A major business analysis task is overseeing process improvement — identifying, analyzing, and improving an existing business process so the company can integrate processes from mergers and acquisitions, improve inefficient processes, meet new goals, and the like. You can identify areas to conduct process improvement by keeping an ear open for these 15 indicators while talking with stakeholders and employees of the company:
Activities that fix errors instead of preventing them
Unnecessary handoffs or complex communications between roles or other processes
Unclear decisions or conditions (otherwise known as gateways)
Activities that perform statistically outside the norm or standard
Inefficient flow of existing processes
Activities that are being performed by an inappropriate employee or other entity (also known as a resource)
Areas of authority ambiguity (where two or more people have the power to make the same decision, which leads to confusion about who has final say)
Areas that have too much or too little management control
Roles that are bottlenecks
Activities that have unclear role assignment
Areas with backlogs
Areas with activities that don't provide business value
Areas that can reduce or eliminate waste
Areas that can reduce or eliminate defects
Areas that can reduce or eliminate frustration
