Business Process Management: Profiting From Process

Understanding the Existing Process

The purpose of the Understand phase is to gain a sufficient understanding of the current situation so that a baseline for change can be established. In this phase, an organization documents and validates its current reality and defines its improvement priorities. It isn’t the purpose of this phase to deliver detailed perfect knowledge—just enough to be confident to move into solution creation.

Results

During the Understand phase, an organization seeks to deliver a common understanding of what the existing process actually does so that the right improvements can be made and perceptions managed. It measures actual performance levels and documents what works well and not so well today. Based on this, it determines ...