Process management and how to work smart, I learned from my father, I grew up on a farm and had to help the pile high. But before we could the pile high, we had to put down the pile pole and stick on the running string. For this to go faster my father taught me that it takes too long for us to use wheelbarrows and fetch five or six pile pole each time. The quickest way was to add a lot pile pole on a Silosvans, then my father could drive the tractor slowly forward, so I could pick up pile pole one by one and put into the ground. This was the beginning where I learned to work smarter. Since this I have always been fascinated with finding potential for process and quality management for an organization’s value creation.
What is the process? There are many definitions of a process, and is traditionally seen as a collection of activities performed in a specific order to transform various inputs into products and services that create value for the customer.
It’s about several people from different units in the organization collectively perform to treat a case of it arises until it is finalized and submitted to the customer, including the resources used and the rules that govern the treatment, we refer to that process.
Processes will therefore have a coordination aspect of themselves, through the activities carried out by several people, must be coordinated. This is a natural result of a focus on specialization and efficiency, which, incidentally, is a natural part of the process over time.
Furthermore, we see resources and rules that important parts of the process. Resources can be documents and (IT-) systems that support the process, while the rules may be implicit or explicit guidelines for how the process should be performed. These are interesting dimensions of the process, especially when working with process improvement, as they both look at how resources are used to implement the process, and if you can break up the established rules and truths to find new ways to implement the process.
Finally, one must mention the entirety, and that looking at the activities from end to end when working with process improvement.
What is the process perspective? Process perspective is very important, and a hallmark of organizations that have achieved great process maturity. Process perspective, looking unlike department perspective, at how the company collaborates across departments within a company to deliver products and services that meet customer needs. Process perspective therefore makes collaboration, and customer paramount. About process management, is an important task to establish process awareness in the organization so that the organization recognizes the process focus and this way of working. This is a big challenge for traditional companies, as this touches on the established organization, both in terms of responsibilities and separation of powers.
What is process management? Process management is to lead the processes of the organization to improve it really matters, the final product that the customer will buy. Process management looks at the large end-to-end processes within the company, across all departments, focusing on how the interaction between different departments work to together create a product or service that provides the most value for the customer. Process improvement through process management therefore has two important effects. • First, this helps to increase customer focus by offering goods and services that the customer is interested in. This will in turn generate greater revenue potential for the company. • At the same time an important part of process management to look at cost control and whether resource usage is optimized. Through performing activities in new ways and through example. IT systems, the human resources are released and used on more value-added activities. Process management can otherwise be divided into several key dimensions: • Process Awareness: To raise the awareness of the organization on what processes are, why they have them, the importance of the managed and further developed as an organizational unit. Process Consciousness may for instance be created through management to make process maps, and that employees are helping to develop process descriptions of the processes they work in, and they get an insight into the other processes in the company. • Process Ownership: To raise awareness and to allocate leadership to people in your organization so that someone has full responsibility for what goes on in the organization. Process Owner shall follow up the process in relation to established goals, and develop process through suggestions for continuous improvement. Without an established ownership of processes, one will have an organization where each department is preoccupied, but where no one takes overall responsibility and customer satisfaction. As said the process owner and department managers have different goals, so that goal conflicts may arise. This is an organizational challenge that must be addressed through active change management with process management. • Process Measurement, and continuous process improvement: Process owners must follow their processes, measuring processes by appropriate parameters, conduct variance analysis and regularly test various measures to improve the processes.
Why process management?
Good process management touches that said many areas, and an important part is to raise awareness of the organization on the importance of processes, such as establishing a process-oriented organization. This includes establishing process owners, with multidisciplinary responsibility for process execution. Such awareness of responsibility change focus from only looking at every department isolation, to see more comprehensive on what goes on in the organization. This will manifest itself through increased customer focus and more appropriate use of resources.
In addition, process management put more emphasis on the actual execution of the processes, and lead to more continuous improvement of the individual process.
Process and change management
Active process management and increased process awareness will lead to a change in the organizational structure, both in terms of jobs, responsibilities and duties. Department manager will have less power, and the new process owners will have relatively much power. In addition, the mindset of the organization change from a department perspective and a process perspective, which can be a challenge for people who have been employed in the organization over a longer period.
On this basis, it is therefore important to change management in parallel with process management. Employees must be treated with respect, and must facilitate the transition towards a more process-oriented organization. Importance of each employee, as well as good cooperation between employees, remains equally important. Unless one understands the importance of good change management when the organization conducts these types of changes, one is almost bound to fail.