Business process management
What is a process?
A process in its simplest form uses inputs to create outputs. The outputs are created by a series of interrelated tasks, behaviours and resources acting on or using the inputs. Every result is achieved by a process but it does not mean that the result is one that is required. Pollution, nonconforming product, delays, errors, customer dissatisfaction are all results that are caused by a process. It is therefore insufficient to simply define ones processes. The aim should be to manage ones processes effectively. A more definitive explanation is provided in our e-book A guide to business process management
What is an effectively managed process?
An effective process is one that achieves the results that are intended – i.e. the objectives. An effectively managed process is a process in which the activities, resources and behaviours are planned, organized and controlled in a way that the outcomes meet specified objectives see also Process Auditing
What are process outcomes?
Process outcomes comprise the outputs and the impacts. Outputs are the products, services, information and decisions produced by the process. Impacts are the effect of the process on its surroundings such as the impact on customer satisfaction, the environment, employee motivation, shareholder value, supplier loyalty and society. It is necessary to manage both outputs and impacts otherwise the parties affected by the impact may withdraw their stake in the process, i.e. they may withdraw their labour, their support, their investment, their permission etc and cause the process to cease operation.
How are processes identified?
Processes are not identified by renaming procedures as processes, or by flow charting activities and giving them process names. Process are identified from knowing an objective. Business processes are identified from the business objectives, departmental processes are identified from the departmental objectives, etc.
- If one of your objectives is to manage customer relationships effectively, you have a Customer Relationship Management process
- If another objective is to bring innovative products to market ahead of the competition, you have an Innovation Process
- If another objective is to deliver product to customer on time, you have a Delivery process
How are objectives identified?
Objectives are determined from the purpose of the organization by establishing the factors upon which fulfilment of the purpose depends. These are the critical success factors (CSF). The CSFs indicate the capabilities needed and consequently identify the objectives to delivery these capabilities. Business objectives are determined from the organization’s mission statement, There has to be constancy of purpose and to achieve this the objectives need to be deployed or cascaded down through the organization. If you are interested in learning more about setting objectives why not commission a 1 day in-house workshop
What do we have to do to manage our processes effectively?
There is a universal series of activities for managing processes effectively.
- Establish what it is you want to do - what objectives you want to achieve or what outputs you want to deliver.
- Establish measures of success - the factors that will indicate whether the objectives have been achieved or the outputs meet requirements
- Define the activities that are critical to achieving these objectives and delivering these outputs
- Define the resources, information and competences required to deliver the required outputs.
- Identify the risks and put in place measures that eliminate, reduce or control these risks.
- Determine how performance will be measured against the objectives and variation reduced.
- Find better ways of achieving the process objectives and improve process efficiency
- Establish whether the processes objectives remain relevant the needs of the stakeholders and if necessary change them.
What are business processes?
A Business process is a process that deliver business outputs. Processes arise out of identifying the factors upon which accomplishment of the organization's mission depend. Therefore:
- If our success depends upon the safety of our products, then we need safety objectives and a process for supplying safe products
- If our success depends upon securing the integrity of information entrusted to us by our customers, then we need security objectives and a process for securing the integrity of information
- If our success depends upon the impact our operations have on the environment, we need environmental objectives and a process for minimizing environmental impacts
- If our success depends on the supply of resources from other organizations then we need resource acquisition objectives and a resource acquisition process
- If our success depends upon innovation we need innovation objectives and an innovation process
- If our success depends upon maintaining good relations with the unions, we need industrial relations objectives and a process for maintaining industrial relations
- If our success depends upon our ability to conceive competitive design solutions then we need design objectives and a product and service design process
Therefore, if something is critical to our success, we should set objectives and design processes for their achievement.
However, we might think our success depends on a whole range of things but how do we know whether we are not simply being imaginative or identifying genuine business processes? The solution rests with the Stakeholder Analysis.
More details are in Chapter 9 and 16 of the ISO 9000 Quality Systems Handbook 7E