OCEB 2 Business Intermediate key terms

A set of linked activities that transforms inputs into outputs of value to a customer, triggered by an event and performed according to defined rules, with measurable results.

A process that runs across the whole organization from the triggering customer request to the delivered outcome, crossing departmental boundaries rather than stopping at a single unit.

A top-level map showing an organization's main processes grouped into management, core and support categories, without detailed flow logic, used to give an overall orientation.

The structured, multi-level arrangement of an organization's processes, showing how process groups, main processes and subprocesses relate and decompose into one another.

A process that directly creates value for external customers and realizes the organization's primary business purpose, such as order fulfillment or product development.

A process that supplies resources, information or services needed by core processes but does not itself directly generate customer value, such as IT or HR administration.

A process concerned with planning, directing, controlling and improving the organization and its other processes, for example strategy development or quality management.

The person accountable for the design, performance and continuous improvement of a whole process, including its results, budget and cross-functional coordination.

A simple visual diagram of a process showing its activities in sequence at a coarse level, typically without detailed decision logic or events.

Business Process Model and Notation, a standardized graphical language with precisely defined symbols for modelling business processes so that models are readable and can be executed by tools.

A BPMN container representing a participant or organization in a collaboration; each pool holds one process, and message flows connect separate pools.

A subdivision within a pool that assigns activities to a role, department or system, clarifying who performs each step of the process.

The atomic unit of work in a BPMN model, drawn as a rounded rectangle, representing an activity that cannot or need not be broken down further in that model.

A compound activity inside a process that contains its own flow of activities, used to hide detail, organize complexity or define reusable and event-triggered logic.

A solid arrow in BPMN that defines the order in which activities, events and gateways are executed within a single process.

A dashed arrow in BPMN showing communication between two separate pools or participants, indicating that a message is sent or received.

A BPMN diamond-shaped element that controls how the flow splits and merges, deciding branching, merging or parallel paths based on conditions or events.

A BPMN gateway, marked with an X, that routes the flow along exactly one outgoing path depending on conditions, and merges alternative incoming paths without synchronization.

A BPMN gateway, marked with a plus sign, that splits the flow into concurrent paths or waits for all incoming paths to arrive before continuing, without evaluating conditions.

A BPMN event, drawn as a thin circle, that marks where a process instance begins and may specify the trigger such as a message, timer or signal.

A BPMN event, drawn as a thick circle, that marks where a process path terminates and may indicate a result such as a message being sent or a termination of the instance.

A BPMN event drawn as a double circle that occurs during a process, either catching a trigger such as a timer or throwing a message, and can be attached to a boundary.

A subprocess placed inside a process that is not part of the normal flow but starts when its triggering event occurs, allowing interruption or handling of exceptional situations.

A model of how a process currently operates in reality, including its weaknesses, used as the baseline for analysis and improvement.

A model of how a process should operate after redesign, describing the intended future flow, roles and rules that the organization aims to implement.

A technique that classifies each process step as value-adding, business-value-adding or non-value-adding so that waste can be identified and removed.

Any activity or resource use that consumes cost or time without adding value for the customer, such as waiting, rework, overprocessing, transport or unnecessary handoffs.

A structured investigation to find the underlying reason a problem occurs, rather than treating its symptoms, often using techniques such as the five-whys or cause-and-effect diagrams.

The systematic reshaping of an existing process to improve its performance, for example by removing handoffs, parallelizing steps or changing roles, without necessarily starting from scratch.

A radical, fundamental rethink and redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in cost, quality, speed or service, rather than incremental change.

An ongoing, incremental effort to make small refinements to processes over time, typically driven by the people performing the work and supported by measurement.

A quantifiable measure chosen to track how well a process achieves a critical objective, such as cycle time, error rate, cost per case or customer satisfaction.

The elapsed time from the start of a process instance to its completion, including waiting and processing time, often compared with the customer-required lead time.

The number of process instances or units of output completed within a given period, expressing the capacity and delivery rate of a process.

The step or resource in a process whose limited capacity constrains the overall throughput of the whole process, so that improving other steps brings little gain.

Software that defines, executes and tracks process instances according to a process model, assigning work items to participants and recording status and history.

The use of technology to execute process steps without manual intervention, ranging from rule-based routing of work to software robots and fully orchestrated system-to-system flows.

A statement that constrains or guides how a process or decision must be performed, such as an approval threshold or eligibility condition, often separated from the process flow.

The ongoing observation of process execution and its measured results, using operational data and dashboards to detect deviations from targets while or shortly after work runs.

The managerial activity of comparing actual process performance with targets, interpreting variances and initiating corrective or improvement action.

The framework of roles, decision rights, policies and standards that ensures processes are designed, changed and operated in line with organizational objectives and compliance requirements.