Business Process Management MITS5507 

Case Study Assignment
April 2020
MITS5507 Assignment 3
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Case Study Assignment (Team Assignment) – 30% (Due week 12)
This assignment is to be completed in teams of 3 or 4 members. You should begin by
submitting (at the end of week 7 the signed group participation form at the end of this
document. This form needs to be completed and signed by all group members. Once
submitted, the teams will remain fixed and no member additions or deletions will be allowed
unless by approval of your subject coordinator. Any person not part of a group by the end of
week 7 will be assigned randomly to a group by your lecturer. There will be no changing this.
Objective(s)
The objective of this assignment is to apply the knowledge and experience acquired with
BPMN diagrams and Business Process Management concepts gained through the lectures and
activities to a simulated industry Case Study Problem. You will need to employ analytical skills
for this Case Study to discover existing problems and re-design the business processes.
INSTRUCTIONS
Your task is to model, analyze, re-design and automate the processes for the company case
study attached to this assignment (Scenario contained within this document). A narrative
description of the “as is” process is given in the case study below. You must take this
description as the basis to analyze the process, identify improvement alternatives and to
design a to- be process. If you find that the description below is not detailed enough, you
can make your own assumptions. But any assumptions must be reasonable and
documented.
The first step is to understand the “as is” process model. To this end, you are asked to
design a detailed BPMN process model reflecting the current state of the process. This
BPMN model should not only deal with the “normal course” of action, but it should also
show how different types of errors or exceptions are handled, including changes,
cancellations and over-due invoices.
Next, you should identify wastes in the process as well as major issues. The latter should be
assessed and documented in an issue register. The “issue register” should include the
following columns: Issue Priority Number, Issue Name, Short Description, Data/Assumptions,
Quantitative Impact and Qualitative Impact. The issue register should not be an inventory of
every possible issue you can think of. Instead, you should focus on major issues that capture
the concerns expressed by the customers, staff and management stakeholders.
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Based on the identified issues, you should then design a “to-be” process model in BPMN
and explain what changes you are proposing and how would these changes address the
identified issues, and/or how they would contribute to achieving the company’s strategic
goals.
In addition to proposing a “to-be” process model, your team must build a mock-up
application using a business process management system (e.g. Signavio Workflow
Accelerator). The purpose of this mockup application is to demonstrate how the to-be
process could be automated and how would this automation affect the way the participants
in the process do their work. This will be a, “demonstrator”. You can should keep it simple.
Submission Guidelines
All submissions are to be submitted through turn-it-in. Drop-boxes linked to turn-it-in will be
set up in the Unit of Study Moodle account. Assignments not submitted through these dropboxes will not be considered.
Submissions must be made by the due date and time (which will be in the session detailed
above) and determined by your Unit coordinator. Submissions made after the due date and
time will be penalized at the rate of 10% per day (including weekend days).
The turn-it-in similarity score will be used in determining the level if any of plagiarism. Turnit-in will check conference web-sites, Journal articles, the Web and your own class member
submissions for plagiarism. You can see your turn-it-in similarity score when you submit your
assignment to the appropriate drop-box. If this is a concern you will have a chance to change
your assignment and re-submit. However, re-submission is only allowed prior to the
submission due date and time. After the due date and time have elapsed you cannot make
re-submissions and you will have to live with the similarity score as there will be no chance
for changing. Thus, plan early and submit early to take advantage of this feature. You can
make multiple submissions, but please remember we only see the last submission, and the
date and time you submitted will be taken from that submission.
Your document should be a word or pdf document containing the following sections
1. A title page including the full names of all team members
2. An executive summary
3. The “as-is” process model
4. Waste analysis
5. Issue register
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6. A description of changes your team suggests making to the “as is” process. For each
proposed change, you should explain why you suggest that change, and which issue(s)
it would help to solve, or how would the change help to address the company’s goals
7. The “to-be” process model
8. A cost analysis of the difference between the two models, including any assumptions
you have made to do this.
9. You should also share your “as-is” and “to-be” Signavio BPMN diagrams with your
instructor
10. Additionally, in week 12, each group may be required demonstrate to their instructor
the mock-up application developed using a business process management system
(e.g. Signavio Workflow Accelerator).
MITS5507 Assignment 3
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Scientific General Consulting Case Study
Scientific General Consulting (SGC) is a small business in Melbourne’s West, which was
established in January of 2012 and currently operates from an office in the Footscray area,
Emily Hoordoor is the owner of the business and she has four permanent employees. Her
business provides coaching to individuals and organisations in areas of teamwork, leadership
and personal performance coaching. The coaching is conducted by Emily and a team of
coaches who work on a session by session basis. The other coaches operate as subcontractors.
SGC started as a home-based business with Emily as sole operator. Originally, most of
Emily’s work came from recommendations from other consulting agencies and associates.
Some of her work also came through her LinkedIn account. The amount of work grew to the
point that Emily could not handle it all by herself and she would sometimes have to recruit
other coaches to take on or help her with some of the work. Seeing an opportunity, the
Scientific General Consulting business was begun and has blossomed ever since. A website
was created as well as a Facebook presence. The business has grown to the point that she is
now providing work to other coaches through her business on a regular basis. There is
roughly a 50:50 split between one-to-one work where a coach deals with one person at a time
and group sessions, where a company might, for example, run a teamwork workshop for
several of its employees simultaneously.
Over time, Emily hired a full-time receptionist and personal assistant. There is a part time
bookkeeper to manage the accounts. Later, she hired a “coaching administrator” on a part
time basis. His job was to coordinate the work required amongst clients and the coaches
when coaching requests came in. A client relations manager deals directly with clients and
coaches in the organisation and follow up of coaching sessions.
SGC has a basic website which describes the business and its coaching services, a page with
the main people and coaches involved with SGC, testimonials from happy clients and a
“Contact us” page for enquiries. The website is not the main source of attracting business and
possibly lacks the polish and finesse that one would expect from a professional quality
website.
Organisational structure, culture and strategies
Scientific General Consulting (SGC)’s goals are socially and educationally driven. They want
to help those in need through understanding the needs of those that they wish to support in
training. They also have a genuine desire to improve their clients’ career opportunities and
professional standards.
At SGC, the great majority of employees believe that the organisation demonstrates high
levels of trust, care, recognition and support amongst members. Within groups in the
organisation, people feel that they have flexibility, good opportunities to participate and that
they can express their opinions freely. Overall , people are friendly, committed to the
organisation and there is good teamwork within groups. Individuals appear to be motivated
towards innovation.
The organic organisational form, as described by Burns and Stalker (1961), is a structure
which is appropriate to dealing with rapidly changing conditions. SGC, being a coaching
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service provider, is highly governed by regulatory authorities. However, it can be seen that
the company operates in an organic structure, based on the following characteristics (Burns &
Stalker, 1961):
• Fluid, adaptable, and open to change.
• specialised job functions.
• Few management layers.
• Decision making is not centralised to management
• Minimal ‘micro-management’ of employees
By organising itself in this way, SGC benefits from free flows of information, decentralised
authority whereby employees are able to participate in decision making activities, and a
highly adaptable, dynamic environment (Chimoriya, 2015). One of the main problems within
the organization is that the organic structure can be a disadvantage to SGC, by way of
increasing the complexity of decision making by expecting input from many individuals,
creating an unpredictable and unstructured working arrangement, and incurring higher
administration costs by diversifying specialisations in job functions (Chimoriya, 2015).
Particularly, the size of the business is becoming larger. Increased training requirements lead
them to hire more employees and more collaboration with their partners. Another problem is
the business processes structure and management. Sometimes, the process(es) are controlled
and managed repetitively by various staff. Occasionally, this can take too long to organize
jobs and decreases the customer satisfaction in the long term.
To be able to manage the increasing complexity of the business requirements, leading to
increased stakeholder satisfaction, the management need to consider their current business
process(es)’ efficiencies (such as reduce waste and cost, better utilise resources…). The
interdependent strategy with structure relationships can impact an organisation’s performance
(Tian 2012). Before undertaking significant process restructuring, the changes must be
assessed to ensure they fit with the business goals and strategic direction. Two of SGC
strategies for 2020 are as follows:
1. Focus on reducing costs and job cycle time, which increases operational productivity
– allocating the right coach to the appropriate customer who requires services of both
low cost and short cycle time.
2. Continued growth in SGC earnings, supported by improved customer, coach and
partners satisfaction.
The challenge
While in the past business processes tended to change only slowly over time, it is now firmly
held by Emily and her management team that SGC must be able to adapt and improve their
processes more rapidly over time. The terms “agile” and “agile development” have now
become common terminology within the management team to reflect the idea that the
organisation must rapidly adapt as needed to any future changes. However, they have been
aware that making changes to the way the procedures are handled can lead to many problems
if these changes are not considered in the context of the overall business.
Since the inception of the company, the growth of staff and sales have led to increasingly
complex procedures and it is difficult for Emily to find the time to fully document these.
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Additionally, Emily has realized that she lacks the skills necessary to do this in a way that
would result in meaningful documentation suitable for further analysis. Thus you have been
hired to take on this role.
Company Process
Clients call the company with a request for a personal tutor or coach to develop some
particular skill or ability. The company engages a suitable tutor or coach on behalf of the
client and handles all the accounting for the relationship for a fee. This is called an
assignment.
The assignment process starts when the receptionist, Linda, receives a communication from a
potential client by phone, letter or email requesting coaching assistance. The receptionist
creates an assignment which begins the process. The receptionist requires personal
information from the client such as name and address, contact details and the location(s)
where the coaching is required by the client, plus information about the client’s availability
and reasons why they require a coach. The receptionist will check if the client has called
previously, in which case much of this information will already be held, but still requires
confirmation. When the information is complete, the receptionist submits the request.
The request is received by the coaching specialist, Ahmed, who is familiar with the coaches
and what they do but, if needed, can also search the company database to find appropriate
coaches for specific skills. There may be several coaches for a particular skill or skills. For
example, client Mary may wish to improve her public speaking skills and so Ahmed, the
coaching specialist, tries to find the most appropriate public speaking coach. Once located,
the assignment needs to be scheduled. Coaches have a variety of commitments at any one
time so the scheduler contacts the coach to arrange the most appropriate time. Madeleine, the
client relations officer, acts as the scheduler and will contact the client to confirm the
assignment, the scheduled time and costs. Sometimes when the client is contacted, they may
decide to cancel the coaching rather than go ahead. If the recommended coach is not
available at the same time as the client, the scheduler passes the assignment back to the
coaching specialist to find another coach.
If the client requests a skill for which there is no coach available, instead of cancelling the
assignment, and with the client’s consent, the coaching specialist advertises for a coach with
that skill. The coaching specialist will interview the applicants in an attempt to find a suitable
coach. If there is no suitable coach found within 2 weeks after the advertisement, the
coaching specialist informs the client the assignment is cancelled. Otherwise they pass a new
recommendation onto the scheduler.
It is the role of the verifier to contact the coach and client shortly before coaching is
scheduled to begin, as a reminder and confirmation of the assignment. Madeleine usually
does the verification process but if she is too busy, she will ask Ahmed or Linda to do this.
Once the coach and client both confirm the assignment, the coaching sessions proceed.
If the client fails to confirm, the assignment is cancelled and the coach/tutor is contacted
about the cancellation. If the coach fails to confirm, the company will contact the client and
offer to find a new time with the same coach, find a new coach or to allow them to cancel the
coaching. If Ahmed is too busy, he may ask Linda or Emily to make contact.
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After a coaching assignment has been completed, Madeleine, as the client relations officer,
follows up with the client and the coach to determine how satisfied the client and coach or
tutor are with the coaching assignment. Madeleine compiles a report once completed
questionnaires from both coach and client have been received.
On completion of an assignment, the bookkeeper compiles an invoice and sends it to the
client. In the meantime, the coach sends an invoice to the company bookkeeper. The
bookkeeper must have both the customer’s payment and the coach’s invoice before the coach
can be paid. If 30 days have elapsed after the bookkeeper has sent the invoice to the client,
and no payment is yet received, the bookkeeper writes to the customer to remind them of the
payment. If after 90 days payment has still not been received, the bookkeeper passes the
unpaid invoice to the manager who writes to the customer. The unpaid debt is sold to a debt
collection agency and the client is blacklisted.
Once payment has been received from the client, the coach has been paid and the client
relations officer has compiled the satisfaction survey, the assignment is considered complete
The Problems
The Coaching Specialists’ Top Ten Problems:
1. The Coaching Specialists have suggested that there could be an advantage in allowing
for potential and existing clients to request coaching assignments online as well as
over the phone or face to face.
2. The company has found over time that most coaching requests fall into a small
number of categories e.g. public speaking, becoming a mentor, personal development
and a few intensive professional level language courses (e.g. English, French,
Mandarin). The coaching specialist believes that their knowledge is wasted matching
these standard assignments, leaving them little time to handle the more unusual ones,
finding new potential coaches or thinking about new opportunities for coaching. How
to better use resources is a challenge.
3. Market research has shown that many potential clients (people from the general
public) are put off by the cost of one-on-one coaching assignments and would be
willing to be coached in small groups of three or four people. This would attract many
new clients if the costs were reduced accordingly. This applies especially to corporate
clients who would send groups of employees to be coached. However, the Coaching
Specialists are not sure how to manage this in the most cost effective and convenient
way during the process.
4. Scheduling is a time-consuming process organising a common time between the
coach and client and then verifying that the coach and client are both still available
shortly before the due date. Streamlining this would be a great advantage.
5. The bookkeeper who has other duties other than invoices, payments and receipts can
be extremely busy. If the business expands, she believes she will not be able to cope.
Who and how to manage payment process is a challenge.
6. Corporate clients are often repeat customers because they send their employees on
assignments. They do not like having to go through the receptionist, especially if they
have to explain their particular situation again. The coaching specialist is normally
familiar with their situation and can quickly arrange what they need. How to restructure their process to better manage corporate clients is essential to the business.
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7. A potential client can sometimes call in wanting an assignment set up quickly, e.g. a
problem in their business has come up that urgently needs some support, training or
mentoring. The current process has limited flexibility to cope with this as assignments
are dealt with in the order in which they are received.
8. It is happening with increasing frequency that bad debts are being sold to the debt
collection agency, entailing an inevitable loss. It would be better perhaps to check
customer’s credit rating beforehand, but that might further delay the assignment
process.
9. Some coaches have offered to take group sessions. The idea is appealing to the
Coaching Specialists. How could this be coordinated during the process?
10. When a client pays for their assignment, the Bookkeeper matches this with the
invoice from the coach. Sometimes these don’t match and the bookkeeper can spend
considerable time to determine why there is a difference.
The Future
Emily is ambitious and would like to expand the business even further. Firstly, she wants to
expand the coaching work the business handles across the entire Melbourne area. However,
she can see that both she and her permanent staff are usually very busy and wants to
streamline their operating methods. Some of the questions she has been considering are:
• How to re-structure the coaching process to reduce the cost, free up staff and reduce
job cycle time?
• How to reduce the waste, such as reducing no value and repetitive tasks?
• How to adopt some of the best practices and methodologies to improve the processes?