The importance of As-is analysis

Why do an “As-is” analysis?  Before we answer that question, let’s take a broader look at Business Process analysis in general.  When we start process analysis, we start by asking the Stakeholders: what do you want to get out of this project?  This helps to form a vision statement, which at its heart aligns itself with: save time, use fewer resources, or save money.

We also wish to gauge the client's expectations.  Finally we wish to implement a strategy designed to meet those expectations as best we can.  To ensure we meet those expectations we need to be able to prove it in some way.

It’s here where the “As-is” analysis starts to become important to the overall success of our project.   At the same time, it is here that we can start to get into a little trouble.   Depending on the point of view of the Project Manager or the Client, they can often see the “As-is” analysis as just overhead; that this step in the overall project success is superfluous and therefore not required. 

The problem

Depending on whom you ask, you'll get some very different opinions on what is important to the success of a Business Process project.  Each project has its challenges with: budgets that match my weekly coffee expenses; to timelines that made you realise how precious a minute can be.  In these types of project challenges we're always looking for ways to deliver quicker.  The faster we can work towards the end goal the closer we'll be to the budget or timeline.

The “As-is” process is oft times raised as an overhead.  The argument against completing an “As-is” analysis goes something along the lines of: 

• We're here to improve the process, not deliver the existing process; 
• The documentation produced in the “As-is” doesn’t serve any purpose and no-one will end up reading it;
• Why spend all this time worrying about how they currently do things when we can just dive in to how they should do things? or 
• That it simply inhibits the creative process.

If you have ever faced this situation or would struggle to justify the “As-is” process being included in the project delivery, hopefully we’ll be able to address some of these key concerns and ensure that we all can understand why “As-is” analysis is important to the success of the project.

Consequences of avoiding the “As-is”

What are some of the consequences of skipping this step in the delivery?

Diving straight into creating the “perfect world” scenario has its short-term rewards. The project has saved time in the delivery cycle. That's got to be worth something.

However, old habits die hard. Not mine, but the people within the business. When we introduce a new process without fully understanding the old process, we lose some of the justifications to why the old process existed. Whilst not all reasons for existing processes are well thought out, they do give us an insight as to the behaviour of the people and systems involved.

When confronted with a scenario that the new process perhaps doesn’t cater for, or handle well, the people involved will need to resort to their own devices. They'll look to how they used to handle this scenario previously and fall back on old habits to get things done. All of a sudden our shiny new process has a flaw. Trust in the new process gets a little shaky. The adoption of the new process soon becomes an issue.

As a consultant, I get sent to analyse processes in many different industries, from finance to mining, from local council to federal government. Getting to know the terminology within each industry and their thought process is important. Getting to know the constraints and boundaries of what each industry can and cannot do is also an important part of the "As-is" process. It helps me get to know them.

Moreover, it helps me understand why the process exists the way it does. If there is a clear reason for why a step in the process exists then I can make an informed decision of the validity of that step and whether this needs to be addressed in the new process. If no one knows why a process or a step in the process exists, then we need to tread lightly. We need to investigate this step further to make sure we are not missing something important.

Measuring success

If I have a car, and I came to you, the master mechanic and said, I want you to improve my car.  I want it to use less petrol per 100km. 

Would you just start by giving me a magazine and circle all the top ten cars for fuel efficiency and get me to buy a new one.

Or would you start by asking what type of car I had?  Why I chose that car?  How old that car is?  How fast I drive that car?  How far I drive it?  Is it an automatic or manual?  How often I accelerate?  If it's a manual, how many rpm do I let it get to before I change gears?

If we go the path of the magazine, and reengineer the process, we might not discover that they just bought a brand new car last month.  That the car they bought might already be the most petrol efficient car on the market.  So our great idea is now to sell the month old car at a loss and buy the same car again… but maybe with a different colour.

The improvement they required might be a habitual one.  They may just need to slow down, or accelerate less, or use petrol with higher octane.

All that may need changing is the driver’s bad habits.  It could be that in the end, that is all the process may need.  It might be that the process is sound but that the people within the process need to be (re-)trained to ensure more efficiency in the way they work.

We won't know until we see what the "As-is" process is first.  We can measure how much petrol is used per 100km.  We can then come up with a process improvement or change that proves that we are beating that number.  We now have set the expectation.  Our job now is to meet that expectation.

Get to know the beast

Before working out a plan for a "To-be" process, I need to know the "As-is".  Not because I like living in the past.  Not because I want to use this as the basis for my "To-be".  Not because someone said I have to, and therefore I should.

What I want to get out of the "As-is" process are the following:

• Where are the current bottlenecks?
• What are the current process dependencies - which processes are dependent on it; and which processes does it depend on?
• Who are my direct actors - people that directly affect this process; and who are my indirect actors - people that don't directly affect this process but have some stake or interest in it;
• Depending on what I've been asked to improve or automate, what are the metrics I can get from this process; how much money is spent on one process, and at each step; how long does the process take overall, and at each step; how many resources are involved in one process, and at each step;
• Which systems are involved with this process - are there any legacy systems; are there any external entities or people outside the organisation, such as other government agencies or something as simple as PayPal;
• And how do people within this process like to work.  What are their personal habits?  How comfortable are they within the process and how receptive are they to changes. 

Processes often get convoluted over time.  The reasons can be varied, from:

• Some legal change that got forced into an already flawed process;
• Changing of personnel or management; or 
• System dependencies that enforced process change.

Understanding how the process got flawed is an important step in understanding the business and the people within the business.  Once I know this information, I can start making informed decisions on what the “To-be” process will look like.

 Producing useful documentation

Part of the reason for the “As-is” step being seen as overhead is in the type of outputs that are created as a result, and how long it takes to produce those outputs.

How much time should this part of the analysis take to collect and document?  And what type of documents should be produced.

For me, analysis should take up to 15% of the overall project time.  So if you have 30 days to deliver, you should probably stop reading this blog and start working on your As-is process analysis.  If you have 12 months, then a month and a half should be reasonable (doesn't have to be spent in one go mind you!).

What type of documents should be delivered is an interesting question. 

Most people end up producing some type of Flow Chart with swim lanes in a Visio diagram, along with an accompanying document describing the diagram.

 

I like to go the extra mile, even if it takes a little longer to travel.  What I like to do is to Storyboard the process.  This usually includes the metrics that define it, as well as the people and systems that interact with it.  I also like to highlight areas where we can see obvious improvements and areas that we can't touch due to some dependency.  This fits nicely into a PowerPoint deck – and you can add more descriptions within the notes.  Hey, if you have a workflow tool that you can mock something up with, that’d be great too.

This gives a more visually engaging description of the process that anyone can follow and understand.

As an aside, on a number of occasions this type of documentation has led to useful feedback as to why certain steps within the process exist, which weren’t captured in the initial analysis. Sometimes this leads to nothing much, but every now and then it can be quite useful.

Target audiences for this type of analysis can be quite varied.  For me, this leads to a variety of documents as part of my deliverables:

• Functional documents – describing the systems involved, dependencies of the process and actors involved.
• Flow charts for the internal team - to help with the project plan and tasks;
• PowerPoint Story boards for the stakeholders within the process - to visually describe how they work in the hope it inspires further dialogue down the line on things I may have missed or misunderstood.

It’s in the Story Board that I wish to get the most out of.  It is here where the true value of the analysis can be seen.  The idea of trying to engage the people involved in the process to introduce any findings that I may have overlooked.  If I’ve done a good enough job with this document, I can feel comfortable that I know all I need to know heading into my “To-be” design.

Making a change

If we skip the "As-is" analysis, we make it all the more difficult to create a Change Management strategy.  If we don't know what we are taking away from the people involved in the process, it makes it more difficult to highlight how we are making the process better/cheaper/faster. 

We can't tell the people involved how this will impact them directly and indirectly.  Depending on the size of the process and the people involved, this can be quite a critical step in the adoption of the process.  Whilst it's simple enough to say: we're implementing this, so they must use it.  It is not always the case. 

If we implement it, and enough people resist it, then chances are it will be abandoned.  People will either go back to the way it was, or find a way to work-around this shiny new system to suit their needs better and then we’re back where we started. 

The project may initially be seen as a success, and us, as consultants, may walk away smiling, but if our ultimate goal was to ensure client satisfaction, and hopefully repeat work, we need to make sure that the process we’ve implemented sticks.  That it has a certain longevity within the organisation.  A strong Change Management plan can help with this.  And a strong Change Management plan comes from understanding what has changed and to whom.  And this requires an “As-is” analysis.

Dramatic conclusion

By the end of the project, if you've successfully completed an As-is analysis you should be able to:

• Compare your measurements between the old process (As-is) and current process (To-be);
• Bringing the people involved in the process on-board as you move from current to new;
• Get to know the industry, the business and the people within the business;
• Make a plan to transition people from the old process (As-is) to the new process (To-be).

When we start a project, we start by asking the Stakeholders, what do you want to get out of this project?

At the end of the project, we want to show the Stakeholders that we listened to what they wanted, and we delivered it.  This is what you had.  This is what you've got.  We can show the reasons why the new process is an improvement on the old.  We can show them how the people on the ground will adopt and use the new process.  They're happy, we're happy and hopefully we’ll be back to help them adapt to the ever-changing environment in the future.

Story Boarding the Business Process

Example of a Story Board

How to highlight, within an As-is presentation, areas to improve a process ready for a To-be process design

If you didn't read my previous post, have a look at: Communicating a business process

The idea behind the Story Board is to quickly introduce all the teams or roles involved in the process we are trying to define and later improve. We want the document to be something that requires little upfront introductions and allows people to quickly get a feel as to what we are trying to do.

As we introduce new slides to the process, we can colour code the images with a Green, Red or Yellow.
The boarders of Red, Green and Yellow describe slides that we have highlighted as: Green = Understood; Yellow = Need clarification; Red = Need more details.
In this example of a very simple On Boarding Process we can quickly show someone - be it Stakeholder, Manager, End-User, person walking in off the street - the process of on boarding a new person, and they should be able to follow it and understand the current process without much introduction to what they are seeing.
We can then begin the next phase of our process improvement steps by designing a To-be process once we have clarified the parts within the existing process that we don't quite understand in full.
The idea behind doing this is quite simple. We wish the As-is process to elicit further conversation amongst the people involved in the process. We want them to highlight where we have misunderstood the importance of something. Or where we have missed a vital step in the process. We also want the business to see for themselves where they are being inefficient and why we wish to improve their current process.

In the next post I'll talk about the importance of the As-is process. This is something that oft-times is misunderstood. The step of describing how they work today is vital in understanding how we can best change the behaviours of the people involved in the process.
Once we have properly defined the As-is Process, we'll want to Story Board the To-be process for similar reasons. To elicit further discussion amongst our business users to ensure that we capture all the relevant events and to ensure we cater for the majority of their business process requirements. We want as much involvement from our business users in modelling the T-be process so as to increase the likelihood of a smooth adoption to the new process.
Swim lanes and Flow Chart diagrams in Visio are good, even great. I would still be drawing those up for more detail. But their target audience is restricted to those that understand them and are often ignored by business users who have better things to do with their time. Story Boards tend to get more eyeballs watch over them and, in the end, that is what we are looking for.