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Subject:business process review - methodology and tools From:"Andrea Brundt" <andrea_w_brundt -at- hotmail -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 17 Nov 2003 11:23:56 -0500
Hi folks!
I work for a small software company. In addition to our core product, we
also offer a business process review as a professional service. It's an
informal process right now. The only person who does it is my VP. She
interviews a client or potential client for a few days, takes a whack of
notes, comes back to the office and massages those notes in to a document
that includes flowcharts.
The business process review has two purposes -- it generates revenue, but
also generates interest in our product by making recommendations (wherever
possible) that are biased towards our product.
I've been asked to formalize that process, to make it more sellable as a
professional service, and also to make it a better selling tool for our
software (i.e., to give it a more effective biased towards our product). It
also needs to be something that the VP can more easily delegated to
underlings. Whew.
I have some experience with analyzing workflow with an eye for improving
business processes, some experience with ISO documentation, and some
experience with using UML in the software design process. I also have some
experience writing sales-related documentation -- RFPs and white papers, for
example.
But I'm a bit puzzled about how to proceed here. I'm shying away from trying
to build a methodology -- Rome wasn't build in a day, and neither was
PeopleSoft :). Rather, I'd like to put a couple of tools in my VPs hands
that give her a "language" that she can use. I'm hoping this will help her
formalize the process the next couple of times she does it. (For example,
flowchart templates that includes meaningful icons and connectors instead of
just text boxes and arrows.) I would also like to propose -- somewhat
self-servingly, I admit -- that a good writer be involved in the process, to
make sure the end product is rhetorically strong.
This company has often fallen in to the trap of assuming that a good
template leads necessarily to good content. Have you ever run in to that
problem? How did you manage it? Also, can anyone point me to any
resources -- templates and tools they have used in writing business process
reviews and/or sales tools at tech companies? What words of wisdom can you
offer before I head down this road?
Thanks for lending me your ears and brains,
Andrea
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