1 Business (Agency) Process Discovery and Documentation Workshop PeopleSoft Phase II Tuesday, October 23, 2007 9:00 AM to 12:00 Noon Concourse Theatre

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Business (Agency) Process Discovery and Documentation

Workshop

PeopleSoft Phase II

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

9:00 AM to 12:00 Noon

Concourse Theatre

Oklahoma City, OK

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AGENDABusiness (Agency) Process Discovery and

Documentation Workshop

9:00am -9:15am -- Kickoff, Introductions and Housekeeping

9:15am to 10:30am – Workshop Presentation

10:30am to 10:45am – Break

10:45am to 12:00noon – Questions and Answers

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Why?

• This workshop will provide a BASIC GUIDELINE to assist you in documenting your “AS-IS” business (Agency) processes, in a format that will be capable of providing an "apples to apples" comparison (fit gap analysis) to delivered PeopleSoft Financials v8.9 functionality for Oklahoma Phase II modules.

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PS Phase II Modules Quick Review (1 of 2)

• Grants Management– Acquisition and tracking of Grant funding

• Project Costing – Project Accounting and Tracking

• Contracts Management (Revenue) – Establishes revenue contracts with external

customers or sponsors.

• Billing (Invoicing)– Creating customer invoices and drawing grant

funding.

• Receivables (AR)

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PS Phase II Modules Quick Review (2 of 2)

• Assets Management– Tracking and depreciating capital assets.

• Inventory – Tracking and re-ordering of inventory stock.

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How does PS display its delivered Business (Agency) Processes?

• Generally Generic in Nature– High Level Sequence of Functionality (or Features) designed to illustrate a

generic business process.– And yet, very specific to PeopleSoft delivered Functionality.

• Extensive Use of Swim Lanes– Each Swim Lane consists of a Generic Organizational Role.

• Example: Financial Administrator, Approval Authority, Principle Investigator, Sponsoring Agency

– Activities (Boxes of Tasks) within each swim lane.– Tasks are the lowest Level of Process Identified.

• Extensive Decision Points

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PS FLOW CHART EXAMPLE(This is one of the apples)

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Basics of Agency Processes AS-IS Discovery & Documentation

• Base Understanding

– Discovery

– Documentation

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Basics of Agency Process Discovery

– Base Understanding –

Process Discovery starts by ASKING TWO QUESTIONS:

1. What’s First?2. What’s Next?

And closely followed by:

1. What goes in? (AKA, Predecessors)

2. What happens to it? (Elements and actions of the Process)

3. What comes out? (AKA, Deliverable)

THROUGHOUT THE DISCOVERY, KEEP AN EYE OPEN FOR HOW “ERRORS” ARE HANDLED.

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How we deal with these questions is very important.

While “discovering” the answers, there will be some Challenges.

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• Some of the Challenges 1. Getting the Right People Involved.

2. Getting the Right Information.

3. Prioritizing the Information, correctly.

4. Documenting the “As-Is” Process.

5. Validation of Documentation.

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5 Levels of Processes:1. Function(al) – Identify the

Functions within your Agency. Functions are groupings of Activities.

2. Activity(ies) – Identify the Activities within the Function. Activities are groupings of Tasks.

3. Task(s) – Identify the Tasks that are within the Activities. Tasks are work packages that when grouped together create a unique task.

4. Work Packages – Work Packages are groups of Work Unites.

5. Work Units – The base unit of work.

NOTE: There are other Forms which are just as valid.

Functions

Activities

Tasks

Work Packages

Work Units

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Manual and Automated Processes

AutomatedPROCESS

ManualProcess

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• Identification of “As-Is” Processes– Identify Apparent Processes:

• Existing Process Diagrams.

• Existing SOP (Standard Operation Policies)

• Existing Systems and Sub-Systems (Shadow systems)

• Key Personnel

– Search for Hidden Processes:• Excel spreadsheets

• User developed Access DB

• Ad hoc – Note, verbal communications, Phone call…

• Email

• Manual papers

• What stamps are used?– (Date, Approval, Denied, Posted, others)

• Existing manuals…– (how accurate, maintained, outdated, written in notes??)

Helpful Hint:

You should always be looking for Hidden

Processes.

1. Many times manual portions of primarily

automated processes are the hardest hidden

processes to find.

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• Identification of Decision Points (A.K.A Business Rules)

Decision Point,Business Rule

Options 1

Option 2 ~ n

Input

NEXT 1

NEXT 2 ~ n

• Identify Apparent Decision Points:

• Existing

•Process Flow Diagrams

•SOP (Standard Operation Procedures)

•Systems and Sub-Systems

•Key Positions (Personnel)

•Search for Hidden Decision Points:

•Generally become visible during errors.

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• Identification of the Bridges

– How do processes interact with each other?

– Identify Apparent and Hidden Bridges.

Helpful Hint:

You should always be looking for

Hidden Bridges.

• Types (Basic Examples)

•Parallel•Summing

•There are many others such as Timing, illustrated on the next slide.

Function,Activity Or

Task

Function,Activity Or

TaskOUTPUT INPUT

Input

Output 1

Output 2 ~ n

OutPut

Input 1

Input 2 ~ n

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• Identification of Timing items. This is a type of Bridge.

•Examples•Delays•Time to Acknowledge•Time to Accept•Time to Deny•Time to Resolve•Time to Process

MANUAL INPUT

Delay tillMidnight

BatchProcess

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• The Most Common Discovery Process is:

– TOP DOWN and then BOTTOM UP

• Start with Top Down and work to the bottom. Then, turn around and work back to the top.

• Many times this will lead to hidden items not identified during the top down activity.

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Scope = What are the borders of this discovery process?

Our goal is to provide process documentation that closely matches PeopleSoft delivered process documentation.

The lowest level of PeopleSoft Documentation is the Task. So, for this project we need to elicit and document information

to the Task level.

Scope for this Discovery Project is the TASK Level within the 7 Phase II modules.

SCOPE

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– Base Understanding – Review

Functions

Activities

Tasks

VERIFY

IDENTIFY

TOP Down

Bottom Up

Apparent Processes

and Bridges

Hidden Processes

and Bridges

SCOPE

Of the 7 Phase II Modules

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Basics of Agency Process Notation (Documentations)

• Documentation• There are many ways to document Agency

Processes. For this project we’ll closely match PS process flow by using:

–PROCESS FLOW DIAGRAMS.

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DEQ’s Spaghetti

GRANTS PRE_AWARD - Final

PR

OG

RA

MA

DM

INIS

TR

AT

OR

GR

AN

TS

AC

CO

UN

TA

NT

BU

DG

ET

MA

NA

GE

RLE

GA

LA

ppro

ving

Aut

horit

y

Pursue a FundingOpportunity

Decide toProceed

toward Grant

DAADetail Feasibility

Study

Create High LevelFeasibility Request

to Proceed

Request

Create DetailLevel Feasibility

Request toProceed

Approved

DAA Feasibility Study

Create Focus Document &/OR Work Plan

Approved

Create GrantBudget

Review and Trackfor State Budgets

Match & LimitsImpact

DeterminationReview

Compile GrantApplicaiton

3rd Party Verification(Clearing House Members)

High LevelFeasibility Budget

Assistance

Assistance / Review

Assistance / Review Assistance / Review

Match & LimitsImpact

DeterminationReveiw

Detail Level Feasibility

Budget Assistance

Assistance / Review

Grant ApplicationRelease

Request

DEQ-AA Release of Grant

Application

LEGAL REVIEW &REPORT

PENDING LEGALACTION?

Request & Receipt forPending LegalAction Report

Approved

Denied

Grant SponsorAuthority

Final or RE-Application

Release

Denied

ToPOST_AWARD

Approved

DeniedDenied

DAA = Division Approving AuthorityDEQ-AA = DEQ Approving Authority

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TEMPLATEBusiness Process Flow Diagram

Template (Basic)

Fun

ctio

n 3

Fun

ctio

n 2

Fun

ctio

n 1

NO

YES

Received Order

Order Approved, Logging andconsolidation Tasks.

CustomerReceives Updates

and Order

Manual Input

Order RejectLogging Task

CustomerNotification Task

ComputerTask

ManualVerification Task

Delay TillMidnight

ApproveORDER?

Manual ORDERInput

ORDERDOCUMENT

Par

alle

lB

ridge

SUMMING

DecisionPoint

DOCUMENT

Terminator

Manual Process

(Task or Activity)

Manual Input

AutomaticProcess

Connector

SYMBOL LEGEND

Time Element

CustomerFinancial

Data

Data

ORDER Fulfillment Activity

Task A

Task B

Task C

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Review• Business Process Discovery & Mapping Task List

1. Identify areas of (Functions) business process that might be candidates for the Phase II deployment (Grants, External Billing, Project Tracking, Assets and Consumable Inventory).

2. Schedule discussions with those resources that are responsible for the business processes in question 1, to document details of the process. Try and uncover general execution or flow, impact to other areas of the agency, other resources involved or impacted, decision points and outputs or deliverables of the process.

3. Document any software that supports the business process. That should include any integration points with third party software (software not supported in-house).

4. Using the business process documentation developed in question 2, begin to “map out” the sequence of business process, responsible resources and decision points in a flow chart format.

5. Review the mapping done in question 4 with the resources that provided the business process details in question 2 for verification. Tweak the mapping as appropriate. This process is iterative.

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Q&A

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Additional Resources

• International Institute of Business Analysis– www.theiiba.org

• Google “Business Analyst Resources”– Over 173,000,000 hits…

http://www.theiiba.org/

Documents

1 Business (Agency) Process Discovery and Documentation Workshop PeopleSoft Phase II Tuesday, October 23, 2007 9:00 AM to 12:00 Noon Concourse Theatre