Defining Processes Before Selecting Tools: A Critical Step In Project Management

Defining Key Processes Before Tool Selection

Clearly outlining key business processes is an essential first step before selecting any tools to support those processes. Taking the time to map processes, analyze requirements, and document needs helps prevent organizations from purchasing tools misaligned with workflows and objectives.

Documenting processes involves understanding key inputs, outputs, activities, roles, and goals. This information ensures tools can perform necessary functions instead of driving processes based on tool limitations.

Importance of Process Definition

Well-defined processes provide several benefits for an organization before investing in tools:

• Minimizes tool and process misalignments from lack of requirements
• Ensures tools address true organizational needs
• Prevents overspending on unused tool features
• Reduces confusion by documenting process roles and activities
• Allows easier identification of process bottlenecks
• Enables process optimization before digitization

Documenting processes is essential for understanding if and where tools can provide real efficiencies. It also reduces wastedspend from adopting tools lacking critical functions while missing high-value automation opportunities from poor analysis.

Common Mistakes in Process Selection

Organizations frequently commit key errors when selecting tools without clear process guidelines in place:

• No process documentation – Failure to map processes first can lead to mismanaged expectations around tool capabilities and massive inefficiencies attempting automation without disciplined workflows.
• Lack of requirements – No clear process requirements makes it nearly impossible to assess if a tool properly meets needs or has extraneous functionality.
• Overreliance on vendor guidance – Allowing vendors to drive process and tool decisions frequently ends with solutions catering more to vendor limitations than organizational needs.
• No optimization first – Attempting to digitize broken, inefficient processes amplifies existing issues and reduces ROI from new tools.
• No integration planning – Poor integration planning around required systems, data flows, and user interfaces creates massive inefficiencies between processes and tools.

These common mistakes result in outsized integration costs, low user adoption, unnecessary spending, and unmet objectives. A process-first approach helps avoid these pitfalls.

Crafting a Process-Focused Tool Strategy

An effective tool strategy starts with documenting key elements of critical business processes. This information then guides tool selection criteria versus allowing vendor capabilities drive decisions. Key activities for a process-focused strategy include:

1. Map current state processes – Detail all inputs, outputs, steps, decision points, and roles per process before considering technology improvements.
2. Define future state objectives – Outline measurable goals required from technology investments tied directly to process improvements.
3. Highlight constraints – Determine limitations around budgets, resources, timelines, and systems integrations to guide decision tradeoffs.
4. Estimate efficiency opportunities – Quantify expected process improvements from increased digitization to build a business case and tool criteria.
5. Document detailed requirements – Catalog all functional and technical process requirements needed from potential tools down to user interface behaviors.
6. Force tool conformity – Evaluate tools strictly against process requirements instead of allowing vendor capabilities to dictate decisions.

Undertaking these critical planning activities first prevents organizations from purchasing overpriced, misaligned tools failing to meet business objectives. The best tools seamlessly support efficient and standardized processes versus dictating how processes need adjustment to fit software limitations.

Process Modeling Methodologies

Effective process modeling helps organizations inventory, map, and optimize workflows critical for tool alignment. Some popular process modeling techniques include:

Flowcharts

Flowcharts visualize a sequence of process steps with supporting data flows. Simple flowchart symbols representing tasks, workflow direction, inputs/outputs, and decisions offer an intuitive way to document process mechanics.

Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN)

BPMN provides a standard modeling technique capturing process sequences, participants, dependencies and data flows. Intuitive swim lane diagrams clearly depict complex workflows and responsibilities across an organization.

Process Mapping

Manual process mapping workshops gather subject matter experts together to inventory all activities, decisions, pain points and opportunities within a defined workflow. Highlighting processes via intake forms, whiteboarding sessions or value stream mapping builds alignment on improvement priorities.

Use Cases

Use cases detail required functionality from a user perspective explaining how systems should perform for specific processes. Outlining steps to achieve goals, exceptions, and edge case behaviors ensures tools address all critical business needs around particular workflows.

Leveraging consistent notation standards, stakeholder input, and data-driven evaluations of current-state operations offers an objective process baseline guiding technology capability requirements.

Translating Processes to Requirements

With robust process documentation in place, organizations can translate findings into functional tool requirements forvendor evaluations. Key activities in this analysis phase include:

1. Inventory detailed steps – Break processes down into granular workflows while also keeping perspective on higher-level sequences end users need to support.
2. Map system interactions – Note all upstream and downstream data and application dependencies for each process.
3. Outline conditional logic – Document business rules, exceptions, and edge case handling required to account for process variations.
4. Define user interactions – Detail exact screens, inputs, alerts, and user interface behaviors needed for role-based process execution.
5. Highlight decision triggers – Call out process decision points, transparency needs, and collaborative interactions necessary between teams.
6. Establish reporting requirements – Specify essential process performance reports, analytics, and dashboards to measure operational metrics.

This requirements development does not consider any particular technology constraints. Instead, it focuses strictly on what tool capabilities must support day-to-day process execution for maximum efficiency gains.

Evaluating Tools Against Process Requirements

With clearly defined requirements in place, organizations can objectively evaluate tools on ability to support standardized workflows rather than adjusting processes to software restrictions. Key activities in this evaluation process involve:

1. Build scorecards – Create matrices evaluating tool capabilities against each documented process requirement for quick analytical comparisons.
2. Classify requirements – Denote which capabilities are mandatory versus optional so tradeoff decisions consider priority needs first.
3. Quantify gaps – Identify tool shortcomings requiring workaround steps or alternates processes to execute required activities.
4. Assess overages – Determine where tools may have more functionality than processes can leverage so organizations do not overpay for unused capabilities.
5. Estimate customizations – For gaps requiring software enhancements, provide development estimates to quantify the true cost of adaptations needed.

This fact-based approach weighing tools against process requirements protects organizations from adopting point solutions failing to support end-to-end workflows. Prioritizing must-have capabilities also helps target tools with the best functional alignments.

Example Process Evaluations

Procure-to-Pay

Procure-to-pay processes manage the full lifecycle of purchasing goods and services. Standardized workflows optimize stakeholder communications for efficient transactions and payment processing. Evaluating tools against requirements in this scenario includes:

• Validating supplier integration and master data sharing capabilities
• Testing purchase order creation, collaboration, approvals and change order features
• Ensuring support for digital invoice receipt/exceptions and flexible account coding
• Checking dashboard content and drill-down for spend analysis
• Confirming seamless connections to accounts payable systems

Conducting scoping workshops with all commercial roles ensures tools meet direct procurement, accounts payable, and supplier management needs consistently across the enterprise.

Production Planning

High-volume manufacturing depends on production planning and scheduling tools fitting constraints around equipment, materials, capacity, lead times and demand signals. Evaluations here should cover:

• Ability to build multi-level bills of material (BOMs) and formulas
• Shop floor integration capabilities and manufacturing data model support
• Inventory integration and optimization logic based on priorities
• Visual drag-and-drop scheduling integrated with order management
• Built-in analytics on utilization, substitutions, changes, contingencies etc.

Holistic evaluations spanning engineering, manufacturing, distribution and sales give the best assessment of how well tools support integrated supply chain processes.

Avoiding Feature-First Tool Selections

Enterprise technology selections often gravitate toward tool features versus aligned and optimized processes, driving unnecessary complexity and costs. Warning signs of a feature-first approach include:

• No formal process documentation preceding vendor reviews
• Overemphasis on technical capabilities over functional requirements traceability
• Discussions dominated by vendor presentations rather than process gap resolution
• Debates focused on tool limitations instead of user workflow constraints
• Prototypes demonstrating theoretical use cases rather than real operational scenarios

Leading process modeling and requirements definition prevents organizations falling into these common traps. The best technology solutions evolve from organizations first quantifying exactly how tools need fit defined ways of working rather than the opposite.

Sustaining Process Integrity Over Time

Even with proper upfront process analysis, organizations risk tools gradually dictating workflows instead of optimizing evolving business needs. Maintaining process integrity requires:

• Enforcing strong change management governance
• Committing resources to sustain documentation and training
• Conducting periodic process reviews and compliance reporting
• Checking tool adoption metrics against defined requirements
• Making process optimization an organizational competency

Processes enabling technology provide the strongest lasting impacts. Insisting tools conform to Business needs instead of the opposite sustains value over the full technology lifecycle.