Process governance is a major issue, and yet often forgotten and overlooked by organizations.
In short, we can say that process governance is the way in which a company can consolidate the process management initiatives within standards, rules, and guidelines that all go together towards a common goal.
The term governance alone can be understood as the ability to target and orchestrate joint efforts with the authority and acceptance of all.
In the context of process governance, its purpose is to prevent isolated and disconnected management initiatives from processes contributing only small, localized results. It is necessary for process improvements to add value to the supply chain in a consistent, systematic and integrated manner, given the strategic plan set by the top management of the company.
Objectives of process governance
We can summarize the role of process governance in a company with 10 major goals:
- Standardize process initiatives.
- Encourage the alignment of these initiatives.
- As a result, encourage continuous improvement of business processes.
- Define roles and responsibilities of the processes.
- Determine who has the power to decide the procedures.
- Become a more agile organization in response to the emergence of changes.
- Promote the quality of process initiatives.
- Change management processes on a daily application of culture.
- Align management processes with the strategic objectives of the company.
- Ensure that the processes office coordinates these initiatives and gives the necessary support to all areas involved.
In short, process governance should be able to promote the guidance and direction of process management to create synergy between initiatives and continuous improvement. For this purpose, it can make use of some initiatives.
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Initiatives of process governance
- Definition and control of rules and guidelines.
- Establishment of procedures.
- Establishment of tools to use. Check out this tool for process modeling.
- Make the overall objectives of the process clear.
- Definition of business rules.
- Determination of the forms of measurement and control.
- Create rules for the organization of processes.
- Define structures and levels.
- Direct the methodologies in process management.
- Establish the value chain as a beacon for process management.
Through these initiatives and to achieve the objectives indicated above, there are three levels of responsibility:
- Direct execution (in some cases) and control of business processes.
- Coordination, assistance, and overview of management processes.
- To promote and ensure the integrity and reliability of the processes in the company as a whole.
As can be seen, the degree of responsibility increases from the first level, more operational, through to the second, management, and to a more strategic third level, where alignment with the top management of the company is essential.
Check out: How to optimize processes, with these ideas for process improvement.
Defining process governance
Now that we have a clearer vision of process governance, we can look at a definition:
“It is a framework that organizes and defines these elements: roles and responsibilities, standards, tasks, organizational structure, goals, mechanisms of control and evaluation mechanisms; in order to facilitate management processes as an everyday management element in organizations in order to improve the performance of their processes. “ Daniel Barroso Barros
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Process governance model
Finally, we present a governance model of the processes proposed by Korhonen on 4 levels:
Committee procedures: strategic level
- Works with the macro processes.
- Responsible for alignment with corporate strategy.
- Selection and prioritization of projects in process.
- Resource allocation.
Office processes: tactical level
- Train and support the implementation of projects.
- Define methods, standards, tools and rules.
- Determine and maintain process architecture.
Group Manager processes: tactical level
- The “owner” of the process.
- Track performance.
- Lead projects with these processes.
Group project manager: operational level
- Operates in the daily processes and is also responsible for its implementation.
As you have seen, the concept of process governance is a kind of guardian of your company’s integrity and should maintain its consistency with the organization’s goals. To implement it correctly, the use of appropriate and current BPM tools is essential.
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