Save time, effort, and money in digital automation by comprehensively documenting business processes

When organisations develop and implement digital solutions, process professionals are already well aware of the importance of keeping everything organised and well-managed. This includes documenting and keeping track of all the technical aspects, like code and configurations, so that a solution meets the business requirements today and allows for easy updates in the future. However, sometimes we need to remember to do the same for the business processes that systems support. It’s crucial to keep those processes organised and up-to-date to ensure the best results from the solution and build upon the efforts already invested.

So why are business assets created during a project still being treated as being disposable? Why do we still encounter the following sorts of conversations when we start a large project:

• “We need to setup workshops with the [very busy] subject matter experts to document our business processes [again].”

• “The person who used to do that moved on, so we need to figure out how ‘X’ works.”

• “We’re not sure when, or why, the process changed.”

• “Make it do what this spreadsheet/current system does.”

Documenting and maintaining business processes

At SpecMojo, we believe that business processes are at least as valuable to an organisation as any technical asset and should be treated with the same care. But established methods of capturing and documenting business processes have proven to be slow, inaccurate, and almost impossible to maintain.

SpecMojo was created to help organisations significantly improve business process capture in a manner ideal to supporting digital automation initiatives. We’ve seen, first-hand, the cost of time spent understanding, documenting, and versioning, processes, and the flow-on effects of delays and re-work when processes are not captured accurately, and/or in enough detail.

Automation initiatives increase the need to treat business process capture, retention, and maintenance, as a key asset

Gartner’s Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2022 Report reveals that automation initiatives are increasingly common among organisations, with 56% implementing four or more concurrent hyperautomation projects on average and some leading companies executing over 10.

To be successful with automation it’s crucial to capture and manage business processes, including identifying which processes can and should be automated, and assessing the associated benefits and risks. Gartner recommends planning and architecting multiple concurrent initiatives to ensure a holistic approach to automation, and avoid isolated task ‘islands’. We believe in this approach, and that’s why SpecMojo enables effective collaboration among process professionals and other business stakeholders (both technical and non-technical).

Gartner also acknowledges that a diverse group of personnel known as ‘business technologists’ – those who possess the skills, interest, motivation, and job scope to conceptualise, design, develop, test, and produce technology, data, and analytics solutions – play a significant role in successful automation. However, existing software tools lack the necessary efficiency and collaboration capabilities required to support these stakeholders in delivering automation projects. SpecMojo addresses this gap. It supports business technologists, analysts, and other process professionals, in capturing and managing specifications for automation initiatives efficiently, and precisely, mitigating delays, errors, and rework.

With SpecMojo’s powerful version control, nothing is lost

SpecMojo tooling and notation means that extremely valuable business process definitions can be captured; and with strong version control, retained and carried forward. A centralised, identity-managed, and searchable, repository allows teams across the business to seamlessly work on various initiatives, accurately reusing business process assets. SpecMojo serves as the centralised source of truth.

When business-driven changes are needed, they are captured collaboratively in SpecMojo, and versioned as changes to existing processes. The changes are tagged and identified as belonging together, so scope is easily tracked, and any process amendments are subsequently traceable back to the project (or Service Request, Epic, Story, or whatever you work with as a “Vehicle of Change”).

If you need to understand what a business process looked like at a given point in time, look at the versions that were live at that point in time. If you want to abandon a change, revert to a previous version. When the new versions of processes have been agreed upon and finalised, the tags will be passed to the development team. The differences between versions will provide the requirement specifications for technical change. Once the changes are complete and implemented, the new versions in SpecMojo become the reference for current “live” processes, immediately ready for the next changes to be captured.

SpecMojo delivers great productivity benefits to Business Analysts and process professionals

Use SpecMojo to collaborate with various stakeholders, streamline communications, share relevant knowledge, and gain agreement on a specification (based on different views relevant to the audience), thus improving outcomes.

Benefit from powerful searchability and filtering across all specifications, down to the finest details. Create and manage a dictionary to identify terms, and reference them across all specifications, encouraging consistency ,and enhancing clarity and understanding.

Ready to explore SpecMojo and try it out for yourself? Get in touch to find out more about SpecMojo and how it can benefit your organisation.