Practical Process Automation

Chapter 11. Process Visibility

This chapter:

• Doubles down on the value of process visibility

• Explains how to achieve process visibility, both when using a workflow engine and in heterogeneous environments

• Shows typical metrics and reports that you might want to set up

The Value of Process Visibility

Visibility actually influences process performance on two dimensions:

• (Continuous) process improvement

• Process operation

Process improvement means making the process better. “Better” can mean many things; for example, making it cheaper to operate, reducing cycle times, or allowing for a bigger scale, meaning more instances can be processed in the same amount of time. Sometimes it also means supporting business models that were not possible before. Process visibility is an essential tool for these improvements because it makes it possible to identify bottlenecks in existing processes as well as facilitating discussions of improvement alternatives.

Process operation is about “keeping the lights on.” This involves business-oriented operations roles, who are interested in SLAs or instances that are stuck because of business problems. It also involves more technical operations roles who care about incidents with technical causes, for example because required systems are down or input data is corrupt.

Note

In most companies, operations roles cannot be clearly marked as business or technical; it is much more a continuum of being more business or more technical. That’s why I ...