Tim Pidun

Two Cases on How to Improve the Visibility of Business Process Performance

Performance measurement of business processes is necessary to ensure adequate information supply to the management. Though, the assessment of rather qualitative or non-deterministic processes is hard, because common analyzing and controlling approaches are restricted to the use of numeric indicators. Important qualitative performance aspects remain invisible. To bridge this gap, we introduce the concept of visibility which defines appropriate information supply in the domain of process performance. Derived from these requirements, we also present a multi-dimensional performance assessment system that combines numeric and verbal indicators. In two cases, we prove its applicability and positive contribution to performance visibility.

Optimizing Process Performance Visibility through Additional Descriptive Features in Performance Measurement

Measuring performance of business processes is necessary to access information on their efficacy. This enables successful optimization, reengineering and alignment on strategies. In general, measurement is done via numeric KPIs. Though, especially processes of a quantitative, nondeterministic or supportive nature are hard to describe via figures which leads to a reduced perception of performance problems. In this paper, the concept of visibility is presented. It fosters the development of a suitable Performance Assessment System (PAS) that broadens the range of indicators to e.g. goals, complexity, maturity, relations or dependencies in addition to KPIs to finally improve visibility of process performance.

On the Restriction to Numeric Indicators in Performance Measurement Systems

Many business processes cannot be easily measured due to their non-deterministic or qualitative nature. So, to fit in common performance measurement systems (PMS), artificial and simplifying measures are used that are complicated and costly to create and evaluate. Using a literature review, this paper documents the dominance of PMS that rely on KPIs and a lack of those that also incorporate non-numeric, generic indicators that better address qualitative problems. Considering the need for better transparency and comparability of business processes as well as visibility of process performance, the final necessity of deployment for are fined PMS using additional indirect indicators is derived. It would be able to assess hidden performance problems and to reveal additional improvement possibilities.

An Overview of Models for Business Process Analysis -- Beyond Performance Measurement with KPIs

Almost all of todays performance measurement systems (PMS) rely on the usage of numeric indicators to quantify success or failure, normally referred to as key performance indicators (KPIs). This restriction makes it difficult to describe hard-measurable or business processes that are rather qualitative in nature. So, other existing models for process analysis containing convenient solutions and indicators have to be assessed and validated in order to offer them to stakeholders to thoroughly assess business processes. In this article, various existing models and frameworks for performance measurement were reviewed in an empirical investigation, categorized in systems and put into context to relevant theories. The result of the research is an overview of models for business process analysis that also incorporates indirect process performance aspects like soft goals, complexity, maturity or dependencies.

The Role of Performance Measurement Systems between Assessment Tool and Knowledge Repository

Performance measurement is a knowledge intensive business process and performance measurement systems (PMS) are appropriate tools to collect relevant performance information. Though, the application of many PMS fails. Therefore, there is a vivid debate in the literature about the right design, implementation, and use of PMS. Other contributions describe specific obstacles in different contexts, but there is no thorough investigation of the underlying patterns, especially in the context of information supply. This paper delivers a literature review aiming at explicating the reasons for failure in order to identify patterns and implications for PMS improvement. The findings suggest that involved people have difficulties with the PMS and there the problem is not in PMS itself. They emphasize the need to improve the knowledge related side of performance. In particular, a lack of understanding of PMS results and purpose demands better information supply and quality to foster their personal and organizational adaption.

On Improving the Visibility of Hard-Measurable Process Performance

Performance measurement systems PMS are necessary to ensure adequate information supply to management, but an information gap exists between process analysis and execution. PMS predominantly rely on countable, objective measures, but are also designed to deliver additional viewpoints to foster necessary explanations to measurements. Still, there is no definition of how well these approaches work in delivering sufficient explanatory information. The introduced concept of visibility of performance explains how the explication of process performance information leads to additional interpretation possibilities in performance measurement to deliver embedded and rich knowledge. It is tested on a business case, in which additional subjective information could be explicated through the application of a suitable Performance Assessment Model. The result of the explication of this knowledge is an enhanced comprehension of performance that bridges the information gap between operative and strategic level.

A Performance Management Software Integrating the Concept of Visibility of Performance

Applying Performance Management Systems PMS in an enterprise often is a cumbersome endeavor. Reasons are missing software structures and the lack of an intuitive visualization of important information. The theory of Visibility of Performance defines the goodness of use of a given PMS and can also can be applied to a PMS software. In this context, the authors evaluate a novel software prototype that deals with the problem of lacking information transfer and visualisation with the result that it is most suitable to generate and transport visible performance information. Moreover, this investigation is a formal verification of the used theory.