A NEW GENERATION OF PROCESSES
WHAT IS A HIGH VARIETY PROCESS?
They are intuitively easy things: simple steps, with a clear goal… which end-up in an unforeseeable sequence.
Exceptions are due to the unexpected behavior of external agents, namely the customers.
THE LIMITS OF THE TRADITIONAL DESIGN
THE WORLD DISORDER
For internal or human driven processes, exceptions can be avoided or manually handled.
If the process is exposed to an external agent, such as a customer, and the process is automated, the model find its limit.
THE COST OF PERSONALIZATION
This is a traditional industrial model. Personalization comes at a cost because it complicates the final design.
MANAGING UNHAPPY PATHS
The linear process focuses in getting the tasks done in their order. It does not provide tools to handle what does not happen. However, in customer journeys, a big share of the effort goes in follow-up.
THE MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS
The traditional model ignores the many dimensiones of a digital journey: follow-up messages to the customer, front-end systems, outsourced third parties…
HOW TO DESIGN WHEN THERE IS TOO HIGH A VARIETY?
High Variety processes cannot be automated with the traditional approach
There is a new paradigm for these cases, right from this century: Artifact-Centric, the process steered by the data of each case.
The model to design them is BALSA, with a new methodology that skips the sequence in the definition of the automation.
BALSA: A MATURE DESIGN METHODOLOGY
(BA) – BUSINESS ARTIFACT
THE DATA STRUCTURE
The structure with enough data to steer the process: enough to decide in which situation it is, what is the next best action, what are the allowed actions for this given profile, at this point in time…
(L) – LIFECYCLE
THE INTUITIVE JOURNEY
Cases have a lifecycle, although not a predictable one.
Sequence is nearly always an over simplification of reality.
(S) – SERVICES
THE AVAILABLE ACTIONS
A set of possible actions during the life of a case. They are few, and very stable.
This is the place where the code is concentrated.
(A) – ASSOCIATIONS
THE BUSINESS RULES
Process automatisms translate into trigger rules.
Our design methodology focuses in isolating the different scopes of the process decisions.