It has been a long time since talking about processes in an organization was synonymous with a procedures manual, or automation, or believing that it was a project to be assigned to engineers.
Evidence has shown that it is in the processes where value is created or destroyed for stakeholders, so organizational management with a process perspective should be a management priority. Why? Because strategy is executed through key processes. Even if we consider other less relevant processes, here we could be stuck between unnecessary procedures and lack of resources, orders, invoices, legal formalities, and other elements that threaten the normal and expected flow of activities. Poorly defined or under-resourced processes will become bottlenecks or time and cost drains.
If the organization has made progress with Business Process Management (BPM), it is on the right track, but this is not enough. BPM is all about techniques and tools, but processes must be in tune with strategy and customer requirements. Without a Business Process Governance (BPG) framework, it is difficult to achieve excellence in GPN. Why? Because the organization could have processes that are apparently well managed individually, but whose interaction is a source of value destruction for customers, shareholders and other stakeholder groups. I performed two similar procedures with a regional bank, but I interacted with two different departments. One department asked me for the information in digital format, the other asked me for it in written format.
One department required an authenticated signature on every document, the other did not. When I told the manager of department X that the same information had been passed on to department Z, she told me that this was no good, that they were doing it THEIR WAY. I was left wondering how many dissatisfied customers they would have for this reason, how many resources they were wasting, and how much value destruction this situation was creating for the shareholders.
This example illustrates the importance of the GoPN, which provides high-level guidance for the GPN. The GoPN defines the allocation of organizational power and authority over processes.
The design of each organization's GoPN is different and depends on the particular context and culture, but it should at least consider macro trends, high-level strategies, legal requirements and synergies between processes to ensure alignment with the innovation strategy and imperatives.
The GoPN encompasses issues such as having a common high-level model of the organization's key processes, and clarifying the goals from the top level in order to narrow down the KPIs required to monitor the performance of the processes. The GoPN assigns responsibility for the processes and provides a formal structure for describing them. It provides a framework for incentives and rewards, while stipulating the set of priorities for improving key processes.
Some examples of high-level guidelines could be the identification of operational risks in processes, or how often KPIs should be updated. These issues are a constant source of uncertainty in organizations that lack a GoPN.
The classic functional and siloed view of organizations is finding its springtime. The development of the GoPN to lead GPN efforts is not yet a widespread practice, but more and more organizations are moving in that direction. I invite you to go the extra mile and take the lead. Stakeholder groups will thank you. Stakeholder groups will thank you.
