What Can I Use to Document My Processes?

March 22nd, 2010 § 1 Comment

I am not surprised that a recurring theme in my posts has been that your existing, critical, processes should be documented. The benefits of Business Process Modeling and Business Process Management are well defined and include:

  • Consistent, visual guide of how employees should execute their activities and how they should transact with customers, suppliers and each other.
  • Baseline for changes or improvements to how activities are completed. It would be difficult to measure the benefits of new technology initiatives or to evaluate organizational changes without understanding your starting point.
  • Processes that are well defined help bridge the gap between IT systems and Business Users, reducing both the time and resource cost of business process improvements and to deployment of technology solutions.

I have used Microsoft Visio extensively in the past, and though I appreciated it’s ease of use and integration with Microsoft Office, as a small business owner, I can also appreciate that users may balk at either the $260 for the Standard or the $560 for the Professional Version. There is however, a 60 day trial to provide the opportunity to understand whether it would work for you. Additionally, an extensive support network and knowledge base exist at the Microsoft Visio Toolbox.

I have previous experience with IDS Scheer ARIS, considered a leader in the BPA market, however, this level of tool is out of reach for most small to mid sized businesses.

There are several free business process modelling options which are much more accessible.

Before you evaluate your options, here is an outline of the standards in place for business process modelling, extracted from IDS Scheer site and from Wikipedia:

The following are modeling software choices which also include Business Process Management or offer upgrades to obtain BPM features:

  • Bizagi Process Modeler is touted for its ease of use and drag and drop process diagram features. It supports BPMN and you can import and export to Visio and XML formats. You can also save diagrams as PDF or Word Documents. To access the BPM features you must purchase the Bizagi Xpress, Standard or Enterprise Editions, compared here. The lowest license fee is for one user on the Xpress version for one year at $40 US and you can try it for free for 30 days. There are several training and support options available, including an upgraded site for paid support subscribers.
  • Questetra BPM Suite is a full BPM suite that is free for up to 10 active processes. It is installed on your server and users can access it through standard browsers. I did not find their help and support options as extensive as TIBCO and BIZAGI. Their expansion key is available for $100 per month for 100 processes.
  • Savvion Process Modeler is not free (though I believe it used to be), but does allow you to evaluate their process modeling product for 30 days. If you are interested in the more extensive capabilities offered by it’s full business suite, it would be a good way to get started with the product. I also had difficulty finding pricing on their site, which may only be available from its resellers.
  • TIBCO Business Studio, Supports BPMN, UML and XPML standards and allows for two versions of the same process to be developed, one for the business units and one for IT. You can also import ARIS, Visio and other models into the tool. The support on the site is extensive with Video tutorials, Forums and User Guides. There is a version for Linux and for Windows and the full datasheet for the product can be found here.

While more about BPM than just modeling, and also only available for free for a trial period, I am adding Cordys Process Factory to the list of products to try. As of May 2009, it can be integrated with the Google Apps Premier Edition, which makes it an ideal choice for organizations (like mine) already on that platform. Their enterprise option is only $50 per user per year, and similar to Google Apps, I feel this makes them a good fit for small to mid-sized businesses.

In summary, there are several options to help you get started in documenting your processes. I personally will be experimenting with TIBCO  and Cordys Process Factory and look forward to evaluating each option in future posts.

I will also be building on this post to discuss the options of full Business Process Management for small to mid-sized business, allowing you to take your processes to the next level of automation and efficiency.

What should I expect to pay for Project Management Consulting?

February 28th, 2010 § Leave a Comment

The answer to this depends on the type of project you are considering.

The project advisory role should be in line with 15% of the total project cost when a “buy” option is selected. I would consider project advisory services in a “buy” option to include definition of the requirements, evaluation of options, identification of any customization required and recommendation of a vendor.

The total cost of the project could either be the total hardware, software and customization required to implement a software package, or, the total cost of ownership for a hosted solution over a 2 – 3 year life cycle. I would select 2 – 3 years because it would likely be important to evaluate other alternatives at that time, to ensure you have the most recent features and functionality. 

For custom development projects, or “build” options, the percentage of budget for project advisory services can climb as high as 35% of the total project costs, as the project manager may increasingly have to act as a conduit between the programmers and the users. Hybrid options, such as a project to customize a software package, would likely fall somewhere between these estimated percentages.

Right Sizing Project Management Tools

February 22nd, 2010 § 1 Comment

In deciding on the right tool to manage projects for my business, the options and choices were almost overwhelming. Like most PMP’s, my project management tool experience has included extensive training on and use of Microsoft Project. While this fit with my previous employers, and large scale projects, the capital costs and lack of best in class collaboration features led me to quickly move on to web services choices.

As a jumping off point for most product evaluations, I like to start with toptenreviews.com. They have both a 2009 Online Project Management Tool Review, as well as a 2009 Project Management Software Review. Their list of criteria includes the following:

  • Collaboration
  • Resource management
  • Project management
  • Remote Capability
  • Help/Support

For my business, the most important features were in collaboration and project management. Their top 2 on-line tools were @task and Daptiv. @task, though more expensive than other on-line tools, is a comparatively cost effective option when viewed against Microsoft Project or other enterprise software solutions. As a growing vendor, they also offer the potential to influence the development direction of the tool. Daptiv is a more mature provider, which has excellent document management functionality and a very flexible user dashboard.

My challenge with both of these products were that their “full-sized” options provided many more features than I needed, and I was concerned about the learning curve for my clients.

I then moved on to the “mid-sized” range of tools, which may have less features than @task and Daptiv, however, also offered free or lower cost plans. After reviewing other blogs and sites, I chose to evaluate Central Desktop, Wrike and Liquid Planner.

Central Desktop has an extensive list of collaboration features and supports workspaces for project management, user forums, wikis and databases. A major sticking point for me was that there were no Gantt charts. I also had concerns about the learning curve and felt I didn’t require as many of the collaboration features as they supplied.

Wrike has dynamic Gantt charts and a long list of features that I am looking for, including: integration with blackberry, Gmail and Outlook; Excel import and export; multiple project environments; file sharing and integrated time-sheets. They also have a unique feature whereby you can add tasks to your projects by adding wrike@wrike.com to your cc list.

Liquid Planner ended up my favourite of the three. This is based on personal preference for the style of the dashboard, functionality in their timesheets and for the ease of use to create and manage the project portal for clients. I also liked their printable Genius guide as I prefer to use a guide, instead of training demo’s, while learning new software.

Another favourite for me was Viewpath, which has dynamic Gantt charts and a dynamic drag and drop task management feature. They also offer a gadget to layer on Google spreadsheets to generate Gantt charts.

Other task management programs I evaluated included Basecamp and Many Moon. Both are relatively simple to use, and I appreciated the integration of Many Moon with Google Docs, I just couldn’t get past the lack of dependancies and Gantt Charts.

There are many more options for online project management. Finding the right one for your company or project means identifying critical issues such as functionality, price tolerance, ease of use, collaboration needs and the depth of formal project management required.

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