your processes!

Monitoring Matters!

Why Monitor?

At the time of designing (and probably automation) process might look good and complete without issues. In reality, some new issues, bottlenecks and/or opportunities might arise. You will not be able to resolve them or take advantage of opportunities unless you monitor the process.

Monitoring generates metrics, which are used to evaluate the process on regular basis. These metrics answer questions like:

• Is the process working as per expectations?
• Is it meeting (preferably exceeding) internal and industry standards.

Metrics also become the basis for further redesign and improvement of the process. Which of course results in automation opportunities that can further cut down on cycle times and defects.

Monitoring helps in identifying areas of the process that have improved and areas that still need more attention. Based on this information you can better utilize organization resources by reassigning/reallocating to under performing areas.

What to Monitor?

Process performance indicators are identified during the design phase. There are thousands of performance indicators available that can be monitored for each process. Some of them are relatively similar across industries and then there are industry specific performance indicators. Performance Indicators broadly fall into following categories:

• Financial Performance
• Understand your Customers
• Market and Marketing Efforts
• Operational Performance
• Understand your Employees and their Performance
• Environmental and Social Sustainability Performance

How to Monitor?

If you use a Business Process Management Software (BPMS) to automate your process, then some basic performance indicators would already be built into them. For additional custom performance indicators, you can use a Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) software.

References

• The 75 KPIs Every Manager Needs To Know by Bernard Marr. 
• Images courtesy to openclipart.org

Republished/Cited

• Article republished on BPMLeader.com
• Article cited by Scott Cleveland

Note: This article was originally published on my blog AdeelJaved.com.