Process-led design today vs in the age of AI

If you follow my posts and subscribe to this blog then you know I am a huge advocate of process-led approach to business analysis and systems design. If you master UPN process notation and combine it with other methodologies, like jobs to be done, you can become a true pro-active innovator at your organization.

However, these days all eyes are on generative AI. People hope and expect the technology to revolutionize pretty much every aspect of white collar work, including business analysis and system design. And they are right. AI is going to transform business analysis and indeed elevate process-led design to new heights and make it more accessible and more powerful across the IT industry. However...

Have you tried using ChatGPT to write code? Or poetry? Or blogs? If you are skilled at doing those things without the help of AI, you know how to guide and prompt the tool to generate high-quality content. And you know when it generates poor results. If you can't do those things on your own, ChatGPT ain't gonna make you a poet or a developer. Or it will but a poor one.

So that being said, let's compare what process-led design is today and how it is going to evolve with the help of AI in the coming year. And what that means for business analysts and system architects everywhere.

Process-led analysis today

There are very few people in the industry who can do process-led analysis well. It isn't taught in schools, it is still rather niche. There aren't many good online training courses on it either. So the knowledge of how to do it is not available to many. Those who embark on the journey to master this approach and become true innovators need to learn at least a few techniques:

UPN notation

Universal Process Notation is the simplest and at the same time most robust diagramming notation for capturing a wide range of flows, from business processes, through job diagrams, user journeys, and others.

With UPN you can accomplish many things:

• Perform in-depth business analysis to help define detailed requirements

• Capture better, more actionable user stories for development

• Spot opportunities for process optimization and product innovation

• Drive better process adoption and standardization among your team

However, for those used to flowcharting, the rigour and attention to detail expected in UPN methodology is often a challenge. Capturing verifiable, non-circular outcomes and specifying concrete, verb-based activities is what all UPN newbies struggle with most. Hence why I always share this best-practice checklist with my students and customers: 

Jobs to be done

Everybody in the software development knows the concept of 'jobs to be done'. Minority have actually read any books on the subject. And even less than that know how to actually conceptualize and use jobs to be done to drive innovation (you can read my other article on this very subject).

All jobs to be done are actually processes and every one has the same general structure. Knowing this helps inform discovery interviews and identify opportunities for improvement. But again, you need to learn and remember those best practices:

Assuming you become really adept at capturing high-quality, detailed UPN process diagrams through rigorous business analysis, you still need to learn at least :

• how to capture business requirements and user stories from your diagrams

• how to use your diagrams to inform creation of test scripts/scenarios for QAs

• how to design user experience and automations from your job to be done diagrams

to become really good at process-led design. That is why today this is still a huge differentiator in the marketplace. But not for long.

Process-led analysis in the age of AI

Today process-led design is an elite approach practiced by select few. But in the age of AI following innovations are already on the horizon:

• AI automatically creating for you best-practice UPN diagrams based on provided context

• AI improving / correcting the quality of your business process diagrams

• AI identifying fit gaps and opportunities for innovation from the captured diagrams

• AI automatically creating stories/list of tasks and test scenarios from the captured diagrams

Now, my predictions are not fortune telling, wishful thinking or hopes. They are promises. Because at Elements.cloud we are already building such capabilities.
 

How to prepare for AI powered business analysis?

Generative AI is going to make process-led design much more accessible, easier to learn and easier to do well across the board. While today it is an approach practiced by the elites, I can see how in 12 months time it will become a norm for consulting firms and business analysts alike. Or at the very least much more common.

However, that means that the time to start learning and mastering this craft is now.

There is a line in the animated movie 'The Incredibles' : when everyone is super, nobody is.

When anyone can do process-led analysis, then it seizes being a differentiator. It becomes the norm. But the thing about the generative AI is that its power benefits the experts more than the beginners. From coding, through writing blogs, to doing statistical analysis, we find that while beginners gain huge productivity boost from generative AI, it is the experts in their respective fields that reap the rewards.

When everybody will be generating good business process diagrams and performing decent fit-gap analysis, the experts will be doing truly legendary work with the help of AI. I, for one, can't wait to get my hands on such power.

What's next?

If you would like to prepare for the AI advancements in business analysis and upskill on process-led analysis, then I recommend you take my course on  "Total Story Visualization". It is a syncretic approach that combines Universal Process Notation, Jobs to be done, automation and user experience design, story capture and more into one, coherent technique for innovation. I have developed the technique over the course of 7 years, trying out different notations and approaches along the way. I have used TSV with great success in my job to supercharge my career, and so can you.