Business Activity Maps

Business Activity Maps

We visually capture the way your business operates and your workforce behaves. We engage with all levels of stakeholders via 1 to 1 interviews, group workshops, ‘at desk’ observations, as well as through local and remote audits; using the Business Definition Framework methodology and specialist mapping software from various vendors to define and share how your business works.

Principles of the Business Definition Framework (BDF)

Adroit & Associates utilise the BDF approach in ensuring that both ‘business operations’ and ‘business behaviours’ are defined and aligned with each other in order to maximise benefits and help you deliver your goals. We create an operations framework that is also aligned to the core values and ethos of the organisation... ensuring the organisation does what it says at its core.

The power of the BDF approach is in its simplicity and how that is applied by practitioners following these principles:

The goal is common understanding

Whether analysing a current state situation (as-is) or designing the future (to-be) the goal is to create something that is understood in the same way by everyone involved. The content produced may be used by many different stakeholders from very different backgrounds. The BDF approach brings these together around a common purpose.

Simplicity is preferred to perfection

The purpose of the approach is not to create an overly detailed model of how things work. It does, however, provide enough information to help teams, and individuals, make informed decisions.

Simple rules applied rigorously

Models created using the BDF approach are for the purpose of understanding, communication and sharing with the widest possible audience. Rule sets should be small and simple enough that a non-practitioner can easily understand and remember them. At the same time they should preserve the integrity of the model and ensure ease of use.

Activities are the building blocks

All work can be described by activities; an activity which transforms inputs into outputs and is carried out by a resource be it human or system.

Outcomes over activities

All work should deliver some sort of value, either directly or indirectly, to the customer. As such, every activity described should add something to the overall purpose in the form of an output.

All work has an owner

Just as no work should be undertaken without a clear purpose, nor should work be carried out without authority. All workers should be empowered to make decisions that lead to the desired outcome. This authority is only possible when the person who owns the work, and its outcome, is known.

Related information is presented in context

Any audience should be able to easily access information related to the work through reference - or linkage - directly from the relevant place in the model.

Work is deconstructed

Context is provided by first defining the highest level of work then deconstructing activities to understand how specific processes are performed within the system that is the business. Deconstruction is continued until the right level of detail required to effectively communicate the purpose of the process is reached.

The single source of truth

Models should be easily accessible to all audiences and it should be clear which version is being viewed.

BDF Origins

At its core the BDF is a model based approach to defining activities within a system or organisation. It is based on IDEF0, a systems analysis approach developed by the US Air Force in the 1970s which has been simplified for general business use. Models are constructed by describing work as a series of activities each with an input, an output and a supporting resource. Each activity in a flow can be deconstructed into another level of detail providing traceability between individual activities and its higher level context. The approach is applied according to a set of principles that ensure the focus is on success and not the accurate application of a notation.