Process Analysis
The purpose of this stage is to collate the information collected in the Triage and Assessment stages in order to prioritize where the opportunities sit in the pipeline of work in order to realize business benefit.
If the Process Assessment yields a "Yes" or "Maybe", then a deeper dive is needed to determine the opportunity potential, delivery estimates and, in some cases, a business case. The analysis should be based on a variety of inputs e.g. process documentation, process walk-throughs, and key process metrics.
Deep-dive evaluation can be done using the below framework:
- Clearly establish the current-state (or As-Is) process which depicts how the process is being performed by the SMEs, including their shortcuts around the process. This can be achieved via either one of the below techniques:
- Manual Process Modelling and Analysis: create an as-is process model by analyzing documents and data, building process maps, conducting workshops and process walk-throughs and system demos.
- Process Mining: create an as-is process model by using Process Mining software which ingest event logs from business applications and derives the common process flows and variations.
- Determine whether the "As-Is" process has inefficiencies that can be eliminated prior to automation. Identify opportunities to make the process conducive to automation. This can increase automation potential thereby improving the business benefits. Blue Prism provides a guidance on conducting re-engineering workshops to build a "To-Be" process model. If this can’t be performed due to time constraints improvements can be made post production to gain further efficiency in the process.
- Agree and document the Target-state (or To-Be) process as well the automation scope. Blue Prism provides an Initial Process Analysis (IPA) template.
Once you have gathered this information you can use the Impact Assessment Template (IA) to effectively score the opportunity. This will provide you with a high level view of the following –
- Benefits
- Risk reduction
- Speed to delivery
- Importance to the business
This can then be used as rationale for pipeline prioritization or as a tool to present to the Governance Board to support their prioritization decisions. You can also use the Blue Prism Process Assessment Tool to help prioritize the pipeline of opportunities using the gathered information.
The Process Assessment Tool is a web-based solution that qualifies and scores processes in terms of automation-readiness and ease-of-implementation—with an estimate of cost savings and hours returned to the business—so you know which processes to automate in order to achieve the biggest value. Again and again.