The outcomes give the direction of the Process Analysis. Indeed there’s many ways to investigate a process and get some findings, but the ones we really care about are the ones which make sense for the business.
It’s a good practice to list them at this stage first. Once listed the business users will have to verify and agree they fit to their objectives.
We can consider 2 kinds of outcomes:
- The quantifiable outcomes.
- The non-quantifiables outcomes (based on quality or satisfaction for example).
Quantifiable outcomes
For the measurables (quantifiables) it’s pretty easy to list them out. But even if they look clear it’s also important to precise their context. Like every measure they have a sense or a value in a specific context. So, Being able to specify for each measure, what they are, what they really cover, their context (time, location, organization, etc.) and all about the measure itself is key to avoid any kind of misunderstanding.
Example: For an OTC (Order To Cash) Process, the target could be to reduce the process duration to 1 week maximum. But is this measure valable for all the brands, products, geography, etc. ? Are there any special treatments we may need to consider (like when it’s Black Friday) ?
Quality outcomes
The non-quantifiables outcomes (or KPI, metrics) are more complex to manage as they cannot provide a direct proof of something achieved. For example if the goal is to improve the customer satisfaction … that’s pretty fuzzy isn’t it ? How can we measure something like this ?
Non quantifiable outcomes can not be measured directly !
We may need to find a way to measure something which is not measurable in this case. In this case we’ll have to work in two steps :
- We create a way to measure the non-quantifiable goal, and consequently create a new metric (which does not exists most of the time)
- We agreed with the business about this new metric. It’s important the Business user agrees with that measure, and of course that will be directly linked on the success factor of the project itself.
In our last example (improving the customer satisfaction) why not …
- Launching a sub-project in which we’ll ask the customers what they think about the services and products ? Based on these results we’ll be able to get some interesting metrics on customer satisfaction.
- Analyzing the global duration of solving the customer concerns, issues, orders, etc. If we already know our customers and the market (especially the competition) we could propose some new indicators to the business.