IDEF
A software methodology and diagramming system developed by the US Department of Defense and widely used by CASE vendors in the late Eighties. Some IDEF diagrams are still used for DOD projects today.

Instance
See Process Instance.

Internal-Oriented e-Business Applications
A generic way of talking about business processes and Internet applications that use the Internet to allow companies to link with their employees or to link their internal applications to share information or data. (Compare with Customer-Oriented and Internal-Oriented Applications.)

Internet
A set of public communication and network protocols that can pass computer data over telephone lines without interfering with normal phone calls.

Information Technology (IT)
Sometimes called Information Systems (IS) or Data Processing. Generic name for department or function that analyzes, creates, maintains and supports applications and databases used by an organization.

IS process diagram
Also commonly AS-IS process diagram. A description or diagram of an existing process before changes are made.

ISO 9000 (International Standards Organization)
An international standard for how organizations should document their processes. In effect, an early effort to encourage organizations to create a well- defined process architecture. In practice, its too often simply an exercise in creating documentation to satisfy a requirement for getting on a bidding list. ISPI (International Society for Performance Improvement)
A professional society made up of individuals who are interested in the systematic analysis of human performance problems and techniques for training, changing or managing human performance. For more information, check www.ispi.org

Job Description
A document defining the job title and responsibilities of a specific job. It may include information on the specific tasks or activities to be performed and measures by which successful performance will be judged. May include salary and bonus information. Well organized companies create job descriptions and then hire people to do what is described by the job description. In effect it’s a contract to which both the company and employee agree. More than one specific employee can be hired to undertake the same job. You might have a description of a sales position and hire dozens or hundred of people to function in that position. A job is not equal to a task or activity. In some cases a job and an activity are equivalent. You describe the activity and hire one or more people to do just that. In most cases, a person will be hired to perform multiple tasks or activities and may only perform specific steps within any given activity. Sometimes called a Job Model.

Junction, Junction Bar
On a process diagram a way of showing that one flow (output) is divided and sent into multiple activities, or to show that multiple flows must all be complete before the activity immediately after the bar can occur.

Kano Analysis
An approach to defining customer satisfaction that divides outputs , service or product features of outputs into (1) basic requirements (the minimum a customer expects), (2) satisfiers (additional outputs or features that please customers) and (3) delighters (outputs or features that the customer didn’t expect that really please customers. Associated with Noriaki Kano, a Japanese quality control expert.

Knowledge
Information defines facts (A is B). Knowledge defines what one should do if certain facts apply. Thus, if A is B, then do C. There are many different ways knowledge can be encoded, but policies and business rules are popular formats.

Knowledge Management
Focuses on defining the knowledge employees or systems use to perform activities and saving it in some format so that others can access it. Knowledge management systems can be organized along different lines. We recommend organizing it with processes and activities.

Lean Manufacturing
An approach to designing and managing production processes that emphasizes minimal inventory and just-in-time delivery, among other things, to improve the efficiency of a manufacturing process.

Levels of Analysis
For purposes of analysis, we divide a company into three levels. (1) the Organization and its environment, (2) the Value chains, processes and sub-processes, and (3) Activities, including the people and systems that actually perform the activities and the costs and times associated with the performance of each activity.

Measure
A specific test to determine if a goal is being met or not. High level measures tend to focus on profits, revenues, product output figures and growth. As measures are subdivided they tend to focus on whether specific sub-processes are achieving their output goals. Very specific measures may check to determine if the steps within an activity are being performed correctly or if decisions are being made according to rules and policies.

Measures Hierarchy
A hierarchical tree that shows how organizational measures, pictured at the top or on the left are subdivided into more specific measures for value chains, processes, sub-processes and ultimately to activity goals. For every goal there are measures – specific tests of whether the goal is achieved or not. Thus, there is also a goal hierarchy that mirrors the goal hierarchy.

Measurement Scheduling Worksheet
A worksheet that looks like a process diagram. Functional units or managers are listed on the vertical axis. Years, Quarters, Months, Weeks and Days are listed along the horizontal axis. Rectangles are drawn to show which managers take part in which meetings at what points in time. Sometimes a bit of a process map is pictured on the right side of the worksheet to emphasize the process being measured by those involved in this plan. We don’t expect most companies to use a worksheet like this, but it’s important that measures be evaluated frequently and that managers responsible for different functions meet to assure that the handoffs between processes are satisfactory.

Middleware
Software that allows two modules or applications to exchange data. See EAI.

Model
A formal set of relationships that can be manipulated to test assumptions. A simulation that tests the number of units that can be processed each hour under a set of conditions is an example of a model. Models do not need to be graphical; although that is the way we have used the term throughout this book. Contrast with diagram.

Modeling
In a loose sense, modeling simply refers to creating a simplified representation of something else. A model can be a picture, a diagram or a mathematical formula. In this book, we have used modeling in the sense of business process modeling – to create a diagrammatic representation of how work is done. In a rigorous sense, a model must specify formal relationships and assumptions that can be tested.

Model Driven Architecture (MDA)
A new approach to application development being promoted by the Object Management Group. In essence, the idea is that organizations out to create abstract class models of their applications and then use those models to generate specific models and software code. The idea behind MDA is that the same abstract model could be used to generate different types of code. Thus, rather than creating new applications when new technologies come along, a company could have a high-level architecture and reusable components that it could use over and over again for many years. This approach is in the early stages of development but it has attracted quite a bit of attention. (Compare with CASE.)

Niche Specialization
A competitive strategy that focuses on offering products to specific groups of buyers or to buyers in particular geographical locations.

Non-Value Adding Activities
Processes or activities that neither add value to a final product or service, or enable activities that add value. In most cases these activities are left over from older processes and somehow continue even though they are no longer necessary, or they are done because some departmental managers wants them done, “because that’s the way things are done in this department,” even though they add noting to a specific process.

Object-Oriented
An approach to structuring software applications. Instead of thinking of an application as a process with steps, we think of it as a set of objects that exchange messages. Now the dominant approach to software development. Java and Visual Basic are object-oriented software development languages.

OMG (Object Management Group)
An international consortium of companies that work together to create standards for advanced software engineering technologies. The OMG has developed middleware standards, like CORBA, the Unified Modeling Language (UML) for diagramming software and business systems, and the Model Driven Architecture (MDA) a systematic way of maintaining reusable software components and using them to generate code for specific applications. (See UML and MDA.) For more information, check www.omg.org

Operational Effectiveness
A strategy, or lack of strategy that commits a company to constantly trying to improve the effectiveness of its processes. Taken to the extreme it results in hypercompetition. (Compare with Positioning.)

Organization Chart
Traditional way of showing the relationships between departmental and functional units or the reporting relationships between managers within an organization. Organization charts tend to emphasize that each department is independent and to ignore the many relationships that exist when activities in one department interact with activities in other departments.

Organization Diagram
One of the two basic diagrams used in this book. A system diagram that shows either functional units or processes inside the company box and shows how they link to each other and to entities outside the company.

Organization Diagrams
Generic use of term. Diagrams that depict the organizational structure of a company or agency. An organization chart is one kind of organization diagram, but in this book we emphasize systems diagrams that show flow between entities rather than organizational charts, that simply focus hierarchical relationships.

Outsourcing
Occurs when one company hires another company to manage, maintain and run some portion of its business. A catalog company, for example, might outsource the warehousing and delivery of the products it sells to another company. Many companies outsource standard software applications. See Business Process Outsourcing.

Packaged Applications
Generically, any pre-packaged software application. Normally it is used as a way of referring to vendors who sell ERP or CRM application suites that are organized to be used to integrate all of a company’s main software applications. By installing a number of packaged applications a company can assure that major business process applications in finance, accounting, human resources, and manufacturing all communicate smoothly and store data in a common database. The dominant packaged application vendor is SAP. Other well-known ERP vendors are Baan, J.D. Edwards, Oracle and PeopleSoft.

Parallel Process
A process in which two or more sequences of activities are going on simultaneously. If a physical document is being passed from one person to another, the process is necessarily a single sequence. An electronic document in a workflow system, on the other hand, can be sent to several people, simultaneously.

People-CMM
An adaptation of Carnegie Mellon’s CMM model to the analysis of the best practices employeed in the management of a workforce, as organizations move from an immature to a mature use of processes.

Performance
Generically, the work involved in and the results or products that accrue from conducting a process or activity. Human performance describes how people do a task and what results. System performance describes how systems do a task and what results. Organizational performance describes what an organization does and what results.

Performance Framework
See Three Levels of Performance.

PIP (Potential for Improving Performance)
Measure used by Human Performance Technologists. One measures the performance of the best person performing a task and also determines the average performance of the average worker. Large differences suggest that performance can be improved by bring average performance up closer to the best performance. Small differences suggest little potential for improvement. Term is usually associated with Thomas Gilbert. (Some other business process people use the term PIP as an acronym for Performance Improvement Project.)

Private Processes
A process that goes on inside a company. Most companies would rather not tell other companies how their applications accomplish things. On the other hand, certain kinds of coordination require that two or more companies know about each others processes so that they can integrate them more effectively. Some XML business process languages are written to communicate between a company and a public process and others are written to describe, and share, the private processes of multiple companies. Private business processes are sometimes called executable business processes. (Contrast with Public Processes.)

Positioning
A synonym for choosing a strategy. A marketing concept. One should always say that one’s product is the best. If not best, overall, then best for the price, or best for some specific application. One positions a company by creating a strategy that allows the company to make such a claim.

Portal
A Web site that allows the user to find other Web pages or Web sites. As a generalization, a portal is a train station. You go there in order to find out where else you can go and then to go there. Most companies will maintain one portal for their employees, where they can go to get information and to access company services, and another public portal for customers to provide customers with information and the opportunity to buy products or services from the company.

Porter’s Model of Competition
A general model of the environment in which companies operate that suggests what factors strategists should monitor. They key factors are buyers, suppliers, competitors, new companies that might enter the market, and new products or technologies that might replace those on which your organization depends. The model is defined in Michael Porter’s book Competitive Strategy.

Problem Analysis
Six Sigma practitioners often describe problem analysis in terms of three phases: Open, Narrow and Close. During Open, one brainstorms and considers every possible cause of the problem. During Narrow, one reduces the number of potential causes. During Close, one settles on a specific cause to focus on.

Process-IT Matrix
A matrix created by listing processes on the horizontal axis and IT platforms or other architectural elements on the vertical axis. This matrix shows what IT applications, databases and other resources are required to support each process. If one has a clear idea of the value of one’s various processes, then this is an excellent tool for prioritizing IT projects.

Process-Strategy Matrix
A matrix formed by as estimate of the strategic importance of a process on the horizontal axis and an estimate of the process complexity and dynamics on the vertical axis. Assuming that “low” is positioned at the lower right corner of both continua, then processes that fall in the lower-left are of little complexity, don’t change very often and don’t have much strategic importance. They should be automated if possible and given the minimum resources necessary for efficient functioning. Conversely, processes that lie at the upper-right are complex, dynamic and of high strategic importance. These are usually the processes that provide your company with its competitive advantage and should be nurtured accordingly.

Process Architecture
(Business Process Architecture) A process architecture is a written or diagrammatic summary of the value chains and business processes supported by a given organization. A good process architecture shows how value chains and business processes are related to each other and to the strategic goals of the organization. Some companies use the term process architecture to refer to the process diagram for a single process. We refer to that as a process model or process diagram. We often add business or enterprise to process architecture to suggest that it’s a high-level architecture of all of the processes in the organization.

Process Change
A purposely vague term chosen to embrace the complete range of process change methods and techniques, including the alignment of processes and strategies, the creation of a process architecture, the analysis of processes, redesign, improvement, automation, and implementation.

Process Diagram
One of the two basic diagrams emphasized in this book. A diagram that shows departments, function or indivudlas on the vertical axis and uses swimlanes to show which sub-processes or activities are managed by which departments, functions or individuals. The customer of the process always appears on the top swimlane. External processes are listed below the main process. The horizontal axis usually depicts the flow of time from left to right, although informal process diagrams sometimes allow loops which violate a strict time flow. Rectangles with rounded corners represent sub-processes or activities. Arrows represent various types of flow between rectangles. See below

Some developers divide process diagrams into IS process diagrams that show a process as it IS currently performed, COULD process diagrams, that show how a process might be changed, and SHOULD process diagrams that show how a process redesign team ultimately proposes to change a process.

Process Diagrams
Generically, a synonym for workflow diagram or UML activity diagrams. A diagram that shows the flow of information, control or materials from one activity to another. Any sub-process on one process diagram can become a process diagram in its own right of the designers need more details.

Process Fit
The way in which the elements of a business process are uniquely integrated. Companies with good process fit have worked hard to integrate everything around a specific strategic focus. It’s easy for competitors to copy standard processes, but it’s very hard for competitors to duplicate business process with a high degree of fit. A concept associated with Michael Porter.

Process Instance
A process diagram describes a generic sequence of events. An instance describes an actual process which includes data, real actions, and specific decisions. Workflow systems and simulation systems both keep track of the data from the execution of specific process instances in order to determine things like how long the process actually takes, who handled a specific instance or how much it cost. In the case of simulation systems, someone has to supply information about a set of actual instances.

Process Management
Most managers or supervisors are responsible for specific processes or activities. They are responsible for organizing the process or activity and securing the resources need to execute it, and they are responsible for measuring the results of the activity and providing rewards or corrective feedback when necessary. They are also responsible for changing and improving it whenever possible.