RPA Automation Life-Cycle Approach

Recently, I met with a potential client for new automation initiatives and research opportunities into the technology field. They were heavily involved in BPM movements but wanted to establish a clear understanding of emerging RPA movements. Well, where does one begin? For starters, you need to identify a 2-5 year maturity road map because building the right balance to a large scale enterprise maturity model involves a high level two year strategic need, incorporating a strategic five year need. This initiative needs to be further expanded to incorporate the fundamental needs of a maturity model.

A fundamental knowledge in program startups:

· RPA Program Owner is critical in having an RPA strategy to grow a stable and mature model around the current need for CoE component. The RPA owner must take accountability to grow the initiative and transform the delivery of the RPA program.

· Vision of Deployed RPA is determining the areas in which to deploy new use cases within the business. The value is seen when the impact is felt on the client side, even going so far as to imagine it as a shared utility of RPA that can be delivered and costed on an as-needed basis as a service capability. There are multiple RPA methodologies that I have deployed over the years to include:

Automated builds – DevOps, RAD (Rapid Application Development), Code generation, MDA/MDD (Model-Driven Architecture/Development), Lean Software Development, Kanban Boards using Version One, Adaptive Software Development – Continuous use of RAD, and Disciple Agile Delivery – Hybrid of Scrum & Agile modeling

· RPA Technical Vision is how the RPA is delivered within some form of technology environment ranging from multi-tenancy proprietary end-to-end business platform to a possible service provider value additive.

· RPA Expertise Owned By is valuable to a growing and/or mature organization. The respected owner of the stage should eventually move towards the creation of an RPA Center of Excellence (RPA Group) that collects and distributes both the accumulate experience but shares the components (including process libraries) across future pilots and deployments.

· RPA Program Funding is very important for tollgate reviews within Financial Firms. Often funding is very short sided.

Of course, there are more areas to look at within this spectrum. For example, applicable growth areas for emerging innovation and adoption, enterprise scale automation road-map, and the top priority in scaling your RPA intiatives.