If there is a well-established business process that new projects will enter, you need simply to represent that process in software by building the diagram, attaching names to roles, and adding forms and descriptions. It can be a 30 minute, one-time task for one person. However, if a process is not yet established, it's a very good idea to do so first via detailed discussions with sponsoring management, consideration of available time and talent, motivations, and business expectations. The software is very easy to reconfigure, but once loaded with project data any changes to a process will result in orphaned projects that need to be re-attached to a stage.
Under the Process Design tab, a new process can be created either by modifying an existing process or by starting from scratch using the "Create New Process" button, as shown below. We supply several templates similar to the four described above under Process Design.
Once you have a new or existing process to work with, clicking the Edit Process Properties button opens an editing panel as shown below Here you can give the process a title (the only mandatory entry), a description, color and visual style, and assign its owner(s) and sponsor(s). While not required by the software, these role assignments are usually essential to business success and communication to contributors. The process can have a status of Draft, Live, or Retired; only Live processes are generally visible to everyone.
Clicking save will obviously save your process. If you would like to save a copy (to use as a new process and preserve the original), you can do so by shift- or option-clicking the Save button:
Adding a stage is simply a matter of dragging the Add Stage button to any available position, at which point the stage properties open, ready for editing.
Move a stage by dragging it to any available position. The map will automatically expand to keep extra row and column available.
To edit a stage, double-click it.
Delete a stage by clicking the Delete Stage button, then double-clicking the stage to be removed. Clicking any empty position will cancel the delete mode.
Note that deleting a stage will leave all projects that have gone through, or are in that stage, with a gap in their data. This is the main reason to finalize a process design before adding projects to it.
There are several considerations in editing a stage:
• Give the stage a simple title, brief enough to be legible in the process diagram.
• Use the preceding and following stage lists to put this stage in its correct sequence. Depending on your browser, you may need to shift- or command-click in the lists to select and de-select other stages. If the arrows in the diagram overlap, continue, save this stage, and drag to rearrange the stage boxes later. A stage may have any number (including zero) of inputs and outputs, and the process may have loops.
• You may choose to have a single "No Further Action" stage to which projects may move from any other stage. The diagram will be clearer if no preceding stages are chosen and no arrows drawn. Even so, you will be able to move projects into such a stage.
• Attach any number of forms to this stage. These forms are those you've previously built with Results Engine's form builder, and once attached to a stage, will be filled out by the project owner or project team members as that stage is achieved.
• Pick any stage owners, typically subject-matter experts. It may be necessary to contact them if advice is needed on the nature of the work, or if there is too high a backlog of projects stalled in this stage.
• As the process diagram is constructed the process percent complete value will be filled in automatically, however you can overwrite it with a more appropriate figure. This is the percent complete upon entry to this stage, usually assuming that the last stage is a handoff, i.e. 100% complete upon entry to the last visible stage. As an example, a four-step linear process might not be 0%-33%-67%-100% (which the software would assign itself), but rather 0%-15%-85%- 100% if the third stage were much more complex and costly than the others.
• By checking "does this stage exit the process?", you signify that projects entering this stage will be marked as completed (as opposed to open) in various summary reports and dashboards. This is not automatically set; you should set this true for one or more stages to show completion.
