Understand Phase

A key outcome of the understand phase is where choices are made about what will happen to processes (step 8), in order to provide direction for the next phase.

For this Discussion describe an experience where a decision was made to improve, redesign, outsource, or eliminate a process.

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1. Describe the problems with the process that led to the decision.
2. Describe what the decision was.
3. Describe how that decision was made (Who made it? Who was consulted? How data was collected, if at all).
4. Describe the outcome. Did things get better?
5. Was the process handled well? Why, or why not?

Follow the numbered format and clearly lay out your answers instead of putting them all together in a few paragraphs. Be specific with each element you discuss.

Do not forget to cite and reference your sources in APA format (use the Kaplan Writing Center for APA help).

Root cause analysis is another key component of the understand phase (step 5). It is very important at this point to identify what is causing the problems with a process, so as not to treat only the symptoms. If the root causes are not resolved, the problems will manifest themselves in different ways even after the BPM project.

For this Discussion topic, first explain, in your own words, what the difference is between root-cause analysis and simply identifying issues in a process.

Then, research and describe an article or a case study where a company has performed a successful root-cause analysis. This means they went deeper than identifying just the symptoms. Explain what the symptoms were and what root causes they identified as the culprits.

Make sure to describe how they accomplished this—there are various specific methodologies beyond sitting and talking in a room that can be used for this purpose. For example, root-cause analysis is part of Six Sigma, which has specific tools for carrying this out.

If you cannot clearly show the distinction between the root causes and symptoms in the case, then you do not have the right case. You are not looking for cases where someone just identified problems by talking to people—root-cause analysis is a very specific term that describes going beyond what issues are first identified—your example should demonstrate this in depth analysis.

In the effort to identify ways to improve a process, a commonly recommended method is to benchmark against “best practices.” While the idea of looking at the best is attractive, this approach is not without its potential problems. For this Discussion, do the following:

1. Describe one pro and one con of benchmarking against best practices.
2. Give one example where this approach is recommended and one example where it is not.