L'ouvrage “OCEB 2 Certification Guide, 2nd ed., Business Process Management - Fundamental Level”
est l'outil incontournable pour préparer l'examen sans pour autant qu'il soit suffisant*.
Principes de base du management « métier » (“Business goals, objectives” - 8%)
Nombre de notions de base comme marketing, management, fonction d'entreprise, stratégie (dévelopement…), types de coût, seuil de rentabilité, chaîne de valeur…
doivent être connues et assimilées.
Principes de base des processus « métier » (“Business process concepts and fundamentals” - 11%)
Les attributs d'un processus « métier » (topologie, possesseur, complexité liée à ses branches…),
l'analyse des processus « métier » (BPA) dont découverte, documentation, construction de l'existant (
“as-is“ → « tel quel ») ou de zéro (“to-be“ → « à devenir »), les méthodes de travail
en équipes (structurée ou non, “top-down“ ou “bottom-up“, centralisée ou non) ainsi que le degré de modélisation
(descriptif, analytique ou exécutable) sont les éléments du chapitre.
Principes de base du management des processus « métier » (“Business process management concepts and fundamentals” - 10%)
La qualité des produits et des services, la gestion de la qualité totale (TQM) et l'approche
de réingénierie des processus « métier » (BPR) à l'origine de la discipline
du management des processus « métier », l'idée d'« organisation centrée processus » rendue possible par le numérique et
obligatoire par l'évolution de l'économie (client = dictateur, chaîne de valeur à construire hors des murs de l'entreprise…)
avec ses tenants et aboutissants (visions de F. Chang et D. Madison) sont les éléments du chapitre.
Chapitres étudiés pour l'examen, suite
Apprentissage de la norme Business Motivation Model (BMM) de l'OMG (“Business motivation modeling” - 16%)
La norme BMM (exempte de notation) est adossée à un métamodèle UML simple et clair. Les concepts, leur sens profond, et interrelations entre les concepts (vision, mission,
résultat désiré, action en cours…) du métamodèle
doivent être maîtrisés. L'articulation avec BPMN est un autre élément de connaissance à acquérir.
Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) en tant que tel (“Business process modeling concepts” - 24%) et
(“Business process modeling skills” - 16%)
Ce chapitre d'examen porte sur BPMN, pour l'essentiel sur son exécution ainsi que les règles de construction de modèles qui les rendent
« corrects » voire « invalides » si le langage est mal utilisé. 90% des éléments de notation de BPMN doivent être
connus et maîtrisés.
Cadres d'application (“Process quality, governance, and metrics frameworks” - 15%)
Les cadres de normalisation des processus (APQC PCF, SCOR et VRM), les méthodologies de gestion de la qualité (ISO 9001, BPMM, Six Sigma et TPS),
les cadres d'application légaux (COBIT et SOX) ainsi que les approches de management (Balanced ScoreCards or BSCs) avec les éléments clefs qui les caractérisent et discriminent
de leurs compétiteurs sont étudiés dans ce chapitre.
Bien se préparer à l'examen…
Outre la revue des 6 chapitres préalablement évoqués dont un focus évident sur BPMN,
cette formation propose 6 tests « thématiques » (micro-examens « blanc »), chacun dédié à un des 6 items étudiés.
Ils sont
constitués de questions qui peuvent être réellement posées à l'examen officiel. A cela s'ajoutent 5 tests
chronométrés mélangeant les sujets des 6 items. Ce sont aussi parfois des questions réelles de l'examen officiel.
L'examen exige a minima 62 réponses exactes parmi 90 posées pour une durée de
90 min. (et une extension de 30 min. pour les non-native English speakers).
Agenda
Etude des chapitres 1 à 6 à l'exception du chapitre 5 sur BPMN (40%)
Test propre à chaque chapitre extrait de l'ouvrage “OCEB 2 Certification Guide, 2nd ed., Business Process Management - Fundamental Level”
Etude du chapitre 5 sur BPMN (40%)
Apprentissage d'environ 90% de BPMNavec exercices pour bien se familiariser avec le langage
Test thématique BPMN
Trucs et astuces pour bien réussir…
5 tests courts en fonction du temps restant mélangeant tous les chapitres !
Process quality, governance, and metrics frameworks (15%)
Business goals, objectives (8%)
Concepts of business administration, marketing, and project management
Business (as usual)
Business core functions: finance (“money is available”), marketing (e.g., product innovation), accounting, operations, sales
with support functions (information systems, human resources, legal dep. and facility management)
Functions ≠ dep.; a dep. may include several functions
Manager organizes, plans, supports, defines, and assesses the work of others;
Skills: goal setting, planning, decision making, delegation, support, communication, and controlling
Business administration: control and organization of business activities
Business strategy: taken direction to an end, may change, framework for decisions, target goals;
Strategy breaks down into goals (and later into objectives as something quantified) from market structure study
(e.g., market segments ⤳ regional/national/international, income classes, niches…)
Marketing
Marketing is enterprise alignment with the market, marketing as a process: generate, offer and exchange goods
Marketing may be reactive versus proactive
Market analysis
STEP (PEST): Sociological/demographic factors (e.g., education), Technological (e.g., product lifecycle), Economic (e.g., taxation), and Political (e.g., trade barrier)
According to the book “MBA in a day”: which definition describes the marketing process?
Marketing is a process which ensures that brochures and the like are being manufactured in high quality and which arranges the stand at a trade fair
Marketing is a synonym for distribution. Therefore, its goal is to bring new products and services to the market and sell them with the highest price
Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering, and exchanging products of value with others
Marketing is the systematization of generating leads (by taking out adverts on different media channels), evaluating each lead and then routing them to the sales department
What is the main goal of the business function “Finance”?
To manage financial instruments in order to keep the competitors breathless
To ensure that the company has enough money it needs to keep the business running
To be informed where the money comes from and where it goes to
To decide on expenses, be responsible for mismanagement and collect bonuses
Business process concepts and fundamentals (11%)
Basic knowledge of business processes
Business process, some definitions
Business process features: steps, actions… inter- (instead of intra-) organizational units, having targets/goals, cooperation and/or decision-making, value creation for “customer” (being internal or external)
G. Rummler & A. Brache: benefit for the customer (primary) versus “support”
M. Ould: coherent set of (collaborating) activities to achieve a goal (by opposition to random activities)
H. Smith & P. Fingar: complex, distributed, and long-running
Worklow Management Coalition (WMC): set of linked procedures/activities that collectively realize a business objective or policy goal
Discriminating features of business processes
Complexity comes from branches (and not from “steps”)
Flexibility: ability for change = changeability
Business process = asset ⤳ process-oriented organization, people ≠ roles, steps adhere to business rules (e.g., policies, standards, regulations)
Topology: horizontal versus vertical (process hierarchy with decomposition ⤳ idea of subprocess), owner, goal(s) ⤳ targeted state(s), stakeholders (bring data), customer (beneficiary)
Knowledge is distributed, even implicit ⤳ factual versus target processes (discovering/documenting/analyzing factual processes for (re)designing target ones)
L. Verner Business Process Analysis (BPA): factual processes' length, deadlock, merge multiple dep.-based processes into one, new requirements on IT
BPA roles: sponsor, Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and analysts
Discovery modes (not exclusive ⤳ orthogonal modes: start top-down and supplement with bottom-up): Centralized (SMEs in workshops) versus Distributed (analyst resolves inconsistencies from individuals), Top-down (e.g., “car rental” and enter into details…) versus Bottom-up (trivial details, process hierarchy reconstruction), Structured (predefined questions to SMEs) versus Free form
Business Process Analysis (BPA) cont'd
Abstraction, modeling
Abstraction is the underlying activity of modeling in the sense that it is the art
of describing a system in concomitantly focusing on some system's attributes while hiding others.
Descriptive (high level of detail - normal course ⤳ ready for enterprise management)
versus analytical (higher level of detail - abnormal course ⤳ process' effectiveness ⤳ ready for IT) versus executable modeling
BPMN as a modeling language
supports private processes (any collaboration is hidden) versus public
(collaboration is shown but the inside of collaborative processes is hidden) versus
collaborative (everything is shown).
M. Ould (principles for constructing models): abstraction levels follow a purpose; models show “what” should do/actually do people…
Private business process
Public (left) versus collaborative (right) business process
Test “Business process concepts and fundamentals” (11%)
An analyst asks all subject matter experts (SME) of a company to send him process descriptions by e-mail.
According to Laury Verner, how is this approach classified?
Which level of process modeling is used to provide requirements for an IT implementation of a business process?
Descriptive modeling
Software modeling
Executable modeling
Analytical modeling
Business process management concepts and fundamentals (10%)
Process-oriented structures and various approaches of business process management
Business process management rose as discipline from Total Quality Management (TQM)
and Business Process Re-engineering (BPR)
Business process management: define & implement processes, measure performance with regard to goals, and optimize; process' owner and start-to-end view are decisive!
Total Quality Management (TQM) by W. Deming, J. Juran & K. Ishikawa: continuous quality improvement ⤳ management by processes, variability analysis, management by fact (real data), and quality improvement has no end
TQM techniques: customer requirements, supplier partnerships, cross-functional teams
TQM outcome: response to market change
Other visions
M. Benner & M. Tushmann: system of interlinked processes, concerted efforts, map/improve, and adhere to organizational processes
J. Chang
Principles: processes are assets (P1), should be managed (P2), should be continuously improved (P3), IT enabler (P4)
Practices/tools: process-focused organization structures (P1), processes owners (P2), bottom-up involvement (P3),
IT systems needed and convergence of IT and BPA (P4),
business cross-organizational partners (P5), training and improvement (P6), bonus and awards (P7), leaps instead of steps (from Six Sigma-incremental steps to BPR-radical leaps)
H. Smith & P. Fingar enterprise pressure trends: customer = dictator, mass customization, holistic solutions (e.g.,
car rental + hotel booking + …), industry boundaries blurred, enter partnerships, best value chain instead of best product/service, change is the single focus
Business Process Re-engineering (BPR)
BPR (T. Davenport & J. Short) ⤳ IT as key enabler and process improvement through goals (instead of existing weaknesses);
5-step method (diagram below) for process re-(design): develop business vision and process objects, identify process to re-design, understand and measure existing process, identify IT levers, prototype new process
M. Hammer BPR def.: systematic design and management of business processes for improvement/optimization of products and services;
Renewed vision through a more radical approach: develop processes from scratch (jumps instead of incremental steps, which are too long);
only processes aim at persisting afterwards ⤳ process-oriented organization
Process-focused organization
Vertical = function-oriented while horizontal = process-oriented. In the latter case, functions become backends; projects map onto processes
D. Madison vision
Culture: no boundaries between individuals/teams
Concepts: vision and mission, strategy relates to processes
Structure: formal government body, process owners, work units
Technology: automation in BPM suites towards executable processes, use Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Test “Business process management concepts and fundamentals” (10%)
Which approach is associated with an incremental level of process change?
BPR
BPMM
Adam Smith
TQM
Business motivation modeling (16%)
OMG Business Motivation Model (BMM) standard
Business Motivation Model (BMM), bulk start
“The Business Motivation Model (BMM) provides a structure for defining and developing a business plan (…)”
(OCEB 2 Certification Guide, 2nd ed., p. 67):
Scalability relies on decomposition of “Course of action”, “Desired result” and “Business policy”.
“Mission” (“Course of action”) makes operative at most one (0..1) “Vision” (“Desired result”).
Separation of concerns: “Means” (“Mission”, “Course of action”) have to vary to adapt to (steady) “Ends” (“Vision”, “Desired result”).
“Influencers” are neutral events in time until assessments transform them into impacts on “Ends” or “Means”.
SWOT as a possible candidate for “Assessment”.
Business rule enforcement level: strict versus guideline.
Business Motivation Model (BMM), overview
Business Motivation Model (BMM), means and end
Business Motivation Model (BMM), further detail
Business Motivation Model (BMM), further detail cont'd
Big picture: organizational units (viewed as external information in BMM) define ends,
establish means, recognize influencers, make assessments, define strategies, and are responsible for business processes.
Objective (concrete) quantifies goal (abstract): both are desired results that amplifies vision within ends
Vision example: “SparksBPMN training French leader” (in BMM, “Vision” is enterprise-internal)
Goal: “Sparks as BPMN reference center for OCEB 2 training”
Objective: “Sparks sells at least 10 OCEB 2 training sessions per year”
Business Motivation Model (BMM), tactic
Tactic (concrete) implements strategy (abstract): both are courses of action that realize mission within means
Mission example: “Sparks trains on BPMN”; mission makes operative vision within ends
“Strategy channels efforts towards goals”: e.g., strategy (“Delegate OCEB 2 training to (herself/himself certified) BPMN expert”) supports goal (“Sparks as BPMN reference center for OCEB 2 training”)
Tactic: “OCEB 2 training course is made available on the Web”
Business policies and rules (strict or guideline) as directives (“How”) within means also govern
the way mission/strategies/tactics (“What”) is/are carried out; directives support desired results
Guideline business rule: “Sparks pays certified BPMN expert X euros per OCEB 2 training session”
Internal (SWot): assumption, corporate value, habit (unwritten law), infrastructure, issue, management prerogative/privilege (e.g., “The management decided that expansion in France has priority”), resource quality
Assessment judges (1..n) influencer ⤳ impact on ends (affects -or not, 0..*- achievements) or means (affects -or not, 0..*- employment)
Zachman framework about “enterprise architecture management”
BMM is intended to be the “Why” perspective in the Zachman framework. This framework integrates information-related and organization-related aspects
as follows:
“Who” perspective: organizational unit/role
“How” perspective: business process (business processes implement strategies and tactics so that the organization achieves its goals and objectives derived from vision)
The annual report of a car rental company shows that there is an increasing demand for luxury cars.
Which BMM element must be used to describe that statement?
For the first time a car rental company is fair according to slight car damages, like minor scratches.
Which BMM element must be used to describe that statement?
At first a customer wants to book a hotel.
Next, she/he wants to book a flight and a car, or only a car or only a flight.
Which diagram describes this process? a. b. c. d.
Process quality, governance, and metrics frameworks (15%)
Approaches, methods... for process-oriented quality management
Process frameworks
General def.
Regulations (or self-regulatory rules as internal regulations), standards (external versus internal, control models as COBIT), guidelines (sets of principles)
effect on organization policies, procedures (how policies are implemented) and more generally corporate governance
Safe harbor means assurance against regulations, standards…
Process frameworks: reference models for processes
American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) Process Classification Framework (PCF) ⤳ around 1,000 processes and activities classified between
Operating Processes and Management and Support Processes
Supply Chain Operation Reference (SCOR) model ⤳ supply-chain processes (initial order to payment) with dependencies, metrics, and best practices:
Plan ⤳ Source (a.k.a. Supply) ⤳ Make ⤳ Deliver ⤳ Return (PSMDR)
Value Reference Model (VRM) ⤳ planning, governing, and executing value chains
around three core concepts (input and output, metrics, and best practices):
Strategic (plan/govern/execute), Tactical (strategy impl., e.g., outsourcing), and Operational (e.g., concrete step inside “outsourcing” tactical process) + Activities/Actions
American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) Process Classification Framework (PCF)
Supply Chain Operation Reference (SCOR) Process Chain
Value Reference Model (VRM) Process Levels
Quality frameworks
General def.
Quality means to meet the customer's requirements
Process improvement ⤳ quality; measure and visualize indicators in quality control charts (e.g., heat maps)
Quality frameworks: process improvement
Business Process Maturity Model -BPMM- ⤳ maturity levels (Initial, Managed, Standardized, Predictable, and Innovative)
“Maturity levels 2-5 are composed of process areas that collectively enable the capability to be achieved at that level. Each
process area is designed to achieve specific goals in creating, supporting, or sustaining the organizational state
characteristic of the level. Each process area consists of a collection of integrated best practices that indicate what should
be done, but not how it should be done.”
Maturity compliance by appraisal teams: Starter appraisal, Progress appraisal, Supplier appraisal (employees out of appraisal teams), and Confirmatory appraisal
ISO 9000 et al. ⤳ quality improvement (existence of a quality management system);
ISO 9004 goes beyond “existence” with guidelines (i.e., “how to”) to obtain a quality management system
Toyota Production System (TPS) ⤳ Just-In-Time (JIT) & zero stock
Quality frameworks, Six Sigma
Six Sigma ⤳ Program manager, Champions, Master black belt, Black/Green/Yellow belts, Project members
J. Welch implemented it at G.E. ⤳ Process improvement based on introduced and implemented measures with Program manager…
DMAIC approach: Define improvements, Measure processes, Analyze processes, Improve processes, and Control changes with four focus areas: Thinking, Processing, Designing, and Managing
Quality feature = CTX: Critical-To-X like Critical-To-Cost (CTC),
Critical-To-Safety (CTS)… Control quality charts show quality feature between Upper Control Limit (UCL) and Lower Control Limit (LCL).
Quality is measured with DPMO* (3.4 defects in 1 000 000 measures means "process quality") ⤳ Process Control Plan as a synthesis.
*Defects per million opportunities
Six Sigma
Regulation-governance frameworks
Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) ⤳ correctness and reliability of (published) financial data
Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT) ⤳ best practices for IT management & controlling.
Enterprise goals to IT goals (top-down): 34 (reference) IT processes are assessed through 200 control objectives ⤳ usable for SOX impl.
Management frameworks
Balanced ScoreCards (BSC) by R. Kaplan & D. Norton ⤳ balance between internal and external key figures (key performance indicators).
A scorecard is divided into 4 perspectives: Financial, Customer, Internal business process, and Learning and growth.
Key Performance Indicator -KPI- by E. Walters ⤳ one or more KPI(s) measure(s) fulfillment degree of an objective (quantified), simply named Critical Success Factor -CSF- or goal (qualified), e.g.:
Objective: average customer yield from $10 to $15
CSF: marketing of new product
KPI: average customer yield
Balanced ScoreCards (BSCs) by R. Kaplan & D. Norton
P. 102: in Figure 6.10, the BPMN collaboration diagram with 3 pools let us understand that this is the model of a single process while one pool = one process seems the common BPMN rule (at another places of the book (p. 134),
it is written: “Every process is always located in one pool.”)
PP. 114-115: the text talks about “termination” trigger, which is, in BPMN, totally different from a cancel event (as used in Figure 6.28).
So, correction would be to assign a “termination” trigger to Account unknown (instead of the cancel trigger).
However, the process model still remains shaky. So, an explicit (thrown) compensation event must be drawn so that the extant (boundary caught) compensation event itself launches Book amount….
Solution: Account unknown has to be viewed as an (intermediate thrown) compensation event followed by a (no-name) termination event.
By construction, this termination event does not prevent the execution of Book amount… since there is no flow from the extant compensation event to Book amount…, but an association as required by the BPMN spec.
Trucs et astuces, ce qu'il faut savoir…
Anglais : le niveau est plutôt élevé. On peut ainsi rater une question sur une mauvaise compréhension, e.g.,
« over the next two years ».
Rythme : l'extension de 30 minutes (90 min. + 30 min.) si vous êtes non-native English speaker
donne un rythme raisonnable (1 min. et 20 sec. par question). On peut cocher (ou non) une question à revoir en fin de processus,
une fois les 90 questions passées en revue. Les questions cochées « à revoir » ou non répondues
apparaissent dans un tableau de synthèse. Par navigation, on y revient et répond définitivement avant la fin du processus.
La lecture du livre « OCEB 2 Certification Guide, 2nd ed. » est malheureusement loin d'être suffisante.
Figurent ici d'autres ouvrages, articles… susceptibles d'être (aussi) lus…
Attention aux acronymes ! BPM, BPMN, BMM, BPMM…
Procéder par élimination : il y a souvent 1 choix (ou 2) assez « exotique(s) »
que l'on peut écarter assez vite !
Mémoriser les questions/réponses de l'ouvrage "OCEB 2 Certification Guide, 2nd ed., Business Process Management - Fundamental Level"
car certaines sont utilisées à l'examen officiel !
Tests
Test 1: 10 questions without BPMN issues…
Test 2: 12 questions with BPMN issues…
Test 3: 13 questions with BPMN issues…
Test 4: 10 questions with BPMN issues…
Test 1: 1 min. 20 sec. per question → 13 min. 20 sec.
According to the book “MBA in a day”: which definition describes the marketing process?
Marketing is a process that ensures that brochures and the like are being manufactured in high quality and that arranges the stand at a trade fair
Marketing is a synonym for distribution. Therefore its goal is to bring new products and services to the market and sell them with the highest possible price
Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering, and exchanging products of value with others
Marketing is the systematization of generating leads (by taking out advertisements on different media channels), evaluating each lead, and then routing them to the sales department
In booking a hotel room, one may decide to perform related actions in any combination.
Which process piece correctly depicts this behavior? top left, top right, down left, or down right
The chief economist of an airline company predicts increase costs for jet fuel and believes these costs will hurt
the company's business. This belief is modeled as which BMM concept?
○⚋▷
(control flow)
(sequence flow)
