In Article 2 of the Process Management Series, we highlighted the importance of Process Ownership to ensure accountability throughout the organization. This article deals with the need to have each process “speak” to each other, i.e., be integrated to the others at play inside the organization.
As organizations develop, its managers install practices aimed at plan development, communications, operations, administration and many other such functions. Within these functions, there are processes set up, i.e., the series of steps leading to the desired organizational result. Over time, these processes multiply and due to their sheer numbers, tend to complicate the functions they were meant to support; this in turn contributes to the creation of silos inside the organization, complete with specialized people speaking specialized languages. The results can turn out to be: processes that do not inform each other, e.g., Human Resource Management that is siloed from Financial Management that is siloed from Business Planning; gradually lowered productivity, as increasing numbers of decisions take place in isolation and without much needed and accurate information; and decreased or inaccurate strategic direction from Executive and Senior Management as they get caught up in intersecting and often competing management practices.
Integration is now the catch-word of the self-professed modern organization. Unfortunately, most people inside the organization don’t know exactly what they are meant to integrate. In response to the growing need for integration, e-consulting firms have sold their clients large and coercive systems that force people to follow its processes. This approach fails on at least three fronts: people will continue to use their own processes in order to make the informal organization work, resulting in work-arounds and wasted effort; there is no evidence to suggest that the processes contained in the large system match the needs of the client organization and its people; and the large system becomes a bottomless pit of expenditure for the organizations as more and more “required” customization takes place.
If coercing people to follow a process doesn’t work, then how should the organization integrate? RANA believes that integration can only take place through its processes. This involves identifying the processes at play inside the organization, layer by layer (i.e., peeling the process onion). The next step is renewing the processes of the organization (change, simplify, delete, replace) and linking them one to another. The final step consists of developing the visible web of process connections that will function as a working framework for the organization.
It should be abundantly obvious that Process Integration can only take place through people: representative teams of people with the necessary knowledge and skills participate in and redesign their own processes and linkages to the other teams in the organization. These teams of people are provided direction by Process Leaders, who facilitate, coach and advise the owners on how to best integrate the processes for which they are accountable. These Process Leaders increase productivity and ensure better results, though the interaction and engagement of the organization’s people. Thus, the organization believes in the role of its people to ensure the quality of its processes; it also supports the effort of Process Integration leading to orderly change, continuous renewal and effective management.
