Visio vis-a-vis Telelogic System Architect for Process Mapping

I have been using MS Visio for more than 3 years and primarily for Process Mapping. However I started using TELELOGIC System Architect from my last assignment. I have come out with my views on both the software. I might be biased towards Visio as far as the ease of use is concerned. Please feel free to disagree if you have used both and feel otherwise. And let me remind you we are discussing the usability of both for process mapping.

Just click on the rows below and scroll..



However if i were to give a final view, I would suggest visio to smaller companies going in for process mapping for various reaons like process improvement or BPR. However even if the company can invest in a costly tool like Telelogic, it can go for it only when they intend to use the process maps for BPM or development of software.

Integrating Visio and MS Project 2007

Stumbled upon this interesting article.

Integrating Visio 2007 and Project 2007
Summary: Microsoft Office Project 2007 and Microsoft Office Visio 2007 provide integration capabilities that previous versions did not provide. You can take advantage of these capabilities by using a combination of native features and COM add-in features.

This article from MSDN net say you can have real good integration between MS Project 2007 and the project planning diagrams in VISIO. Its wonderful in the sense that you can add some visual treat to the ease of managing the project. The feature that creats a timeline in visio from a WBS in msProject is really great.

So are the possibilities of using the new pivot diagram features in visio 2007 with data crtical data from Project(like effort, cost etc.)

You got to read this article to see all that is possible.

However i should mention that all this is possible only by using an add-in "Visio Connector for Project/EPM/SPS"

You can find the full arcticle here:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa827350.aspx

Some interesting New features in Visio 2007

I was going through some of the features of Visio 2007. Here is something within my work area that I found interesting. Few on Process Improvement and one ITIL Template.

Business Process Improvement Template

It’s not just visually more appealing, it has gone a step further in enabling you to visually represent relevant data such as
- Time taken for the activity
- Status of the activity/document

Since these fields used to be in the custom property tab, I believe we can as well represent anything else (like the functional role executing the activity) by adding in custom property. One step closer to telelogic style representation!!!

Process/Data Analysis with Visio:
You can actually link live data with the process diagram. Then see the visual diagram to find out the constraints/analyze the process. The diagram below would give you an idea.

The green boxes show actual data (picked up from an external source like xls sheet or access db). So in the diagram above Warehouse area could be a constraint!!!!

You can actually go one step further and make dashboards for process preformance tracking!! with a feature called Insert Pivot Diagrams.

Diagram and resize any businesses processes
Would really help solve the problem of how to place longer process in visio maps.
MS Website says “Diagram a business process on one page and enlarge it as much as you like, or divide the process diagram onto separate pages in the same drawing file. Keep the separate sections of a TQM process linked by using Off-Page Reference shapes that can include a hyperlink to the next section of the process on another page. And, specify whether you want to keep the text in the reference shapes synchronized.”

Value Stream Mapping Template: A new addition

ITIL Template: A new addition
MS Website says “Office Visio Professional 2007 also includes the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) template. ITIL is a framework that IT professionals use to identify and establish best practices for their IT service and incident management process flows. The ITIL Diagram template provides attractive and functional shapes to create and enhance existing diagrams that need to conform to ITIL standards.”

What i could clearly see is the new stencils for boths ITIL and Value stream mapping. There are shapes for different departments and different events for value stream mapping. For ITIL there are some required shapes like events, helpdesk, CMDB, various network components etc.

Have to wait till i get my hands on the software and start working on it...

Ammunition for Process Mapping - BPMN

On: February 5, 2007
It was quite some time that i had been doing process mapping armed with nothing more than Visio and its Basic Flowchart Shapes Stencil. Seemed good enough.

But as i walked into one of the biggest enterprise wide Process Mapping excersises I was introduced to System Architect ( a product from Telelogic). And very quickly i realized i what i was missing. To add to it, i was enthrusted the task of converting the existing visio maps to confirm to BPMN.

I would have loved to present a Before-After comparision here but i m not sure if this blog allows pictures to post. But some of the points are outlined below:
1- Uniformity: The process maps made by various individuals varied to a great extent in the way they treated the flow and representation of business logic. But BPMN outlines clear guidelines for representation of business flows.
2- The Basic Flowchart stencil definitely lacks some of the very useful shapes, the most significant being:
2.1- Gateways(OR/XOR/AND): with the simple decision box that it provided it was very difficult to represent the actual dependency of one of the inputs for an activity.
2.2- Presentation of Exception/Compensation events: Conditions and business flow to handle Exceptions and Compensations are so much easier to represent in BPMN.
3- Proper Layering or Leveling of process and sub-processes is much easier once you get the knack of the Parent child relationships defined by BPMN.

In visio we had been using pre-defined process boxes to show shift of process flow but in many cases it had resulted in redundancies and clear input or start points not being clear.

Thats it for the first post... I would continue soon