Business Process Management and Optimization Glossary

• Process Map Role: A position in a process in a Process Mapping Project. Refer to Author, Expert, Commenter, Reader, and Librarian.
• Author: The person who prepares and is responsible for any Specific Process Map or diagram.
• Commenter: A Process Map reader/analyst with sufficient training in Process Mapping techniques who can offer specific comments using the reader note numbering system. The Commenter may also identify flaws in the application of the Process Mapping technique itself. An assigned reader shares responsibility with the author for the quality of the Process Mapping kit, diagram, or other Process Mapping results.
• Expert: A person familiar with a part of the real-world system (or subject) is being mapped. May serve as a source of information or as a reviewer of part of the Process Map.
• Librarian: The person responsible for routing and tracking of Process Map kits and keeping orderly project files and archives.
• Reader: A person with (limited) training in the Process Mapping technique sufficient to accurately interpret syntax and basic meanings and to read and write reader notes who sees part or all of a Process Map.
• Process Owner: A designated person within the business process who has authority to manage the process and responsibility for its overall output performance.

• Activity Diagram: Contains the top-level function being mapped and its inputs, controls, and mechanisms along with statements of the map's purpose and viewpoint. A single activity may represent an entire process that is being mapped.
• Activity: A business process, function, or task that occurs over time and has objective, measurable results. Activities transform input transactions into output transactions, operating under some for of external controls, and use resources in the transformation process.
• Activity Based Costing: A form of cost accounting that examines the cost of each business process function as part of process mapping, focusing on identifying non-value-added process functions to they can be eliminated.
• Activity Dependence: An activity intermeshed with other activities in such a way that the first dependent activity cannot be executed until one or more outputs of other activities have been received or accomplished.
• Activity Process Mapping: A technique used to define the "As-Is" and "To-Be" configuration of a process.
• Alternative path: A path through a process map composed of one or more operational process tasks for the primary process activity. In simple flow charting it may be preceded by a decision diamond.
• "As-Is" Process Map: A Process Map that represents the current state of the operation that has been mapped, without any specific improvements or changes to existing processes.
• "To-Be" Process Map: A Process Map that show the results of applying change improvement opportunities to the current AS-IS process operations.
• Business Rules: Are about making decisions from a collection of assertions or "facts." They are especially useful when the potential set of facts is large, such as those determining whether to approve a loan, what premium to charge for car insurance, or the applicable discount to a particular customer for a particular set of products at a particular point in time.
• Glossary: A lining of definitions for key words, phrases, and acronyms used in conjunction with a Process Map node or Process Map as a whole.
• Paperless Environment: is a process by which a company reduces the use of paper within business processes. Many of the common problems that organizations experience related to their business correspondence - manual handling errors, increasing IT complexity, slow processes, high postage costs, and competitive pressures. Exchanging documents in real time makes it possible to prevent the need to resend documents, re-ship orders, or re-send invoices due to human errors.
• Process: A sequence of steps, tasks, or activities that converts inputs from suppliers to an output. A work process should add value to the inputs by changing them or using them to produce something new.
• Process Modeling: is the use of information and graphics to represent processes in a consistent way. It typically includes a knowledge repository or database of processes and allows graphical entry and display of results. Process modeling typically produces multiple views or diagrams of a process such as flowcharts, swim lanes, and UML Diagrams.
• Process analysis: is the means by which existing processes can be objectively analyzed to evaluate how effective and efficient they actually are. One of the key components is Process Mapping. A Process Map is simply a graphical way of representing the process flows and activities.
• Process automation: is the application of software applications, tools and infrastructure to manage routine activities in order to free up employees to handle exceptions or perform more creative work. Automation can create tremendous efficiency by eliminating non value added tasks, reducing process latency, and ensuring a process is implemented in a consistent manner.
• Productivity improvement: analyze and quantify the productivity gains possible through the implementation of new technologies. For example, rapid access to product demand information can enable improvements in production scheduling, procurement, manufacturing, and customer service.
• Process improvement: is the act of incrementally exceeding the expectations or requirements of a process through continual enhancements and refinements.
• Process reengineering: is a process improvement technique that involves the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in cost, quality, service, and speed.
• Standardized process: is one which represents a single way of doing an activity, in which all employees do the activity the same way all of the time, across multiple strategic business units. The advantages of standardization are lower process overhead, less complicated information systems, and more transparency among business units.