The technical world – e.g., engineering and manufacturing – has captured the term “process” to the point where people immediately think “technical” when they encounter the word. Yet process has a more universal meaning: simply put, it is how we do things. This more universal meaning includes human processes that are just as important as those that are technical. Technical processes may well be managed by people who are trained to do so. Human processes, not so much: organizations rely on the competence of those people engaged in using them. Although individually these people are competent, they may not have the perspective or the position to see the whole process. This frequently leads to “individual productivity” contained within an organization’s “process dysfunction”.
If you think about it, it’s really short-sighted to disregard the human processes in your organization. These range from senior level “how tos” like Strategic Planning through mid-management processes like Project Management and reach the line level where people need to understand how to interact with the processes to deliver the organization’s product or service. Process Management means lining up all the “here is how we do things” into sequences; this ensures that people are well informed, understand their inter-dependencies and are productive. However, lining them up may not be enough. It may help to consider these processes as physical assets to be managed in the same way as the other assets of the organization get managed. This involves Process Owners that are made accountable for how well their process works, understand where processes fit in the organization and how they and their process contribute to overall success.
We have found instances where the inability to identify and control the organization’s entire set of processes has led to multiple processes, created to serve a need at one time, holding status because they’re “part of the job” and consuming effort to keep them going. In these instances, people can get a jaded view of process. This is unfortunate since, when correctly organized, sequenced, owned and continuously improved, a process approach creates a culture of achievement. For those organizations that decide to treat their processes as assets, Process Owners will facilitate, coach, advise and lead change projects to ensure the success of the organization.
Thinking in terms of Process Assets simply calls for a change in perspective and vocabulary. An appropriate management approach soon follows. While that sounds like a monumental task, the idea of treating processes as assets has a tendency to drive change in a natural way. That’s because organizations discover very quickly that there is a close relationship between a process (how to do things) and a skill (knowing how to do things). Such a discovery is what leads to meaningful and productive change and can have a fundamental impact on the success of the organization.
