Simulated business process model of a software development company based on the SCRUM model

The paper examines a constructed business process model of a software development company division to account for the operations of enterprises of various sizes and fields of activity. A functional cost analysis was conducted, a bottleneck was identified and eliminated. The optimization made it possible to reduce employee downtime and accelerate the release of new versions of the company’s products, thereby achieving an economic effect.

This work is an attempt to study and apply the Business Studio business modeling system to practical tasks. The work draws on experience with engineering modeling systems: SIMULINK, MVTU, and an engineering education.

Company description

The Company is engaged in the production, sale, implementation, and support of software for Russian small and large businesses.

Mid-sized companies choose either an extension of the small business product, of which there are not many in Russia, or a corporate product.

The Company independently handles advertising, implementation, and support of its corporate products; small business products are promoted, sold, and supported by the Company’s partners.

Organizational structure

The Company’s organizational structure reflects its main areas of activity and is presented in the diagram.

The work considers the activities of the Software Development Department.

Core business process

The Company is engaged in various areas of activity; they can be divided into separate objects of analysis. Below is the process Activities related to software products.

The modeling was performed with parameters (work execution duration, sequence, business processes) set based on the author’s 13 years of experience in software development, both in development and in implementation and support.

The model was built in accordance with the recommendations of the Business Studio developers. The first 3 levels were built using IDEF0 notation; subsequent levels were built using BPMN notation.

The business process Development of a full-featured product version is part of the process Activities related to software products. Its overall diagram is presented below.

Features of product release work

The model considers the parallel release of two products by two departments:

• A product for small businesses.

• A corporate product.

Their work intersects in the interaction of adjacent departments.

Overall, the work of the development units on releasing a product is similar, so the diagram is built as a single product release process that branches depending on the product being produced in places where necessary, in order, for example, to indicate the positions performing a particular operation.

As an example of such a place, the process Execution of work that fits into a sprint from the process of developing a new product version is shown.

There are 3 levels at which product functions can be developed:

1. The product itself.

2. Libraries.

3. Platform.

Libraries are used to consolidate and unify functionality that can be used in various products. Their use makes the functioning of all Company products similar and simplifies learning new products for users familiar with one of the existing ones.

The product development procedure, when its prototype is ready, is as follows:

1. In parallel, development of new product capabilities and its dependencies is performed: the platform and libraries.

2. When the platform and libraries are ready and tested, and development of new product capabilities is completed, overall testing and correction of the delivery set is performed: the product, libraries, and platform.

In this regard, the number of implemented requirements depends on the work of several departments:

• If some functionality is shared, its implementation is moved to the library level.

• If some functionality cannot be implemented with the current development tools, it is transferred to the platform development department.

• When a requirement is too complex to be included in the platform, it is excluded from the work and its implementation is postponed.

This is shown in the diagram below.

If the product development department manages to implement all requirements, but, for example, some cannot be implemented in the platform, the number of implemented requirements decreases by the number of those that adjacent departments cannot or did not manage to implement.

Development is carried out using SCRUM technology [2]. It implies that employees, within a certain period of time called a sprint, complete as many assigned tasks as they can.

An example of implementing the work execution cycle for releasing a new platform version is presented below.

Modeling results

The model is built using inventory generation, so during the simulation you can track its operation and observe how new requirements are implemented, errors are found and corrected, and new product versions are released.

Only process A5, with the start event launch specified in process A5.1 with a frequency of 1 month 4 times, simulation period 08/01/2016 to 02/01/2017:

The entire model with a simulation period from 08/01/2016 to 11/01/2016:

Model development

The continuation of the work will be the construction of a complete model of the organization’s operations that calculates the economic effect of the changes made. The company’s activities are described in more detail in Appendix 2. First-level business processes of the process Activities related to software products.

One direction of future work is building a sales funnel, starting with determining the size of the audience that advertising is planned to influence and ending with repeat sales.

Another important direction of further work is closing the loop: existing and potential clients generate a need for automation in the form of requests and errors; their implementation increases the chances of new sales; sales provide money for new development, and so on.

About the author

Bugaevsky Timofey Mikhailovich has been working for the past 10 years in the field of software development for business automation. Experience in meeting business needs for automation across a wide variety of areas, technical and humanities education, as well as an MBA program enable him to form a broad view of solving management problems using mathematical methods and an engineering approach.

The author expresses gratitude to the group of companies “Modern Management Technologies” and its employees, who provided their product free of charge for educational purposes and patiently helped in understanding it.

Distribution terms

Free of charge provided that the license requirements are met:

When publishing works based on or using this model in electronic form, a link to the source is required: the model description page, and the name of its author, Bugaevsky Timofey Mikhailovich, must be indicated. For printed publications, the same link must be included in the references list as an electronic resource.

Full license.

Where to download

The model is published in the Business Studio Model and Solutions Store.