Due dates

Milestone 1: Thursday 17th August at 2pm

Milestone 2: Thursday 24th August at 2pm

Milestone 3: Thursday 31st August at 2pm

Final submission: Friday 8th  September, 2023 at 2pm

Submission type:

-      Milestones: Excel documents (as specified) for Milestones 1 & 2; Word document for Milestone 3.

-      Final submission: full BPMN process model in 3 file formats: a Signavio archive (SGX), a PDF, and as a .bpmn file. Any and all subprocesses must be included in all above files. NB: If elements of    the overall process are missing because of missing subprocesses, marks will be lost.

-      Format for all documents: all filenames must start with the StudentNumber_LastName format (with descriptions following your last name e.g. 1234356_Surname_A1Process).

Submission method: via Blackboard Assignment 1 submission folder. Please ensure you get a submission receipt, and remember: this is an individual assignment. Assignment 2 is our only group assignment.

Background & your task

Build For Future’s Managing Director (MD) has recently asked Jack Thorne to take on the General

Manager of Business Development (GM BD) role. One of the most demanding parts of this role is ensuring that prospective projects are selected carefully, project tenders are well-understood and then Build for

the Future (BFF) prices them reasonably and presents their submission well. This process is a critical

ingredient in BFF’s success, and Jack Thorne knows that he has been given clear KPIs on the success rate of tenders, so he wants to ensure that he delivers on expectations. What’s more, it is a time when the     company has significant growth plans, so the spotlight will be on success in winning tenders as the first   step in securing that growth.

After 12 years in the company, Jack has a good general understanding of BFF’s value chain, and knows

that Tendering is one of the core processes. Jack’s most recent role was in Corporate Strategy, which

amongst other things, identifies the target sectors the company wants to be active in, a key activity

upstream of Tendering. Before that, he was involved in the construction activities that take place once the tender is won, rising to be a Project Manager leading these projects. While his understanding of the

activities that are upstream and downstream of Tendering is useful to understand the overall context,

Jack is, however, concerned that he doesn’t fully understand how the tendering process currently works.

Jack calls upon you, the Business Analyst, to give himself and the company the best chance of success. He   invites you to his new corner office to review the existing documentation and the notes he took when he    spoke to the previous GM BD. Over a 90-minute kick-off meeting, he provides you with that information,    and together you identify some small amendments, resulting in a confirmed process walkthrough (below). He now wants to visualise the process model with BPMN to help explain the process, and facilitate the

discussion with his team and the MD, whose support he wants for the changes.

The next step for you is to read the process walkthrough below and reconfirm your understanding of

some aspects of that process (see the requirements of Milestones 1, 2 and 3 below), and submit them to Jack to check you are on the right track. This will allow “Jack” (aka your tutors) to provide valuable

feedback to you over the coming weeks, so that you can provide the best possible BPMN process model using Signavio (see Final submission deliverable).

Jack travels a lot for his new role, so if there are specific questions you haven’t been able to confirm before the final submission, please document any assumptions you have made. Please present your assumptions within the final BPMN model using the BPMN “text annotation” construct.

Tender management process

The process starts when the GM BD receives a message from the potential customer confirming BFF has been shortlisted for a project and when the tender documents are expected. GM BD then informs the

Managing Director (MD) and proposes the ideal resources to form the Tender Team (each tender will

have special requirements that may necessitate input from different individuals). Once the MD agrees,      the GM BD informs BFF’s Administration Manager (Admin Mgr) of the impending Request for Tender and team members. The Admin Mgr then creates a new folder and subfolders on BFF’s SharePoint server and provides the nominated resources with access to that folder. With the technology in place, GM BD

focuses on other matters until two days before the tender documents are due to be received. At this

point, he contacts the prospective client, confirms the likely release date, and informs the project team if there is any delay. No further action is required until the tender documents are received (but the process may be repeated until the documents are released).

The tender response begins when BFF’s Bid Manager receives the tender documents from the client. This package of documents comprises many individual files, and is usually received through an email advice      with a link to download them via a file transfer service. The package will always include RTF instructions,   Construction Drawings, Project Specifications and Scope of Works. Once received, the Bid Manager

acknowledges receipt of the documents, downloads and allocates them to the appropriate folders on the server. Each client document is added to a document register to track bid documents received from the    client. The Bid Manager then reviews these documents, and prepares the Bid Management Plan (a

document that describes how the company will manage the tender, including the pre-agreed roles & responsibilities, and key dates).

The Bid Manager convenes a Tender Assessment Meeting to which she invites the MD, Head of Projects, Estimator, Scheduler and Procurement Officer. She chairs that meeting, after which she minutes the

decisions of the meeting on whether to bid (yes/no), and then finalises BFF’s high-level execution strategy (ES) document for the MD’s approval. If the decision is “no bid”, the process ends. Otherwise, once

approved, the Bid Manager incorporates the ES into the Bid Management Plan, and distributes that to all personnel assigned to the tender.

Accurate estimation of costs is the core element of a successful tender. It requires a thorough

understanding of the Scope of Works, BFF’s ES, risks such as weather, labour availability and ground

conditions, required resource levels and rates. After the Tender Assessment meeting, the Estimator will    need to build up the project's cost through a process in two phases. The first involves assessing the scope of works, start and finish dates, ES, project construction schedule, requisite resources and durations, in     that order, with the final two steps usually being iterated multiple times. The second phase requires the    Estimator to identify the costs to be directly incurred by BFF. That starts with establishing the

construction crew breakdowns, followed by estimating each of the quantity of labour, the quantity of equipment, and the quantity of materials, for each of which (labour, equipment and materials) the

Estimator then obtains cost rates. At the same time as the Estimator starts identifying directly incurred costs, the Procurement Officer starts seeking quotes for the subcontracts identified in the ES. He identifies potential suppliers for each service needed, and contacts the suppliers asking them to provide three quotes within a week for each of those services. Once all three quotes are received, or after one week in any case, the Procurement officer analyses the quotes and then sends the analysis with a recommendation to the Estimator. The Estimator then consolidates the cost information from the two pathways, and calculates the estimated final cost.

Following the Tender Assessment meeting, the Scheduler examines the ES to build a more detailed plan. She identifies key activities, including their dependencies, duration and resource classes, and prepares a  Gantt chart.. (A Gantt chart visualises the proposed activities over time.) Also, following the Tender

Assessment meeting, the Contracts Manager initiates the review of the proposed contract. She identifies  key legal provisions, risks and opportunities presented in the current contract. For the risks, she identifies ideal mitigation or management actions to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. This information is

entered in the Contracts Review Register.

At any point after the initial documents are received, and before the TCOM preparation, the client may issue another document or documents. Although this is very much the exception, if it occurs, those

documents must be processed in the same way as the first documents received, including reviewing and potentially updating the Bid Management Plan and all subsequent activities.

All of this work comes together for the Tender Close-out Meeting (TCOM), which the Bid Manager has

scheduled to take place four days before the tender submission date (he schedules this meeting straight    after the Tender Assessment meeting). Three days before the meeting, the Bid Manager reminds all team members of the upcoming TCOM, and one day prior to the meeting, the Bid Manager compiles the TCOM file, which he distributes to the attendees. That file includes the most current version of the documents     issued at the Kick-off meeting, plus all the final products from the activities described above. The MD will  consider the discussions held during the meeting, and either approve the recommendations and final

tender price, or require one or more activities to be rerun before the updated submission is collated by the Bid Manager and sent to the MD for his review and signature. These steps can be iterated multiple  times, depending on the complexity of the tender.

Once the MD has approved the tender submission, the Bid Manager submits the complete tender to the client and requests confirmation of submission from the client. That confirmation is added to the final      submission folder in the Sharepoint file system. This concludes the tendering submission process.

Guidance on your objectives

The overall marking rubric is outlined on the final page. Marks are allocated not just for correct modelling

of the scenario, but also for the pragmatic quality of the model (i.e. use of modelling guidelines, aesthetics, general ease of interpretation and maintenance for the model’s audience) .

As such, please ensure your models are easy to read when printed at A3 size (consider your audience) . You will need to choose the appropriate level of detail (abstraction), and also avoid leaving excessive

blank spaces in your model, which would result in your model being longer or wider than otherwise

necessary. (Signavio’s “create or remove free space” tool can help you tidy the model; don’t forget to tidy the messages too once you’ve optimised the space!)

Your final submission will not be considered complete unless all three files are submitted by the deadline. All filenames must start with the StudentNumber_LastName format (with descriptions added after that).

Please read the requirements overleaf, and carefully comply with them!