Effective Software Project Management

What Is a Business Process Improvement Project?

The continuous improvement of business processes should be a high priority for every contemporary organization. Every time a process is executed there is a wealth of data and information that is produced as a by-product. This data and information has great value in helping the process managers identify and isolate areas where improvement can be made. A business process improvement (BPI) project uses that data and information as input to programs designed to improve the process under consideration. This is represented graphically in Figure K-2.

Figure K-2. A business process improvement project

The goal of a BPI project is to eliminate or at least reduce the effect resulting from one or more process activities that are preventing the process from performing up to its potential.

Figure K-2 shows that a backlog exists at a process activity. From the diagram you might conclude that the backlog is the result of two upstream process activities both delivering output to the single process activity and that process activity is not staffed to handle the volume. What seems like a simple solution, namely, add staff, might solve the backlog problem at that process activity but create another backlog at the following step. The backlog is just transferred, and the efficiency of the total process is not changed at all. This illustrates a common ...