Working With Business Processes Masterclass

This new 3-day interactive workshop combines the core content from two very popular Business Process workshops by Alec Sharp – Working With Business Processes and Advanced Business Process Techniques. This workshop follows the model of our most popular Data Modelling workshop, Business-Oriented Data Modelling Masterclass, which combines the core content from our introductory workshop with extensive content from our advanced workshop. This approach quickly gets everyone, whether new or experienced, to the same baseline with the unique techniques that have made Alec an in-demand consultant and instructor around the world. On this platform of shared understanding and techniques, the entire group moves forward into advanced topics, well beyond what is covered in introductory courses.

Throughout, the emphasis is on methods that support shared understanding and engagement, leading to buy-in and support for change. Specific techniques for discovering and assessing individual behavior and organisational culture are a centerpiece of this unique workshop. Participants will be well-prepared for the challenges of successful business process change. In fact, many organisations apply techniques learned in this workshop to all of their organisational change initiatives.

Topics will be covered with a review of techniques and examples, a brief workshop exercise, and a group solution and debriefing. The emphasis is on maximizing the delivery of content while keeping everyone engaged. Real-life case studies are employed throughout – some participants say the examples of how the techniques are applied in practice is the best part of the workshop.

Learning objectives

• Understand how to communicate business process concepts with executives, managers, and individual contributors in a way that stimulates interest and builds support for change.
• Learn objective criteria for an end-to-end process along with top-down and bottom-up methods for discovering business processes and rapidly developing a process architecture.
• Understand, through extensive real-life examples, how a concept model (conceptual data model) is invaluable in identifying and understanding business processes.
• Learn how to encourage support for business process change at every stage of an initiative, and the critical importance of a “whatfirst,who and hownext, only thenwhy?” approach.
• Learn a practical and agile business process change methodology that incorporates specific techniques for addressing human, organisational, and cultural factors.
• Be able to apply innovative techniques for rapidly building relevant, accessible process models, especially at the scope (context) and conceptual (understanding) levels.
• Manage the transition from the current process to the future state process by conducting a structured assessment of the as-is that generates ideas and features for the to-be process.
• Learn a step-by-step, feature-based method for to-be process design that utilises proven techniques to ensure an implementable, sustainable design.
• Understand how the feature-based approach allows implementation of the new process in an Agile, feature-by-feature manner rather than a “big bang” approach.

Course Topics:

Practical techniques and clear guidelines will be provided in these areas:

• Five things you need to know about business processes
• How Business Process fits into a framework for Business Analysis: Process – Application – Data
• A three-phase methodology for Business Process Change
• Identifying true, end-to-end, cross-functional Business Processes
• Developing a Process Architecture with top-down and bottom-up techniques
• The critical role of Concept Models (Conceptual Data Models) in working with business processes
• Conveying the essence of a process with Process Scope Models and Process Summary Charts
• Seven ways to help people embrace change
• Process modelling for people, not machines
• Enabler-based assessment of the as-is process and generation of ideas for the to-be process
• Designing for success – creating an implementable and sustainable business process
• Implementation of the new process, feature-by-feature
• Process design case studies