Benefits of Rapid Process Discovery

• Provide a documented way to capture tasks and exceptions without having to attend a workshop. See example of activity details to see the type of information that can be pulled without having to schedule another group workshop
• Identify all activities within a process if there is no taxonomy or matrix
• Show interfaces with other processes
• Help to clarify roles and responsibilities of individual activities that don’t have a RACI matrix
• Help to identify areas of the process that can be improved
• Facilitate implementation planning and management of change
• Can be shared with all users in the platform including those who are non-stakeholders but have process knowledge
• Ability to re-use the same form for different process names
• Captures details that can be saved as users stories for process improvement
• Provides procedure details from subject matter experts that can be saved in work instruction modeling

Getting Started with Rapid Process Discovery

Create a New Process Discovery project

The first step in Rapid Process Discovery is for the process analyst to complete a short form to identify the name and hierarchy of the process being surveyed.  Because the same survey form can be used for several process discovery projects at once, setting these configurations will allow subject matter experts from different organizations or business areas to submit responses concurrently while the process analyst can take an aggregate view of the submission results.

Begin by logging into BusinessOptix, click Forms from the top menu.  Select Rapid Process Discovery Configuration form from the list of new forms.

Activity Discovery Survey Form

The Activity Discovery form for use in Rapid Process Discovery is ready to use without additional configuration needed.  To begin sharing the form with stakeholder or subject matter experts, click on the Quick View icon from the Activity Discovery form in the New Forms menu.  Then click to share the form url via email.  Users will then receive an email notification with the form output URL link.

How to Edit an Activity Discovery form: BusinessOptix Author

The Activity Discovery form can be customized to capture additional details, change the language or terms used in the survey and update the form with additional assignment upon submission.  On the New Forms page, select Activity Discovery.

To edit the Activity Discovery Form, click Actions then select Edit this model.

As the author the goal of the form is to make the form as clear and concise as possible to get the best user responses. Use the edit function to make any helpful changes.

Editing labels that appear on the form can be done by clicking on the form component and change the label name to make it more concise for the user.

The Rapid Process Discovery Configuration form, the Activity Discovery survey form, and the Rapid Process Discovery Dashboard are pre-configured to work harmoniously within each BusinessOptix library.  No additional configuration is needed to begin using the Rapid Process Discovery solution.  Should authors need to add configuration to the form it is best to keep it customizing the data fields for gather data, assignment functions of form submissions or updating the governance by selecting the model level details within author design. 

Any updates to form submission folder or other customizations made to the activity discovery form may result in the dashboard needing updated configuration also.  Authors and library administrators should test the updates before sending and sharing the surveys.

The form is now ready to be sent out to BusinessOptix users for responses. User can be any license type within the platform.  On the completed Activity Discovery Form click Actions, then Share this model, then send via email to the relevant users.

How to Fill Out the Activity Discovery Form: BusinessOptix User

To begin, log into a BusinessOptix library and click to access the Forms screen.  On the New Forms page, select Activity Discovery.

Fill in Activity Details. (Process and Activity name should be consistent with nomenclature of organization).

Fill in the description (add detail as to why this was not captured during the process).

If this is the first activity in the process, users can skip to 'Roles and Responsibilities.'  If this is not the first step in the process flow sequence, users can select the the step this activity needs to follow by selecting the previous step from the 'Immediately Follow' list. To do this, click the 'Immediately Follows' section to open a pop-up window and list of previously captured activities.  Select the activity from the list that this current activity would follow from.  This will help format the responses in activity step order.

Add Roles, Responsibilities and Systems needed for each activity documented.  This will capture any systems used in the process and help layout the swimlanes of responsibility for the process flow diagram.

Add Activity performance time (although not a required field, it is important to capture the time to complete these activities as they will tie to accurate work split).

The 'Review' section is for analysts to manage the submitted forms.  If the activity described is a duplicate of previously submitted forms, it can be marked as a duplicate using the 'Duplicate of' section.  A status can also be assigned to the form submissions.

Click Submit when finished completing an Activity Discovery form.

After each submission, users are prompted to complete another activity discovery form to continue documenting the process.  If this is the final step of the process, users can simply close their browser or return to the home screen of the library.

Rapid Process Discovery Dashboard

All form surveys responses that have been submitted will appear in the Activity Discovery form submission folder within the library. BusinessOptix also provides a Rapid Process Discovery dashboard for reviewing the results including the draft process flow based on the activities identified.

How to Review the Responses to the Activity Discovery Form: Business Analyst

To view the responses to each Rapid Process Discovery survey, go to the BusinessOptix Home Page and select Insights. Then select the Rapid Process Discovery

The Surveys page displays an overview of all Rapid Process Discovery campaigns that have been captured in BusinessOptix library.  Filtering by Survey Manager, Status or Process levels can be used to narrow the focus of results in the dashboard.  

Click the Process name in the Survey Overview table to drilldown to the response details specific to each process Rapid Process Discovery captured within the library.  Viewing individual responses to the form survey can be accomplished by selecting Activity name from the Activity Summary chart on the right of the Process dashboard page.  Responses will be presented in the form submission as they were completed.  Analysts can also select the activity within the flow chart on the left to display the form response for each activity.

Within the 'Review' section on each form, analysts can manage the submitted forms.  Duplicate responses to one of the process activities can be managed by clicking ‘Duplicate Of' and selecting which forms to mark as duplicate from the details pop-up window.  Analysts can also add status to each form submission for further project governance.

BusinessOptix uses survey responses to create a draft process diagram.  Form survey responses can be reviewed and edited from the discovery diagram by selecting Process Overview from the drop-down menu.  Within the diagram, authors can click on individual process steps to display the survey response window.

To save this as a process model in BusinessOptix, select 'Save as Process' button in the upper left corner of the flow diagram view.  The activity discovery responses will now be converted to activity components laid out sequentially in swim lanes within a BPMN flow map using the author design stencil.  From the BusinessOptix design studio, any necessary additions or edits can be made manually onto the full diagram.

The results of using Rapid Process Discovery can be a full Process Diagram, RACI and Taxonomy per process list; all of these items will help to ensure that not just the process itself, but all exceptions, bottlenecks and activities are documented and reviewed.

For a short video on Rapid Process Discovery please visit our YouTube channel