Initiating Process Improvements scenario

The Initiating Process Improvements scenario describes how you can use a business space to collaborate to improve a business process.

This scenario uses widgets that contain content from WebSphere® Process Server, WebSphere Business Monitor, and WebSphere Business Modeler Publishing Server. If a product is not installed, Business Space replaces its widgets with an image and a message.

If a space based on the Initiating Process Improvements template is not available, see Creating an Initiating Process Improvements space for an example of creating a space using this template. Some of the steps and information might not apply for your situation. Adapt the scenario to fit your needs.

In the Initiating Process Improvements scenario, Sara, a department manager, comments that the staff in her department are often overwhelmed because certain forms take a long time to process. She points out that if her staff could process the forms 20% faster, she could manage with her current level of staffing.

You have been assigned the task of providing a solution that improves the performance of the business process used by Sara's team by 20%. You have a team to help you and your role is to coordinate the efforts of the team. Your team includes George, a business analyst who is using WebSphere Business Modeler to model the current state of the process and one or more proposals to improve the process. Your output is a recommendation for the business process and information that IT personnel can use to implement the recommendation.

You start by checking whether the monitoring model for the process generates the data your require so that you can see it in the KPIs widget, the Dimensions widget, and the Reports widget. In this case you want to determine whether the process improvement has achieved the 20% improvement goal. In this scenario, we will assume that the monitoring model provides this data and that you have used this information to set up an Initiating Process Improvements space and to configure the widgets within it. We will also assume that you have made each member of your team a viewer of the space.

In this scenario, George has modeled a draft of the current process and it is now time to make the draft available for review. You use Business Space to accomplish this using the following steps:

  1. Log onto Business Space and open the space for initiating process improvements.
  2. To move the business process model from WebSphere Business Modeler into your space, George, the business analyst who is using WebSphere Business Modeler, needs to publish the model. To set George up for publishing, you assign him to the publisher role:
    1. In the Publishing Server Access Control page, expand the list of users in the Users/Groups section and select George.
    2. In the Projects section, expand Publishers, select Publisher Access, and click Submit.
    George can now publish to this space. While you are in the Publishing Server Access Control page, you decide to make George a publishing server administrator. After you have done this, George now has access to the Publishing Server Access Control page and to the Publishing Server Manager page. He can now manage the elements in the review and manage access to them.
  3. To inform George that he needs to publish the process model, create a To-do task and assign it to George.
    1. Go to the Create Tasks page.
    2. Select the To-do task and click Create.
    3. In the Task Information widget, fill out the form for that task. Ensure that you include the name of this space in the details so that George knows which space he is publishing to project into and the names of the people who will be reviewing the process. Click Submit.
    George will see this task in his My Tasks widget when he logs into the Initiating Process Improvements space and opens the My Work page.
    Note: If you go to the My Work page, you can see the task in the Tasks I Created widget.

    George notifies you when he has published the process model and provided the reviewers with the access rights to view and comment on the process elements. You can confirm that George has published the process model by going to the Publishing Server Manager page and looking for the publishing job in the Publishing Server Status widget.

  4. The reviewers will need viewer access to the business space.
    1. Open the Business Space Manager.
    2. Select the Initiating Process Improvements space.
    3. In the properties of the space, add the reviewers to the Viewers list.
    4. Click Save. The reviewers are now able to open the Initiating Process Improvements space.
  5. You are now ready to contact the reviewers, such as Sara the department manager, with information about the review. You open your e-mail program and create an e-mail that announces the review and tells the reviewers what you want them to do.
    1. To provide a PDF that shows the current state of the business process for the reviewers, select File > Export to PDF in the Dimensions widget and the Reports widget. Save the PDFs into the e-mail.
      Tip: You can also make a screen capture of KPIs and include them in the e-mail.
    2. From the menu of the Draft Artifacts page, select Create Link. In the Draft Artifacts page, the Draft Artifacts widget displays drafts of business process models and images.
    3. Copy the link and paste it into the e-mail. When the user logs onto Business Space using this link, the user will see the Draft Artifacts page and be able to review the process model and make comments.
    4. Send the e-mail to the reviewers.
    Tip: Instead of using an e-mail, you might create a Review task for each reviewer.
The reviewers can now review the process model and make comments. Based on the comments, George can refine the process model. When the current state of the process is sufficiently modeled, you team can release it to the Released Artifacts widget. You team can then develop one or more proposals for changing the process and publish them. These proposals can undergo reviews until your team can identify the best one and provide the IT department with the information it needs to implement the process.