=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2574/short4
|storemode=property
|title=Why a Value-oriented Process Modelling Concept is Needed (short paper)
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2574/short4.pdf
|volume=Vol-2574
|authors=Mark von Rosing,Georg Etzel
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/vmbo/RosingE20
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==Why a Value-oriented Process Modelling Concept is Needed (short paper)==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2574/short4.pdf
WHY A VALUE-ORIENTED PROCESS MODELLING CONCEPT IS NEEDED
Mark von Rosing1 and Georg Etzel,2
1
Global University Alliance, France
2
LEADing Practice, Germany
http://www.globaluniversityalliance.org
http://www.LEADingPractice.com
Abstract
This paper focuses on the need for a Value Oriented Process Modelling concept, both in
terms of why it is needed, what it is as well as how and where it could be applied. This
includes Value Oriented Process analysis, design, implementation and governance
considerations. Enabling organizations, with the ability, to interlink value modelling, value
engineering1 and value architecture2 concepts with process aspects.
Key Words
Value Oriented Process Modelling, Value Modelling, Value Engineering, Value Architecture,
Process Ontology, Extended Process Modelling, Value Management, Value Governance
INTRODUCTION
The Value Delivery Modeling Language (VDML) 3 is an Object Management Group (OMG)
software standard specification. It is intended to provide business design models for
managers that fill the gap between strategic planning and business operations. According to
their own specification, they integrate multiple aspects together that are relevant for value
modelling. Based on their description, the level of abstraction, is more appropriate for
executives and top management. While the VDML specification also has the notation of
activity within it and activities are according to the VDML standard the sources of value. The
VDML Value contributions are aggregated to support value propositions that represent the
particular interests of different stakeholders and market segments. Values can also be traced
back from a value proposition to the contributing activities. Even the roles of people and the
consumption of resources are represented in the activity networks. So, in short, while VDML
could capture information about sequences of activities, activities that collaborate, roles in
activities, capabilities that are required to perform an activity, activities that delegate to other
capability methods that are engaged through delegation, the flow of deliverables between
activities, stores and collaborations. The value contributions of an activity (please note that
when VDML talks about value it does so in the context of value proposition, not in the
context of strategic value i.e. a must win strategy, or an objective that is marked critical
(critical success factor)).
THE GAP IN VALUE MODELLING CONCEPTS
Even though the above discussed is possible to capture within VDML, still one can’t model
processes according to value relevant perspectives. For that OMG has the BPMN standard4.
While it isn’t ideal to have two different views/models, one could argue that this is due to the
nature of the different views and in general it is important to separate the why, the what and
the how. In the usual and broad-spectrum this might also be true, especially in the case of
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Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
VDML that has the purpose of integrating seven existing value concepts and thereby views:
Porter's Value Chain, Business Model Ontology of Osterwalder and thereby business model
innovation5, Verna Allee's Value Network Analysis, E3-Value analysis, Resources, Events,
Agents (REA) analysis, Value Stream Mapping and Service-Oriented Business Architecture
analysis.
But in the case of the BPMN standard, that has the purpose to model processes, there seems
to be a clear gap it can nether relate to the concept of strategy, objectives, goals, critical
success factors, performance indicators, capabilities or even value proposition. This was
according to the developers of BPMN left out on purpose6. Therefore, there is a gap between
VDML’s concept of value modelling, other value concepts as mentioned above and business
process modelling concepts. This gap has been partly studied and tried to be addresses by
researchers such as Hassan Fatemi, Marten van Sinderen, and Roel Wieringa. Their research
focus was to define a model transformation between two languages commonly used for
modeling business collaborations: the e3value methodology7 and the Business Process
Modeling Notation (BPMN). It should be pointed out that E3value is a notation, to model a
business web from a value point of view. It shows the creation, distribution, and consumption
of goods or services of economic value in a business web. The main goal of E3value
modeling is to reach agreement amongst profit-and-loss responsible stakeholders regarding
the question "Who is offering what of value to whom and expects what of value in return?"8.
it doesn’t focus on all the same value aspects of VDML. In researching value modelling,
what becomes apparent to most is that in the value modelling universe, value is not only
modelled inversely, but is also defined differently:
• VDML: Value Proposition articulates the value and activities create and/or consume
the value9.
• E3value: Value objects are things of economic value10.
• Business Model Generation: The main purpose of the business model is to define
how to create a value proposition for the customers11.
• Value Stream Mapping: is a lean management tool that helps visualize the steps
needed to take from product creation to delivering it to the end-customer12. The goal
is optimization. So, while it uses the word value, it relates to the economic value of
making something lean.
• Porter’s Value Chain: a collection of activities that are performed by a company to
create value for its customers13.
• Verna Allee's Value Network Analysis: assesses current and future capabilities for
value creation and to describe and analyze a business model14.
• REA: Actors exchange value objects, which are services, products, money, or even
consumer experiences. A value object is valuable to one or more actors.
Despite the above difference of how value modelling is interpreted and achieved the need to
model processes that are interlinked with value aspects remain.
Value Is A Different Kind Of Concept For Process Teams
Value planning, value identification, value creation and value realization are not really
methods and approaches that are used by process teams today (27). Value Modeling is one of
the most common dilemmas and challenges confronting companies today, regardless of
factors such as size, revenue, industry, region or business model15. There is a need to manage
decisions to make large-scale investments in business and IT-enabled capabilities as well as
to ensure that these complex investments are effectively and efficiently transformed into the
different competencies to realize concrete business value16. In far too many cases, this
42
business value simply is not realized17. Just consider the many different cases and evidence in
the research space today. In recent years, survey after survey has revealed that from 30 to 70
percent of large-scale investments in, for example IT-enabled change, is wasted, challenged
or fails to bring a return to the company. In fact, one survey from the Butler Group18 on
measuring costs and value found that, in many enterprises, less than 8 percent of the IT
budget is actually spent on initiatives that bring value for the company. After years of
McKinsey research on organizational transformations (2011-2012), the results from the latest
(2018) McKinsey Global Survey19 on the topic confirm a long-standing trend: few executives
say their companies’ value creation succeeded. In Today, just 26 percent of respondents say
their investment in value creation have been successful in equipping the organization to
sustain improvements over time or improving performance. The issues of creating
performance and real value, for most companies are not new; they have been accentuated by
stiffer cost competition, commoditization of products and slower growth in traditional
markets. The current business environment of the digital revolution makes addressing these
issues increasingly urgent. Targeting value systematically requires the appropriate
segmentation of processes as basis for a differentiated design and implementation approach20.
Process models developed during the process design need to reflect the requirements of those
different process segments and the importance of the resulting business processes for the
strategy of an organization.
Segmentation of Business Processes
A business strategy needs to be operationalized in order to use it to drive process design and
implementation. This is done by deriving strategic value-drivers of an organization from its
strategy. Those value-drivers describe necessary achievements to make the strategy happen.
The degree of realization of a value oriented is measured through key performance indicators
(KPIs). A business process assessment based on the impact of a business process on strategic
value-drivers is the basis for the segmentation of processes into high impact and commodity
processes.21,22 This process assessment is the key tool to align business strategy with process
design and implementation. It enables the desired value oriented approach and makes it part
of a BPM discipline to transfer strategy into execution.
The value-drivers are derived from the business strategy of the organization using value-
driver-tree models (value-driver trees). This is a way of transferring the strategic intension of
an organization into operational value oriented business targets. An example for such a value-
driver tree is shown in figure 1. The value-drivers themselves can again be weighted to focus
the segmentation on the most important value-drivers. In practice a three step approach to
developing a value-driver tree has proven to be successful. The strategy delivers the business
priorities showing the overall direction a company has to move to. These priorities are
decomposed into strategic objectives, describing the key components of a business priority.
Then one or several value-drivers are identified for each objective, hence the operational
achievements that make this objective happen.
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Figure 1: Value-driver Tree (Excerpt)
For a full value driver tree and reference content that can be used by organizations please see
the Value Tree23 The business processes of an organization are then evaluated based on their
total impact on the specific value-drivers. Result are two segments of business processes:
high impact and commodity processes. “High impact” processes are the ones that are key to
make the business strategy of the organization happen: the “competitive” processes and
supporting core processes. They are the most important link of business strategy to execution.
This approach is visualized in figure 2.
Figure 2: High Impact and Commodity Processes
The value-drivers can be weighted regarding their importance. Minor changes and
adjustments in strategy can then be reflected through adjustments of those weights. Larger
strategy changes result in different or additional value-drivers. This update of value-drivers
and their weights enables an agile adjustment of process-priorities to updated strategies
reflecting changing business environments. For each process it has to be defined if it has no
(0), low (1), medium (2) or high (3) impact on each of the value-drivers. Then the overall
impact is calculated in a process assessment matrix by multiplying impact with the weight of
the appropriate value-driver and calculating the total of all impacts of a process. An example
of a process assessment matrix is shown in figure 3.
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Figure 3: Process Assessment Matrix (Excerpt)
The high impact processes have then to be evaluated based on general industry practices, e.g.
through benchmarks or purely qualitative evaluations. In that way you identify the high
impact “high opportunity” business processes. These are the processes where improvements
have the biggest value potential since the process has a high impact on the strategy, but it
currently performs only in or even under the industry average. Practice experience with
different companies has shown that the processes should be identified on a level of detail so
that 150-200 process definitions describe the entire organization. This is often referred to as
“level 3” (L3). This level is detailed enough to obtain differentiated results but high level
enough to avoid to high work efforts. Using the results of the process assessment matrix the
20% of the processes that are classified as high impact can be identified. The others are
considered the commodity processes. In practice there is often a “grey” area of processes that
could be in either group. Hence there may be slightly more or less than 20% of the processes
in the high impact segment. This issue has to be resolved in a case to case basis reflecting the
specific situation of an organization and its business strategy and the overall business
environment it works in.
Value-Oriented Process Modelling
The Value Oriented Process Modelling concepts require more consideration to the design and
modelling aspects then traditional process design and process modelling. For the most, since
Value-Oriented Process Modelling needs a formalized breakdown of strategic business
objectives (SBOs) into critical success factors (CSFs), with their associated key performance
indicators (KPIs) and process performance indicators (PPIs). Only then, the right
measurements can be put in place in a manner that ensures that they are integrated and
strategically aligned, as well as linked to the proper responsible decision-making bodies, in a
way that they allow performance improvement to occur. This brings support to this complex
task by providing the discussed value tree, as shown in figure 4, a taxonomy of the previously
mentioned value indicators and performance indicators and how they relate to each other24.
Enabling organizations to categorize and classify their value indicators and performance
indicators according to the enterprise tiers, focus area and existing measures.
45
Figure 4: Value indicators and Performance indicators25
Many organizations realize that traditional process design does not consider the Value
Oriented aspects of one's organization. Executives that ask themselves what it takes to move
from traditional process design to Value Oriented Process design have to consider the
strategic role that Value Oriented aspects plays in their organization, but also how and where
to apply the concepts. The ability to succeed with one’s Value Oriented initiatives is directly
related to the ability to connect the defined value drivers (SBO’s and CSF’s) and the
performance drivers (KPI’s & PPI’s), as well as how the organization applies them to their
competencies, processes, and services. As illustrated in figure 5, the core aspects of Value
Oriented Process Modelling are therefore about linking the various aspects together, this
includes:
1. Value Drivers (SBO’s and CSF’s)
2. Performance Drivers (KPI’s & PPI’s)
3. Organizational components (relevant Business Competencies)
4. The responsible person
5. The relevant business tier i.e. strategic, tactical or operational
6. The appropriate and related process that links to all above points
7. Specification of the innovation and transformation aspects:
Figure 5: Value Oriented Process Modelling (25)
46
Once the process has been sorted according to the value oriented aspects the organization
now fully understands the value of their process investments, the relationship to their
organizational components (relevant business competencies), the responsible persons or
owners involved and thereby also a link to evidence based decision making.
Value Oriented Process Modelling in addition enables a whole new way of interlinking to the
enterprise innovation and transformation aspects. Thereby enabling not only Value Oriented
Process analysis, design, built and implementation, it ensures that the business innovation and
transformation happens along in the progression. The interlink to innovation and
transformation however prerequisites that all the processes involved need to be mapped to the
value and performance indicators. The reason this is so vital is that as illustrated in figure 6,
there will be strategies that will have different critical success factors, all however supporting
the same strategy. In order to ensure consistency of Value Oriented Process Modelling and to
make sure that the strategies are executed all relevant processes must be included. If not it
will be a siloed view of strategy execution. Good enough for Value Oriented Process Design,
but not good enough for full Value Oriented Process Modelling, which must include aspects
of innovation and transformation.
Figure 6: Value Oriented Process Modelling and the link to common strategy but different value and performance
indicator (25)
Conclusion
In this Paper we have elaborated on what Value Oriented Process Modelling is and how it
differentiates to the traditional process analysis, process design, process implementation and
process governance considerations. We furthermore illustrated practical examples on who
applies Value Oriented Process Modelling and how it enables the link to innovation and
transformation. Enabling organizations, with the ability, to have a whole new way of
addressing their processes as core enterprise assets.
47
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48