Become a 100-meter process champion with Process Manager

Few companies have a complete overview of all current and updated business processes. Even fewer have one central place to find these processes – and the rarest of all are those companies that have entrenched methods for collecting and implementing process improvements.

A famous quote by Joseph M. Juran, an evangelist within quality management, states:

When running a business, it’s fundamental to use standards. In everyday language, we call these standards for business processes – or simply processes.

The processes are the very core of running a business, and all types of organisations are driven by the activities that are the backbone of these processes.

If you want to run your business efficiently – and that your company can adapt to changes and respond quickly to business opportunities – it is essential that your employees know the relevant processes in their current form. At the same time, it is crucial to have a structured and well-documented change process, and that employees know where to easily find process descriptions and work instructions.

Processes and instructions must be easy to overview and yet sufficiently detailed to enable employees to carry them out.

This is not an easy task. Most have tried to manage this by creating process descriptions in Visio, PowerPoint, or Word and at best storing the files on SharePoint/Intranet, but often they are found in a shared folder on a file server.

Though the Office suite can do a lot, it has its limitations.

User-friendly process descriptions are rarely created using the Office suite – and at the same time, the process descriptions you can create in the Office suite are characterised by not having a solid governance structure.

A solution to the challenge is an integrated process management application such as Nintex Process Manager, IBM Blueworks, or K2.

Are you in doubt whether you need to take your process excellence to the next level? If so, you could consider the following questions:

• If I am not here tomorrow, how easy will it be for my successor to get a full overview of the processes I am responsible for?
• How easy is it to onboard new employees into our processes?
• How easy is it to change a process so that all relevant employees are aware of the changes?
• How easy is it to get an overview of the automation potential?
• How easy is it to get an overview of which processes are running in a specific IT system?

Once you have the answers to the above, you will probably know whether it would make sense for you to invest in a process mapping platform.

1. To make process descriptions and work instructions easily accessible to relevant users.

Today, many companies’ process descriptions are lying in a shared folder on a file drive. It may be difficult to get an overview of this type of process archive, and traditionally it has been a difficult task to ensure constant availability of the most recently updated versions.

Process Manager is a web application that always ensures that employees are looking at the current version, and that all processes are found in the same place.

In addition, processes may be time-limited, and with Process Manager, you can ensure that the processes are subject to periodic review or revision within a relevant time horizon.

Outdated and irrelevant processes are thus continuously sorted out.

2. To assign the ownership of processes and the responsibility for updating and relevance to the right employees in the company.

Therefore, all processes in Process Manager are allocated to both a process owner and a process responsible. The purpose of this is to ensure that the person responsible for an area keeps their finger on the pulse, and that the processes are in line with the company's strategy.

The person responsible for the execution of the process is the one who releases and updates process improvements, so that suboptimization or conflicts of interest cannot occur.

You can fill out a RACI analysis for each process, so that all stakeholders are informed based on standard information when they need to act/take action in relation to their RACI role.

3. To facilitate a process optimisation culture and support the company's journey towards process excellence.

This is done, among other things, by Process Manager having a built-in governance structure. The governance structure reports proposals for improvements and comments about the processes, right down to the step level.

Employees are the real process experts and often have good proposals for improvements. Therefore, it is very valuable that it’s easy for them to give their input. Logging and delegating proposals and comments ensure a transparent process, while encouraging individual process participants to take responsibility.

At the same time, it’s possible to give users a simple overview of process characteristics in Process Manager.

The overview shows which inputs are necessary to complete the process, which resources are needed to execute the process, and which activities they need to carry out.

Furthermore, it is documented which outputs the process delivers; and should you so desire, you can also attach both internal and external controls. In short – a complete process overview.

• R (Responsible): The person/role doing the work. There should always be one and only one performing person/role per activity.
• A (Accountable): The person/role responsible for ensuring that the activity is completed. Usually only one person/role has this responsibility, but in special situations, there may be more than one accountable.
• C (Consulted): All the persons/roles who need to be consulted or participate in the activity. All the necessary persons/roles should be given in an unlimited number.
• I (Informed): All the persons/roles to be informed about the activity. These are often the persons/roles to be informed when the activity is completed – for example, the project steering group. All the necessary persons/roles should be given in an unlimited number.