In every BPM project, it seems we look continuously for those things that can be automated. While this is important to reduce paper, improve quality and increase efficiency, there
are times when it doesn’t work for everything.
We don’t need reminding of this when dealing with a completely automated telephone system, navigating through voice commands that seemingly take us further and further into an abyss of nonsense. Some organizations now differentiate themselves purely on having a real person to talk to in these circumstances, and it’s working for them.
So as a Business Analyst or Project Manager we need to carefully consider where to automate or not. A good place to start is with the Use Case. This is simply documenting the business process as it currently is being executed, gaining consensus of that’s how things currently work.
This becomes the baseline for analysis of that process to identify areas for improvement. Remember things are never quite as simple as they appear, neither are they as complex.
Getting this first picture of your process will be the foundation for communication, improvement and process change.
