Depending on the assignment and organization it can be needed to make a hierarchical process decomposition. Not only to get an overview of WHAT is done within the organization/department, but also in order to support the scoping of the assignment. What of the functions that are performed in order to reach the organization’s objectives are in scope of what not?

In the ideal way one should make a process decomposition with the organization objectives as a starting point. Starting at the high level organization objective, you should ask the question ”WHAT” functions should we perform to the achieve this objective (at a high level e.g. inbound logistics, operations, marketing & sales and service). The next step would be to ask per underlying  function (e.g. inbound logistics) what the objective is and what functions we should perform to achieve this objective. In the end the result is a kind of tree of functions, giving an overview of WHAT functions are performed. This model is implementation independent and says nothing about by whom, when or how functions are performed!

The decomposition can be displayed using value added chains or process allocations diagrams. See the corresponding techniques.

Preparation

• Participants: process owners, process stakeholders (e.g. internal customers), executioners

Input

• Product, market, channel, customer analysis
• Value added chains level 1 and 2

Execution

1. Introduce business process mindset and methodology.
2. Present the L1 and L2 value added chains.
3. Select from L2 value added chain a business process to be detailed. Put up a blank brown paper and write the business process name on top.
4. Brainstorm on what processes exist at L3. In case there are multiple products/services within scope of this business process, start off with one and use SIPOC methodology.
5. Moderate the results of the brainstorm into a value added chain.
6. When completing the L3 value added chain with the other products/services (when applicable) is might be the case that there are different process scenarios.
7. Document process strengths
8. Document process pain points
9. Document process opportunities
10. Determine next steps for detailing the L4 process flow diagrams. Determine with whom this is to be done and how possible existing documentation is to be used within the new end-to-end value added chain structure.

Output

• High level Process flow diagrams
• Strengths
• Pain points
• Opportunities, including critical success factors