Process Design
Process Design
Process design turns analysis into a To-Be process that meets defined performance targets. The exam tests design principles, design patterns, business rules and controls, and whether you can propose a redesign that is genuinely better rather than merely different.
Principles that carry marks
- Eliminate before you simplify; simplify before you automate. Automating a wasteful step locks the waste in.
- Minimize handoffs and queues - each handoff adds wait, error, and ownership ambiguity.
- Push decisions to the point of work, giving the decision-maker the data and rules needed.
- Separate the standard case from the exception: a fast rule-driven path, with exceptions routed to specialists.
- Design roles, not names; processes outlive org charts.
- Externalize business rules so thresholds and eligibility change without redrawing the flow.
- Build controls in - segregation of duties, approval thresholds, audit trails - as designed elements.
Patterns and validation
Sequential, parallel, loop, subprocess, multi-instance (per line item), event-based (wait for one of several triggers), compensation, and ad-hoc patterns each fit particular work. Validate with volume, arrival variation, and exception rates; a design that works at average volume can collapse at peak. Simulation or a pilot is the standard check.
Worked example
Loan approval has five handoffs: intake, document check, credit check, underwriter, booking. Redesign: the case worker completes intake and document check in one conversation; a decision table auto-approves low-risk, in-policy applications at that point; everything else routes straight to an underwriter with the document set attached; booking is triggered by an approval event. Reasoning: two steps disappear as pure handoff, one decision moves to the point of work under explicit rules, and the exception path preserves risk control. Handoffs drop from five to two, and the standard case never queues for an underwriter.
Traps that cost marks
- Automating the As-Is without eliminating steps first.
- Designing controls out to make the diagram look lean.
- Over-standardizing a genuinely high-variability process, or customizing every case.
- Leaving business rules implicit in narrative rather than in a table.
- Ignoring segregation of duties when consolidating roles.