OCEB 2 Business Intermediate flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Business Process

A collection of linked activities that transforms inputs into outputs of value to a customer, with a defined trigger, start and end, and a measurable result.

BPM Lifecycle

Continuous cycle of process identification, discovery, analysis, redesign, implementation and monitoring/controlling; monitoring feeds findings back into the next identification and analysis round.

Process Owner

Role accountable for the end-to-end design and performance of one process, including target setting and improvement decisions, independent of the functional units that execute the work.

Core, Support, Management Processes

Core processes create direct customer value; support processes enable core processes for internal customers; management processes plan, control and govern the organisation.

Process Architecture

Ordered inventory of an organisation's processes across decomposition levels, showing categories and relationships; the basis for process selection and portfolio governance.

Process Selection Criteria

Prioritisation using importance (strategic impact), dysfunction (current health) and feasibility (cultural and technical ability to change); high scores on all three rank highest.

Reference Process Model

Generic, industry-standard process framework such as SCOR, ITIL or APQC PCF, used as a starting point and benchmark when building an organisation-specific architecture.

Process Landscape

Top-level architecture view listing process groups and their sequence or dependencies, without detailed activity flows; typically one page per organisation or business unit.

Exclusive Gateway

XOR gateway where exactly one outgoing path is chosen based on conditions; a default flow should be defined to prevent a token from getting stuck.

Parallel Gateway

AND gateway that splits into all paths unconditionally and joins only after tokens from every incoming sequence flow have arrived; misuse as a merge causes deadlock.

Boundary Event

Intermediate event attached to the border of an activity, catching a trigger such as error or timer; interrupting cancels the activity, non-interrupting starts a parallel path.

Call Activity

Activity that invokes a separately defined, reusable process (global process or subprocess); it keeps models modular and avoids duplicating identical flows.

Value-Added Analysis

Classification of each activity as value-adding, business value-adding (required by regulation or control) or non-value-adding waste, to identify elimination candidates.

Little's Law

Average work-in-progress equals arrival rate multiplied by average cycle time (WIP = λ × CT); reducing WIP proportionally reduces lead time at constant throughput.

Root Cause Analysis

Systematic search for the underlying reason of a process problem using 5 Whys, Ishikawa cause-effect diagrams or Pareto prioritisation, rather than treating symptoms.

Process Efficiency

Ratio of total value-adding processing time to total cycle time including waiting and transport; a low percentage indicates large improvement potential.

Devil's Quadrangle

Redesign trade-off framework balancing time, cost, quality and flexibility; every redesign heuristic improves at least one dimension while potentially harming another.

Business Process Reengineering

Radical, top-down redesign of a process enabled by IT, targeting order-of-magnitude improvements in cost, quality, service or speed rather than incremental gains.

Task Elimination Heuristic

Redesign heuristic that removes activities adding no customer value, such as redundant checks and approvals, while controlling the risk the check was meant to cover.

Case-Based Work

Redesign heuristic in which one empowered worker or team handles a complete case end-to-end, reducing handoffs, waiting time and coordination effort.

Cycle Time KPI

Elapsed time from the start to the completion of one process instance, including processing, waiting and transport time; a primary time-related process performance indicator.

First-Time-Right Rate

Percentage of process instances completed correctly without rework, correction or repeated loops; a core quality KPI reflecting internal process capability.

Balanced Scorecard

Performance framework with financial, customer, internal process and learning/growth perspectives, linking strategy to operational KPIs through cause-effect relationships.

Process Benchmarking

Comparison of process designs, practices and performance against internal or external references to identify gaps and set realistic improvement targets.

Straight-Through Processing

Share of process instances completed end-to-end by the system without any human intervention; a key indicator of automation effectiveness in workflow implementations.

Workflow Management System

Software that routes tasks to participants according to a defined process model, manages worklists and tracks instance state, but usually lacks full BPM lifecycle support.

Robotic Process Automation

Technology that mimics user interactions to execute rule-based, repetitive, high-volume tasks with structured data; best applied after eliminating non-value-adding steps.

Business Rule Engine

Component that externalises decision logic from process flow, evaluating decision tables or rule sets at runtime so rules can change without redeploying the process model.

Process Mining

Analysis of system event logs to discover actual process flows, check conformance against the intended model and enrich models with performance and frequency data.

Process Controlling

Periodic comparison of measured process KPIs against targets, with variance and trend analysis, cause identification and initiation of corrective or improvement actions.

BPM Centre of Excellence

Central unit providing BPM methods, standards, tools and coaching to process owners, while accountability for individual process performance stays with those owners.

BPM Maturity Model

Staged capability framework, typically five levels from initial through managed, defined, quantitatively managed to optimising, used to plan long-term BPM development.