Effort Engineering Quarter

Process Engineering Quarter (hereinafter, the Quarter) is the first of four lectures of Effort Quadrivium (hereinafter, the Quadrivium):

• The Quarter is designed to introduce its learners to enterprise discovery, or, in other words, to concepts related to obtaining data needed to administer the enterprise effort; and
• The Quadrivium examines concepts of administering various types of enterprises known as enterprise administration as a whole.

The Quadrivium is the first of seven modules of Septem Artes Administrativi, which is a course designed to introduce its learners to general concepts in business administration, management, and organizational behavior.

Outline

The predecessor lecture is Controlling Quarter.

Concepts

1. Process engineering.
   • Engineering. The application of scientific principles to practical ends.
2. Process. A series of activities undertaken in order to achieve one or more of particular results. In other words, a process is a predefined, empiric, and/or merely chaotic way of work. Process engineering considers that those activities convert inputs into desired outputs utilizing some process assets and being influenced by some enterprise factors. Projects or operations can be viewed as a set of processes.
   • Business process. A set of defined ad-hoc or sequenced collaborative activities performed in a repeatable fashion by an organization. Processes are triggered by events and may have multiple possible outcomes. A successful outcome of a process will deliver value to one or more stakeholders.
   • Input. A variable that leads to processes.
     1. Input. A material, service or support item that is processed by the system.
   • Output. An immediate and direct result of a process.
   • Outcome. A key factor that is affected by some other variables.
   • Organizational process asset. All materials used by groups within an organization to define, tailor, implement, and maintain their processes.
   • Technique. Techniques alter the way a business analysis task is performed or describe a specific form the output of a task may take.
   • Cycle. refers to the total amount of time it takes for a single task or work item to travel through the workflow from the beginning of work until it ships.
3. Production.
   • Process production. The production of items in continuous process.
   • Unit production. The production of items in units or small batches.
   • Production environment. A term describing the setting where a product is put into use by customers on a regular basis.
   • Operational support. A stakeholder who helps to keep the solution functioning, either by providing support to end users (trainers, help desk) or by keeping the solution operational on a day-to-day basis (network and other tech support).
4. Activity. Any enterprise effort performed as part of a process. An activity shall have its own name and description; most often, they have one or more predecessor activities and successor activities. Planned activities may have their expected input resources, process assets, time frames, and costs; completed activities may have their actual data. Activities may be subdivided into tasks.
   • Activity diagram. A model that illustrates the flow of processes and/or complex use cases by showing each activity along with information flows and concurrent activities. Steps can be superimposed onto horizontal swimlanes for the roles that perform the steps.
   • Workflow diagram. A graphical representation of activities and actions conducted by users of a system. (Sometimes called an activity diagram.)
5. Process model. A visual model or representation of the sequential flow and control logic of a set of related activities or actions.
   • Swimlane. The horizontal or vertical section of a process model that show which activities are performed by a particular actor or role.
   • Network path. Any continuous series of connected activities in a project network diagram.
   • Float. The amount of time that an activity may be delayed from its early start without delaying the project finish date. Float is a mathematical calculation, and can change as the project progresses and changes are made to the project plan. Also called slack time, total float, and path float. See also free float.
   • Slack time. The amount of time an individual activity can be delayed without delaying the whole project.
   • Process map. A business model that shows a business process in terms of the steps and input and output flows across multiple functions, organizations, or job roles.
6. Logical relationship. A dependency between two project activities, or between a project activity and a milestone. The four possible types of logical relationships are: (1) finish-to-start — the initiation of work of the successor depends upon the completion of work of the predecessor; (2) finish-to-finish — the completion of the work of the successor cannot finish until the completion of work of the predecessor; (3) start-to-start — the initiation of work of the successor depends upon the initiation of the work of the predecessor; (4) start-to-finish — the completion of the successor is dependent upon the initiation of the predecessor.
   • Dependence. B's relationship to A when A possesses something that B requires.
   • Predecessor activity. The "from" activity.
   • Successor activity. The "to" activity.
   • Lag. A modification of a logical relationship that directs a delay in the successor task. For example, in a finish-to-start dependency with a ten-day lag, the successor activity cannot start until ten days after the predecessor has finished. See also lead.
   • Lead. A modification of a logical relationship that allows an acceleration of the successor task. For example, in a finish-to-start dependency with a ten-day lead, the successor activity can start ten days before the predecessor has finished. See also lag.
   • Network logic. The collection of activity dependencies that makes up a project network diagram.
7. System. A set of interrelated and interdependent parts arranged in a manner that produces a unified whole.
   • System. A collection of interrelated elements that interact to achieve an objective. System elements can include hardware, software, and people. One system can be a sub-element (or subsystem) of another system.
   • System. A set of interrelated components working together to produce a desired result.
   • Mission. An undertaking that is supported by the system to be designed to be successful (e.g. space mission).
   • Open system. A system that interacts with its environment.
   • Closed system. A system that is not influenced by and does not interact with its environment.
   • External interface. An interface with other systems (hardware, software, and human) that a proposed system will interact with.
   • Boundary. A separation between the interior of a system and what lies outside.
   • Context diagram. An analysis model that illustrates product scope by showing the system in its environment with the external entities (people and systems) that give to and receive from the system.
     1. Context. The users, other systems and other features of the environment of the system that the system will interact with.
8. Business event. A system trigger that is initiated by humans.
   • Event. An event is something that occurs to which an organizational unit, system, or process must respond.
   • Temporal event. A system trigger that is initiated by time.
   • Event response table. An analysis model in table format that defines the events (i.e., the input stimuli that trigger the system to carry out some function) and their responses.
9. Feedback. Information about the output of a system that can be used to adjust it.
   • Feedback. The degree to which carrying out the work activities required by a job results in the individual obtaining direct and clear information about the effectiveness of his or her performance.
   • Feedback. The degree to which carrying out work activities required by a job results in the individual's obtaining direct and clear information about her or his performance effectiveness.
   • Output. What is produced by a system.
   • Desired outcome. The business benefits that will result from meeting the business need and the end state desired by stakeholders.
10. Systems engineering. The orderly process of bringing a system into being using a systems approach.
    • Systems approach. The application of a systematic disciplined engineering approach that considers the system as a whole, its impact on its environment and continues throughout the lifecycle of a project.
    • System design. The identification of all the necessary components, their role, and how they have to interact for the system to fulfill its purpose.
    • System integration. The activity of integrating all the components of a system to make sure they work together as intended.
    • Human factor. Also called ergonomics. The scientific discipline of studying interactions between humans and external systems, including human-computer interaction. When applied to design, the study of human factors seeks to optimise both human well-being and system performance.
    • Interdisciplinarity. People from different disciplines working together to design systems.
    • Specifications. The technical requirements for systems design.
    • Datapoint-device architecture.
    • Object-oriented modeling. An approach to software engineering where software is comprised of components that are encapsulated groups of data and functions which can inherit behavior and attributes from other components; and whose components communicate via messages with one another. In some organizations, the same approach is used for business engineering to describe and package the logical components of the business.
11. Quality assurance (QA). (1) Enterprise efforts undertaken in order to evaluate overall performance within processes on a regular basis to provide confidence that the deliverables will satisfy the requirement specifications, customer expectations, and relevant quality standards. In other words, quality assurance include the activities performed to ensure that a process will deliver products that meet an appropriate level of quality; (2) The organizational unit that is assigned responsibility for quality assurance.

Methods

1. Precedence diagramming method (PDM). A network diagramming technique in which activities are represented by boxes (or nodes). Activities are linked by precedence relationships to show the sequence in which the activities are to be performed.
   • Precedence relationship. The term used in the precedence diagramming method for a logical relationship. In current usage, however, precedence relationship, logical relationship, and dependency are widely used interchangeably, regardless of the diagramming method in use.
2. Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT). An event-oriented network analysis technique used to estimate program duration when there is uncertainty in the individual activity duration estimates. PERT applies the critical path method using durations that are computed by a weighted average of optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely duration estimates. PERT computes the standard deviation of the completion date from those of the path's activity durations.
   • PERT network. A flowchart diagram showing the sequence of activities needed to complete a project and the time or cost associated with each.
   • PERT activity. The time or resource needed to progress from one event to another in a PERT network.
   • PERT event. End point that represents the completion of major activities in a PERT network.
   • Critical path. The longest sequence of activities in a PERT network.
3. Critical path method (CPM). A network analysis technique used to predict project duration by analyzing which sequence of activities (which path) has the least amount of scheduling flexibility (the least amount of float). Early dates are calculated by means of a forward pass, using a specified start date. Late dates are calculated by means of a backward pass, starting from a specified completion date (usually the forward pass' calculated project early finish date).
   • Critical path. The series of activities that determines the duration of the project. In a deterministic model, the critical path is usually defined as those activities with float less than or equal to a specified value, often zero. It is the longest path through the project. See critical path method.
   • Critical activity. Any activity on a critical path. Most commonly determined by using the critical path method. Although some activities are "critical," in the dictionary sense, without being on the critical path, this meaning is seldom used in the project context.
4. Six Sigma. A quality program designed to reduce defects and help lower costs, save time, and improve customer satisfaction.
5. DevOps. Practice and a set of concepts, based on that practice, that define culture of unifying software development (Dev) and software operations (Ops). Its signature toolchain represents a chain of tools that fit one of the following categories: (a) Code, (b) Build, (c) Test, (d) Package, (e) Release, (f) Configure, and (e) Monitor.
6. Process consultation. A meeting in which a consultant assists a client in understanding process events with which he or she must deal and identifying processes that need improvement.

Instruments

1. Flowchart software.
   • LibreOffice Draw.
   • Dia software.
   • Inkscape.
2. Big visible chart. A large chart displayed near the Agile team that show how the team is progressing. You could make a big visible chart to show defects, velocity (burndown chart), customer acceptance tests, or to find out how much time the team is wasting.
   • Burndown chart (or Burndown chart). The chart that represents all outstanding work. The vertical axis represents the backlog, while the horizontal axis represents time. The work remaining can be represented by story points, ideal days, team days, or other metrics.
   • Burnup chart (or Burnup chart). The chart that tracks how much work has been completed. There are two lines on the chart—one line represents total work and the other represents work completed. The vertical axis represents the amount of work and can be measured in number of tasks, hours, or story points. The horizontal axis represents time, usually measured in days.
3. Work breakdown structure (WBS). A deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed within a project or operations. This structure organizes and defines the process scope. Each descending level represents an increasingly detailed definition of the work.
   • Responsibility assignment matrix (RAM). A structure that relates the organization structure to the work breakdown structure to help ensure that each element of the work is assigned to a responsible individual.
   • Resource leveling. Any form of network analysis in which scheduling decisions (start and finish dates) are driven by resource management concerns (e.g., limited resource availability or difficult-to-manage changes in resource levels).
4. Linear programming. A mathematical technique that solves resource allocation problems.

Results

1. Performance measurement baseline (or baseline). A point-in-time view of requirements that have been reviewed and agreed upon to serve as a basis for further development and possible changes. In other words, the baseline is any originally-approved plan adjusted by approved changes. Usually, the term baseline is used with a modifier such as product baseline, process baseline, cost baseline, and schedule baseline.

Practices

The successor lecture is Operations Management Quarter.