Signavio Process Manager Tips: QuickModel (Part 2), a cool feature to use in process discovery

[JD_WongLoera]

Pointer: I recommend that you read part 1 of these series of articles since they are written from a scenario point of view, and the tips/hacks relate to managing stakeholders during a sample discovery phase.

Link to Part 1: Signavio Process Manager Tips: QuickModel, a cool... - SAP Community

Intro:

The time for your very first short session with your 3 stakeholders has come 😁 and you booked your meeting room 30 minutes in advance to test the secondary screen that you will use to duplicate QuickModel’s window as you collaborate with the participants.

Being able to display this interface to the workshop participants from the get go, as I mentioned in the previous article, will send the message that "you mean business" and you will be also able to explain the purpose of creating a "happy flow" of the AS-IS process in this session.

Tip 4 – Create consensus amongst stakeholders for Start and End events

In order to set the boundaries for discussion and capture of activities, it is germane that the Process Manager/Developer establishes such boundaries from the get-go to prevent stakeholders to “go-off on a tangent”🚀, which all BPM practitioners can attest tends to happen in this type of workshops.

In this example, we are dealing with improving activities that handle a Customer request for delivering an improvement taskforce from a consulting partner. (note: for this article I am not choosing a “transaction level” process example)

So you agree with the participants that events are:

Start Event is: Customer Request files received         End Event is: Proposal for customer sent

This is what the main attribute section in QuickModel would look like:

The labels for the events display in the diagram, and now it is clear for all participants which are the boundaries of the central discussion.

💡Notice there is even a consensus process name that you have agreed with the stakeholders: Manage Customer’s New Request for taskforce Support

Do not change the saved diagram's QuickModel name yet, leave it as is. The proposed name will be used later when you move the diagram file to the WIP folder. (see Part 1)

Tip 5 - Maximize the Activities' attributes to your advantage

The benefit with the QuickModel Activity Table is that given its Open Text feel, it can really be used as a Process Discovery Notebook of sorts 🗒 , and you can save the feedback from the stakeholders in Story Format under the How? field, which can be of great use when converting the Quickmodel to BPMN 2.0

So, Back to the scenario...

Right-off-the-bat ⚾, in the workshop with your stakeholders, it is established that the trigger for the start event is receiving files from the customer regarding the request, and that it is "Role A" who is responsible for receiving and initial reviewing.

This is what the informationcapture can look like for Task 1 - Review files from customer:

In the How? field, you can capture as much text information as needed, that can help as context for later process re-design. 

This is all the information you saved for Task 1

So 10 minutes ⏲ into the meeting and you have already captured important information for the first 3 tasks, involving Role A and Role B ✔️.   

here's how the table would look like after capture the information:

❗Notice that task 3 under What? field, seems longer. So that might have to be broken down into more tasks later when you have more time, right now you don't, you have 20 minutes left to keep asking your stakeholders questions, so stay on track ⏱

Tip (hack) 6 -  Using “Input documents” and  “output document” attributes to establish messages to a Black Pox/External Pool (i.e Customer)

In the presented scenario we are aware that there is communication/data exchange towards a customer, so that needs to be represented in the final improved “Future State” processes.  It is important ❗ that it is discussed/captured which “Tasks” are receiving or throwing those messages and what roles 🔍 are responsible

In QuickModel, the driving interface is the Activity Table which dynamically updates the Diagram Preview underneath it, however that preview is not the full BPMN 2.0 canvas, naturally there are some limitations with that.  One of those limitations is not being able to insert a Black Box Pool and represent the message flows to an external party (i.e.Customer)  Note: check SAP  Siganvio’s full article on Pools and Lanes. https://www.signavio.com/post/bpmn-pools-and-lanes/

However, there is a simple “hack” to keep track of those interactions in QuickModel which later can be properly represented in the longer full BPMN 2.0 canvas in the Graphical Editor

You are going to use the fields "Input Documents" and "Output Documents" and a suitable short name to identify documents that flow from and to the customer

When you populate these fileds for a Task Activity they will generate 2 types of elements in the Preview Diagram

An Input Document will display as below (notice the association arrow is pointing towards the Task)

An Output Document will display as below (notice the associated arrow is pointing towards the Document)

Since we won't be able to create a Black Box in QuickModel, we can use above fields as placeholders for the Message flows related to Customer, and if some of those flows are associated to a "Formal Directory" Document, we add that Doc name as well. 

In the example above, up until Task 3, you already discovered that there 3 message flows:                                The trigger was the first one, and then a communication between Customer and Role B to review a Draft Document.

In this example, we chose a descriptor "Msg from Customer" "Msg to Customer" to identify what tasks will have to be connected to a Black Box pool later on. 

The above entries in the table will generate a Preview Diagram like this:

Notice the association arrows chaning depending on being "Input" or "Output"

Below you can see an example of an output document in the above process for Task 9, which is not customer related

below you can see that it was not necessary to type "Msg to Customer" before the Document: Updated Resource Plan in the table:

In the diagram show below, the task will not have to have a message flow to an External Pool, it will remain as is:

This hack is helpful if a process, and sometimes there are some of them, which have a lot of interaction with Customer, Suppliers and 3rd Party participants. It is in these cases, that you don't want to waste time with external pools in process discovery and inital diagrams, that can be looked into later when Gateways and Intermediate events are added to in BPMN 2.0 in the Graphical Editor

Just so you get an idea of what those 3 first tasks would look like connected to a Black Box Pool, when it is time to work in BPMN 2.0, here comes a sample

This is how tasks 1 to 3 As-Is should be represented in BPMN 2.0 (Notice I even had to break task 3, into 3 tasks already), it is obvious that to get to this detail and level of correctness many times it cannot be acomplished during the intial "workshops", and the clean-up/adjustment needs to be done later and have adjusted Diagrams ready for future QuickModel workshops or for Formal BPMN 2.0 simuation and review sessions. 

‼️Notice also that the task "Review Feedback" only has a message flow from the Customer Pool to Role B. This is because in this example, the Customer does not create a brand new unique document, it uses the same document sent by Role B and makes notes in Word. Thus, the document element "Msg from Customer" was removed as it is represented now in BPMN 2.0 by the "Incoming Message Flow"

End of Part 2

Summary

As you could perhaps notice in this article, from the point of view of  a BPM practitioner, there is need for preparation and, lets call it, definiton for different strategies to handle the interviewes and workshops with stakeholders, depening on the maturity of the AS-IS processes, as well as the bandwidth from both the BPM team side and the stakeholder side. 

All Business Architecture and BPM applications have pros and cons, and it is important to understand them and leverage the Pros, and handle the Cons to the advantage of the BPM team, the stakeholders and ultimate the Business Transformation Project Goals.

Part 3 will continue on the same scenario and to complete the journey in QuickModel just before jumping into BPMN 2.0 Canvas in the Graphical Editor in SAP Signavio Process Manager 

About the Author

JD Wong-Loera is a Stockholm/Toronto based Project Manager, Business Architect and Process Managament consultant who enjoys supporting others in understanding the Businesss Architecture and Business Process Management Capabilities. In his free time he enjoys camping 🏕, reading 📖 and Thai boxing 🥊