SqEME® Process Management, SqEME Edition 2008

SqEME® is an open standard for developing process-centered architectures of an enterprise; it views processes from the perspectives of four complementary ‘windows’. It is owned by the not-for-profit organization Stichting SqEME in the Netherlands.

SqEME® was developed by a Dutch network of private and public organizations, consultancy agencies and independent advisors. SqEME was first published in 2002 and in 2007 the SqEME Foundation was established. The current version of SqEME is Edition 2008.

SqEME enables organizations to recognize, design, control, manage and improve their processes; it also supplies a set of consistent and coherent modeling techniques. A key assumption in the method is the professional maturity of the employee. The focus is not on what the employee has to do in detail, but on the surrounding system. It is on cooperation and the flow of information between employees. It investigates how the different parts of the organization are tuned to each other and how the intra-organization messaging takes place.

The thinking model that forms the basis of the SqEME® method is visualized by means of four ‘windows’. These four windows are called Constitution, Chemistry, Construction and Correspondence (see Figure).

The Constitution window is concerned with questions of a ‘constitutional nature’:

•   What are the key result areas of the enterprise?

•   What are the activities that can be distinguished within the key result areas?

•   What interaction patterns connect the constituent activities?

The Correspondence window is used to obtain a picture of the dynamics of the enterprise ‘in operation’. It is about monitoring the business. Do business processes proceed as visualized and agreed upon, and do the processes perform in line with their objectives?

The Chemistry window concentrates on the ‘cohesion’ in the enterprise, the interaction between the involved professionals. This window shows primarily the quality of the interaction and the communication patterns

The Construction window offers the most tangible view on the enterprise with a focus on deployment and implementation. These four windows make it possible to look at organizations differently –not the vertical lines of the hierarchical structure, but the processes and their interrelatedness within the organization.

Anyone who is involved in business process modeling and process improvement.

The scope of SqEME is process improvement enterprise-wide.

Strengths

•   The SqEME® method makes it possible to describe the design of an organization in a subtle but unambiguous way. It also offers a complete set of consistent and coherent modeling techniques

•   The method has proven itself in practice. SqEME® is being applied in Dutch organizations within the industrial, service and not-for-profit sectors

Constraints

It can take a long time to model all the business processes in a detailed way. One of the main messages is ‘Good is good enough’.