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In Process
Best Practices of Process Management: The Top Ten Principles (Part 5)
by Roger T. Burlton
Years of successful and not-so-successful process management experience have led
to a set of best practices -- a number of fundamental principles that must be honored
in order to optimize returns to the company, the delivery of business results to
customers, and to satisfy the needs of the organization's other stakeholders.
In this series, I outline the ten principles that underlie the methods of business
process operation and change. In this column, I discuss the fifth principle.
Principle 5: Business Processes Must Be Managed Holistically
It's becoming more and more prevalent to appoint a full process steward,
for each process of the organization.
The steward acts as advocate on behalf of the process, taking responsibility for
the process's performance for stakeholders. The steward works not only to deliver
improvements in process projects but also to remain in the role subsequent to completion
of these projects. This means staying on top of process and stakeholder performance
metrics and reviewing current performance against the best in the business.
Primarily, the steward makes certain that the process continues to perform to
requirements for its stakeholders. Corrective or anticipatory action is taken,
as needed, to either continuously improve or to introduce radical change.
Process stewards must be effective in using influence even though they might have
no direct control over the resources involved in the execution and management of
the daily work being performed. Clearly, this offers a significant organizational
challenge -- especially with a mixed function-and-process approach wherein day-to-day
control rests with functional line management, but monitoring and improvement responsibility
goes to process stewards.
The critical mechanism that must be in place for ongoing process management to
be effective is a forum within which processes are discussed, their performance vetted,
and the incentive for process outcomes is shared among all involved managers.
Staff involved in the day-to-day process also must see feedback on the ultimate results
of the process. They must have incentives to support overall stakeholder value
creation and not to do just what's convenient for them.
References
[1] Roger T. Burlton, "Best Practices of Process Management:
The Top Ten Principles (Part 1)," Business Rules Journal, Vol. 7,
No. 1 (Jan. 2006), URL: http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2006/b269.html
[2] Roger T. Burlton, "Best Practices of Process Management:
The Top Ten Principles (Part 2)," Business Rules Journal, Vol. 7,
No. 2 (Feb. 2006), URL: http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2006/b273.html
[3] Roger T. Burlton, "Best Practices of Process Management:
The Top Ten Principles (Part 3)," Business Rules Journal, Vol. 7,
No. 3 (Mar. 2006), URL: http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2006/b278.html
[4] Roger T. Burlton, "Best Practices of Process Management:
The Top Ten Principles (Part 4)," Business Rules Journal, Vol. 7,
No. 4 (Apr. 2006), URL: http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2006/b285.html
| standard citation for this article: |
| Roger T. Burlton, "Best Practices of Process Management: The Top
Ten Principles (Part 5)," Business Rules Journal, Vol. 7, No. 5
(May 2006), URL: http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2006/b291.html |
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