How do applications support organizational business processes

Published: 27 June, 2024
Contributors: Ivan Belcic, Cole Stryker

Process modeling is the practice of creating data-driven visual representations of key business processes. It gives organizations a common language with which they can understand and optimize workflows

If an organization wants to earn strong returns on its research and development investments, resolve IT issues with minimal downtime or create an accurate lead qualification workflow, it needs to understand these processes on an objective and comprehensive level. Even the business users directly involved in these processes might lack total transparency into exactly what happens every step of the way.

Business analysts and other stakeholders can gain end-to-end views of the current state of their business process lifecycle through process modeling. It is a business process management (BPM) technique that creates data-driven visualizations of workflows. These process models help organizations document workflows, surface key metrics, pinpoint potential problems and intelligently automate processes.

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A process model is a graphical representation of a business process or workflow and its related subprocesses. Process modeling generates comprehensive, quantitative activity diagrams and flowcharts containing critical insights into the functioning of a particular process, including:

• Events and activities that occur within a workflow.
• Who owns or initiates those events and activities.
• Decision points and the different paths workflows can take based on their outcomes.
• Devices involved in the process.
• Timelines of the overall process and each step in the process.
• Success and failure rates of the process.

• Algorithm-driven: Process models are produced by data mining algorithms that use the data contained within event logs to construct models of the workflows as they exist.

• Objective: Because process models are based on quantitative data, they offer genuinely objective views of workflows as they exist in practice and include key data, metrics or events for more thorough process analysis. By creating a flow diagram of its new account creation process, a software company might discover that a significant number of customers are abandoning the sign-up process because it takes too long. A model can even help the company pinpoint the exact stage at which these drop-offs occur.

• Standardized: Process models typically use one of two standardized styles of graphical business process notation: business process modeling notation (BPMN)—also called business process model and notation—or unified modeling language (UML).

Within these notation systems, certain visual elements have universally recognized meanings when used in a process model. Whether an organization uses UML diagrams or BPMN diagrams, these standardized notation methodologies allow process models to be readily shared and read by anyone. Here's how different elements are represented within these diagrams:

• Arrows represent sequence flows.
• Diamonds represent decision points or gateways.
• Ovals represent the beginnings and endpoints of processes.
• Rectangles represent specific activities within a workflow.
• Swimlanes identify who owns which components of a process.

Event logs and process mining are essential business process modeling tools that underpin modern business process modeling techniques.

Most enterprise IT systems maintain event logs. These event logs are digital records that automatically track state changes and activities, known as events, within the system. Anything that happens within a system can be an event. Here are some common event examples:

• A user logs in.
• A user updates a record.
• A user submits a form.
• Information is transferred between systems.

Event logs track both the occurrence of events and information surrounding these events, such as the device performing an activity and how long the activity takes. Event logs act as the inputs during the production of process models.

Process mining is the application of a data-mining algorithm to all of this event log data. The algorithm identifies trends in the data and uses the results of its analysis to generate a visual representation of the process flow within the system.

This visual representation is the process model. Depending on the process targeted for modeling, process-mining algorithms can be applied to a single system, multiple systems or entire technological ecosystems and departments.

Business process modeling shouldn’t be confused with process mapping and process mining. Process maps are manually created based on employee reports and provide higher-level workflow process diagrams. Process mining analyzes organizational data to produce process models, which use that data to create present more objective workflow diagrams.