More customer orientation and an increase in quality were the original motivation. Today, we know that process orientation is not only important in the context of quality management, but that other advantages can also be exploited. Most companies already have approaches and programs in place. Unfortunately, not all of them are consistently implemented. Potentials and technical possibilities remain unused. This article is intended not only to provide an impetus for getting started in process management, but also to encourage people to question the effectiveness of existing approaches.
The goals of process management
Processes describe the sequence of decisions and actions that lead to a desired result. Thus, processes exist in any organization. Whether you have set out to do process management or not. As your organization grows, adds new services, or otherwise changes, existing processes will, in most cases, change. Without process management, this tends to happen randomly and reactively – I often use the expression: “It just happens when you do it”.
You see: New and changed processes emerge all by themselves. The primary goal of process management is therefore not to generate new processes. It’s about managing their existing processes and regularly putting them to the test in order to
- Align processes to meet the current needs of your customers
- Identify process deviations that have occurred unconsciously and evaluate them
- Ensure that your processes and organization are still aligned to achieve your goals efficiently
- Discover potentials that can help you become even better and more efficient
- Eliminate inefficient processes
- Evaluate and ensure process capabilities against defined metrics
- Increase resilience to changes, challenges and problems that may occur (or have already occurred)
Of course, as part of process management, you will also reach a point where continuous improvement is no longer enough and you need to completely rethink your process. However, such far-reaching projects – assuming good process management – will only be used in a targeted and conscious manner and will only make up a small part of your process management activities.
Create ownership of your employees
If you are serious about process management, then there is a responsible person or also called process owner for each process. Process owners ensure that processes are permanently monitored. You contribute to the continuous improvement of processes and define measures together with process teams to plan and implement these improvements.
Process management thus involves several people who are involved in the development and achievement of the above process management objectives. Therefore, it is important that people responsible for processes not only have a strong process-oriented mindset. Process owners must also possess leadership skills and be able to inspire, develop, and guide process team members. If you have staffed your departmental tops with appropriate people, it is an opportunity to engage them as process owners. But you can also consider people without a formal leadership role here. Thus, the role of process owner can be a good entry point into leadership roles. At the same time, this gives the person concerned the opportunity to find out for themselves whether leadership tasks suit them. Even in agile organizations, where leadership roles are not derived from hierarchical structures, it is important to identify people with suitable leadership qualities in this way. To generate maximum ownership, you should emphasize voluntariness.
Where and how to start process management
In addition to the points already listed, you can benefit from process management in many situations. Through the intensive involvement of the process teams, they are always up to date with the processes in the company. Especially when training new employees, this ensures that the essential processes and their special features can be communicated quickly. If the process teams then have a cleanly documented process landscape, this also enables the newcomers to supplement their own studies in a meaningful way.
The added values listed so far are intended to provide impulses for possible areas of application in your company. But before you get down to work operationally, I would first like to encourage you to outline the personal business benefits you hope to gain from process management. Become aware again why you want to introduce process management and what the most urgent reasons are in your company. In my experience, this is best worked out in a small group. To do this, organize a meeting with the potential process owners, for example. If they let these people work out for themselves what the benefits of process management are, you increase the chance of getting volunteer process owners. But don’t forget that the introduction of process management also means new tasks and requirements within your teams.
So I recommend: take time to re-emphasize the reasons for these changes and come up with a communication strategy that is appropriate for your organization. Once all participants have identified a common goal, it is a good idea to take a look at how added value is generated for customers in the company from a high altitude. You can orientate yourself on the procedure, which I have already described in my article “Gehen Sie mit Ihrer Prozesslandkarte auf Schatzsuche” I have described.
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Arnéll Koegelenberg / peopleimages.com / stock.adobe.com
