QPR Management Tools 
Enabling Process Consulting Assignments 

Copyright © 2007 – Jude Chagas Pereira

IYCON FZ LLC
All rights reserved.

IYCON FZ LLC
(Incorporated pursuant to Law No. 1 of 2000 of the Emirate of Dubai establishing the Dubai Technology, Electronic
Commerce and Media Free Zone as a Free Zone Company with Limited Liability)
203, Building No 9, Dubai Internet City, PO Box 28935, Dubai United Arab Emirates
Tel: +971-4-3913520 Fax +9714-3918733
Introduction
A large number of organisations use consultants to deliver Business Process Definition
projects in order to gain documented benefits from such initiatives.

In reality, while benefits will accrue to the end customer from such initiatives, the very
absence of an enabled process to deliver these assignments will impact the effectiveness
of the delivery.

Consulting companies are increasingly implementing Process Tools such as QPR to

more effectively deliver on such projects, as well as to enable the end customers to
seamlessly continue to reap benefits of these initiatives on an ongoing basis.

Challenges in delivering Process Consulting

Assignments
The traditional Process Consulting Assignment usually consists of the following steps.

1. A consultant facilitator leads the discussion and review with management and
staff providing information about current practices.
2. Another consultant takes notes of what is said and what is decided.
3. The consultants return to their offices and convert their notes into documents
using separate text and diagramming tools; usually Microsoft Word and Visio.
4. Some days later the draft documents are submitted for review by the meeting
attendees, who by this time will have other priorities on their mind.
5. They may wait several days before reviewing the document and when they do
they have difficulty recalling what was said.
6. Changes to the draft document are suggested by attendees. Another meeting
may be held to resolve disputes between individual views but trying to get the
original attendees together is difficult and by the time they have reconvened
recollection of their original discussions is poor.
7. Error and compromise introduced through the extended process are repeated in
all functional areas of the organization being reviewed.
8. Every time changes are introduced the consultants need to ensure that they
correctly modify both the text and the associated diagrams - not only in terms of
synchronizing the wording and flow but also ensuring the integrity of the
process. For example, if entry of a resource is removed from an order taking
process (e.g. selecting the Sales Rep) associated references to the resource
should also be removed (such as a subsequent debt collection activity for the
Rep).
9. The delivery of the consulting assignment is usually documents in Microsoft
Word or Visio.
10. With the constant pressure to change processes and improve efficiency a
company needs a regular process review program, at least quarterly, rather than
waiting till inefficiencies are impacting the bottom line. However, review and
maintenance of the Word and Vision documents makes the process review
exercise so problematic that they are undertaken rarely, if ever.

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Concrete Benefits in Using QPR during Process
Consulting Assignments
With the use of QPR during Process Consulting Assignments, the entire focus shifts to
delivering the process models and recommending benefits, and removes the overhead of
managing the process repository and associated attributes of the process such as job
descriptions and responsibility matrices.

The following is an example of deploying a process consulting assignment using QPR

and associated benefits.

1. Create a template on QPR ProcessGuide which contains the relevant process

framework for the assignment. This will consist of the following:-
a. Existing Organisational Hierarchy (these will be displayed as swim lanes
on the process map)
b. Process Hierarchy
c. Standard Modelling Notation to be used in the assignment

Benefits:-
 This template may be used for other similar consulting assignments as
QPR ProcessGuide allows new models to be used based on existing
templates/models.
 QPR ProcessGuide security options, ensures that Team Members will
work within this process framework and this will lead to a uniform
delivery. For e.g. as the hierarchy is already defined, Team Members
will find the reporting structure easily available. There will not be
inaccuracies due to misspellings or abbreviations (e.g. Mktg. Manager
instead of Marketing Manager).
 Enforcing a standard modelling notation ensures that even new team
members will be able to quickly understand the modelling framework.

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2. Planning a rapid deployment.
QPR ProcessGuide can be used to plan a rapid deployment. Using the advanced
user rights, different team members can be:
a. Assigned the rights to modify or view different main processes and sub
process structures.
b. Sensitive processes can be protected with rights being assigned to
selected team members and other members having no access.
Benefits:-
 Sensitive information is protected through user rights, although with
appropriate permissions, this can be viewed along with the entire model.
 Team members can work on their allotted sections, and if provided view
access to others work, will be able to get a “big picture” view of the
processes very quickly. This will lead to better documentation of the
processes and process alignment.

3. Executing the assignment

At the team level the following would be the steps taken on QPR ProcessGuide
to complete the assignment.

Execution is usually very quick as the time is spent on creating process

structures and QPR ProcessGuide generates other associated information which
would otherwise need to be created.
a. The Process diagrams are first created by placing the responsible
“organisation elements” onto the process map.
b. Sub Processes and activities are then arranged based on inputs from the
Process Owner.
c. Existing
documentation
and procedures
can be attached
to the process
maps creating a
front end
repository.

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d. Processes can be version controlled based on revisions and discussions
with the customer.

e. Full audit trail logging at the process model level and the individual sub
process level enable accountability for changes made to the process
model.
f. Process Models can be “checked out” for use offline from the server,
enabling full process modelling capabilities while at the customer’s site.
Once the team members are back in office, the process model will be
“checked in” to the server and changes made will be replicated.
g. Team leaders and Project Managers get to view the latest available
process model on the server with all associated linked documents and
other details.
h. Creating “Responsibility Matrices” is also very simple on the process
maps. Within a QPR process map, the responsible designation (“doer”)
is defined by the organisational unit band which moves horizontally
across the processes. For each subprocess and main process (and
activity if relevant) QPR allows us to select the designation of the
process owner or accountable person for the process. This is graphically
defined by the designation of the process owner on the process box
itself.

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It is possible to generate a summary report by designation as shown under. This report
can be filtered for an individual designation or provide a report for all designations.

i. It is also possible to add Job Descriptions & Competencies for each

position on the Organisation Hierarchy. Within QPR, custom attribute
fields are created within the process model. The required custom
attribute field can then be assigned to the organisational units and filled
up as required. Having the job description linked to be organisational
unit allows easy verification of whether the tasks being performed by
the position described is adequately reflected in the job description in
terms of dimensions accountabilities and skill sets.
j. In the screenshot below, we can see that on the left side we have the
organisational chart with the reporting hierarchy, and for the selected
job position on the right side we have the different fields of the job
description.

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 Benefits:-
Multiple benefits accrue from using QPR as a tool in Process Consulting.
 Creation of a Process Repository with best practice processes by industry
 Creation of base process templates for new assignments
 Transparency and accountability during the process implementation due
to logging and online publishing.
 Delivery of process documents on Microsoft Word (auto created from
QPR ProcessGuide)
 Optional delivery of the QPR ProcessGuide Model itself, to enable the
customer to carry forward the process initiative.
 Create comprehensive business process models showing high level and
details illustrating the most current status of your operations.
 Standardize work practices by designing uniform guidelines e.g. for
quality systems
 Re-engineer and improve the business processes to ensure optimized
flow of materials, resources and information
 Quickly review resource (human or system) utilization per organization
and find the detailed information about a resource or activity.
 Simulate processes to identify potential bottlenecks, optimize resource
utilization and validate improvements.
 Analyze processes, illustrate and benchmark results with the highly
visual and easy-to-understand graphs and reports of QPR ProcessGuide.

Conclusion
The traditional methods of consulting are being quickly replaced by tool based
consulting which will enable consulting firms to deliver better results in a shorter time,
which translates to more project profitability for the consulting firms.

QPR products are leading the way in providing these benefits.

For additional information please browse to www.iycon.com

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