8.2 Business Analysis and Complicated Modeling Part 2

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So now what we're gonna do is we're going to do a prideful exercise. I'm not going to go super in depth, but it's kind of show you

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how, like maybe online shopping cart might look from a business process model on some of the questions that we might want to ask

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during that process. But remember,

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this is a complicated problem. This is not a complex problem.

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This is a finite number of variables that you can imagine in your head right now, when you're building an online shopping cart,

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there's only a certain number of things that people conduce you in order to gain access or to interact with that website, right? So I'm gonna go ahead and go over to visual Designer. This is because it's for the Mac.

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There is video, which is the most common one for a window of based computers,

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but they all worked relatively similar. So what I've got here is I've got some serious of shapes,

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some of the shapes, some places. Have you no specific rules for about the shapes and tail like, for example, this is often used as like a termination process. The final notice what it says right here,

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another agencies. And so I don't have rules. The only really hard and fast rule that I have seen enforced across all different organizations

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is that the diamond usually indicates some sort of decision tree. Right. So I've got these four objects in front of me.

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I know that my input is going to be accessed the website, and that's pretty much gonna be it. Like there's really no way to access any of the Web site functionality, necessarily without first accessing the Web site. So whenever possible, when you're doing complicated business process modeling,

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if you can create a single input,

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a single output

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Well, actually, don't worry so much about the output, but a single input

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input process output. Right. So your input there's a series of things that can happen.

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Make sure you tie all those together. You don't have any hanging out there, and then you have your output. So I'm gonna go ahead and click the little

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connector button here and I'm gonna say Okay, So when I accessed the website, I have the option to Loggins.

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Maybe I have another option two shot by category

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and another option is shot by item so you might think of these is like menu items on top of a particular website.

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Now, if I choose the logging option, let's just say I'm gonna have another process I'm gonna drag out over here,

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and I'm gonna say, Okay, if you log in that I need to present

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Oh, are prompt for a user name and password.

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Okay,

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So that's what I'm gonna basically tell the programmer when, uh when and if this business process model is approved,

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don't lie. I thought, Let me do an enter.

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There it goes. We'll see if that makes it better.

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Right? Well, it's good enough for now.

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Um, so I'm gonna promise for a user name and password, so if my user clicks log in,

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then I do that, and you can even put in here. Usually they let your type text

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that.

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No, I didn't like that. Okay.

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So I would put right here a little yes option and say okay, if if this action is undertaken, then prompt for a user name and password.

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Okay. Well, that's good. Then what do I do? Well, now, this is gonna lead to another process or even possibly a decision. Tree

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So when I prom for a user name and password,

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that website somehow gonna have to communicate with the database and determine whether that user name and password is valid.

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So let me just use a decision box for now, because it will be easier. And I could go back and change this, obviously, if I needed to.

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Um, So the question is, is it valid? So it's gonna ping back to the database, and it's gonna prompt,

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and it's gonna basically try toe authenticate that user

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user name and password, determine whether it's valid. Okay, If it's not valid,

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then I need to do something else. Right. So I'm gonna show

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invalid dot a S p X. That's just gonna be a Web page that says that they their username and password is not valid.

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Okay.

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And what do I do if it is valid? If it is valid, I'm gonna take them to my account page. Okay,

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so I'll bring that over here.

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I'm going to say redirect to my account. That s

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and again, I'm just making this up on the fly. This is not any kind of real specific to any one individual upside, but it's kind of pretty standard across most websites. This is basically how they kind of flow out.

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So I'm gonna redirect. Okay, Great

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on. And then again in here, I'd want to put a text box if I could get again. No, I just have to figure out a put text boxes on the lines. But, uh, once I put the text box in there, that would say yes.

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And the other one would say no. Okay.

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Now, is that the end of that process? Not necessarily what we can get to that later.

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So then I got my shot by category options so they haven't logged in, but they want a shot by category. So if they click that button, what am I going to do? So I'm gonna go to category

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Dottie spx

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I think I spelled it wrong,

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but basically, I'm just gonna have them go to that web page. And then and then I'm going to have another process flow that's going to exist either on another document or later on this document

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That's going to specify what options are available to them when they go to category. Uhm so then you've got long in shop by category shot by item. You might have a key word search

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so you could d'oh! Keyword search

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that could have its own Siri's of functionality based on that.

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Now, the key thing about this business process modeling, and I like to use flow diagrams because, well, twofold. One.

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Very few people, in my experience once sit there and read hundreds and hundreds of pages of requirements documentation that just tends to Ben. And then they zone out and they don't get it.

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Whereas a picture kind of tell that that picture's picture's worth 1000 words, it really shows you what's going to happen with this new system that you built.

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For example, the biggest flow diagram that I did.

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I was in 12.5 using busy Oh, nothing

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super big. I mean, actual objects were fairly small, but when we printed it out on a slaughter paper, it took up like a 16 by eight foot wall, 16 feet wide, eight feet tall.

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But what made it really interesting and cool to have that level of business process analysis done via flow chart?

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Is that

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any given point during our discussions in our meeting, somebody could walk up to the wall point to the specific process or decision box that we were talking about

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and really flow it all the way out to the very end of the process.

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So,

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um, that's why I like I like the visual aid of this type of thing.

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The second thing I like about this is as a

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I t person or programmer developer, we're gonna call it.

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What I conducive with this is look for what's called open loops.

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So any time that I can go from just to this to this and I don't have like, for example, under this diamond, I don't have to,

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uh, guess And no option I haven't opened loop. So, for example, right now, this logging has an open loop.

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If you click the log in, it does this. If you don't click log in, you know, then what else? What could do? So any time you have an open loop,

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what? You open yourself up to our holding your process and therefore holes in your program. So if somebody, for example, goes to category I s P X, and you don't

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allow them to then log in during the select a category, select a product at it to my car. Check out.

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You got sort of a noble oot there because at no point did you redirect them back to this log in functionality.

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So using ah video were a flow chart type document for business process. Analysis is a really good way to also spot those open loops. And as you can see from my sample, we do have some open loops. And, of course, if I was doing this for Riel,

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I would make sure I connect. For example, all of these would have to be connected because if they don't choose long in,

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then did they choose shot by category. If they didn't you shot by category. So it's on.

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So they have to do something. I have to close all those loops and have some sort of functionality that's going to prevent them from finding a hole in my online shopping cart.

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That's a very brief

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exercise, but it's kind of give you an idea of what business process smiling looks like. And again, that's for complicated problems. You cannot model via busy Oh, how hurricane forms or how a school of fish is going to interact with water and change directions. Right? That's just too many variables.

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But for things with a finite number of variables,

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business process modeling is a great way to get everybody on the same page. And it's definitely one of the things that,

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um, we really have learned and taken

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Frederick Winslow Taylor's findings the heart and really improve the efficiency of almost every organization in the last 100 150 years.

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So in summary,

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we went over business analysis today, and we also went over a complicated process. Modeling

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next lesson will go over a complex process modeling.