Practical BPM: User Roles in BPM Process Development

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By Rashid N. Khan

Business processes are valuable assets of an organization, like buildings and machinery. This includes the various roles involved in the development of processes, since the development tools must cater to the skills and needs of these roles.

A variety of individuals with different skill sets and needs play various roles in the development of business processes. In some organizations and situations, more than one individual may share a role, while in others one individual may perform more than one role. These roles are:

1. Managers and other business process owners: These individuals own the business process and, therefore, are responsible for the overall design and specifications that dictate the behavior of the process. These include performance requirements that the automated process is expected to achieve.
2. Analysts: These individuals work with the process owners to ensure the right resources are available to meet process requirement and performance expectations. Their role is also to ensure that the design of the process is optimized to achieve the performance requirements within the resource constraints of the organization.
3. Project managers: These individuals supervise the development of the processes, assign tasks and make sure that the tasks are performed in the proper sequence.
4. IT designers: These individuals are responsible for the design of automated processes by using design tools provided by the business process management (BPM) system, without getting involved in programming.
5. Code developers: These individuals develop programs and scripts that are used in conjunction with the BPM system to extend its functionality, provide custom functionality and develop programmatic interfaces to third-party applications that do not have standardized interfaces.
6. Database developers: These individuals work with the organization’s databases to create new tables, views, stored procedures and other components that may be needed for business process automation.
7. User interface developers: These individuals develop electronic forms, Web pages and graphics that are used by the individuals who participate in business processes.
8. Technical writers: These individuals develop the technical documentation for processes and the online help files for end users.
9. Testers: These individuals are responsible for testing the automated business process and its components.

Summary

Some solutions may offer proprietary standalone or third-party tools for each role that is not integrated with each other. Others provide an integrated design environment where individuals who play these roles can work together in a collaborative environment. A BPM development solution has to provide tools and capabilities for all these roles.

Useful Links

This article is an excerpt from Rashid Khan's Business Process Management: A Practical Guide. Order your copy here:
http://www.bpmenterprise.com/yDQ

About the Author:

Rashid N. Khan is the founder and Chief Technical and Strategy Officer of Ultimus Inc., a pioneer in business process management and workflow automation. Prior to establishing Ultimus, founded Sintech Inc., a leader in advanced software for mechanical testing. Rashid sold Sintech to MTS Systems in 1989, where he worked for a five years as a vice president and general manager. During this period he took the company through ISO 9000 certification. This experience made him aware of the need for business process management and workflow automation. Rashid obtained two undergraduate degrees from MIT in computer science and political science. Khan is the author of Business Process Management: A Practical Guide, has published numerous articles and spoken at a number of events. Contact Rashid N. Khan at info (at) ultimus.com or visit http://www.ultimus.com.

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