I've been writing a lot here recently about various approaches to capturing information that can and should drive business process definition and refinement. And there's a lot of interesting stuff in the special SAP Business Process Expert (BPX) Community section of the ebizQ Web site about what it takes and means to be a business process expert or manager. All of this has led me to the sudden, retrospectively blindingly obvious realization of what likely is or should be the largest first challenge facing those pursuing BPM initiatives.
Who owns the process of defining and prioritizing business processes?
Senior executives sometimes argue that they define critical business processes "by definition," since they set overall corporate strategies and business goals, and are held accountable for fulfilling these, at least in theory. Line-of-business leaders often argue with equal vehemence that they own responsibility for defining business processes, since they and their teams are the ones with the "feet on the street" and their "fingers on the pulse" of the marketplace, particularly customers, partners, and prospects.
There are even IT decision-makers who will argue that they and their teams own or should own business process definition. Their reasoning? The business runs on IT, and IT is where all the real knowledge about who does what resides, within IT management logs and databases. Therefore, only IT has the breadth and depth of knowledge necessary to define processes accurately and effectively.
The right answer is more like "some part of all of the above, plus none of the above."
If enterprises managed IT based solely on "speeds and feeds" information, without taking into account business goals or user experiences, many enterprise IT deployments would look very different from how they look today. Similarly, effective business process definition and prioritization requires input from all of the stakeholders and influencers listed above.
However, no one group owns all of the processes used to define and refine business processes. In fact, the best roles for the three groups of stakeholders discussed here mirror the roles they play in the running of the business. Senior executives should define big-picture goals, and help to orchestrate more granular goals and processes supporting those higher-level goals. Line-of-business leaders and their teams should provide the information from the field necessary to make sure that both strategic and tactical processes are grounded in real life, and delivering real business value. IT decision-makers and their teams, meanwhile, should focus on ensuring that IT efforts provide maximum support for business goals, and engage business decision-makers when those goals threaten to disrupt IT or business operations unacceptably.
Broadly, business and IT teams are a lot like the cast and the crew on a movie or theatrical production. Frequently, neither camp can stand the other, but each realizes that ultimately, without both camps, ya got no show. (When Benjamin Franklin said "we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately," he could easily have been describing the dynamic that governs IT-business relations at many enterprises.)
BPM is both an opportunity and a critical requirement to replace confrontation and conflict with collaboration and cooperation. A good starting place is to come together to define and prioritize core business processes collaboratively, and to build a framework for continuing refinement and improvement of those processes.
If you'd like to see some more relevant observations and recommendations, check out Part Two of the two-part RFG Research Note "Business Knowledge Management: The 'Missing Link' for BPM, IPLM, and SOAs?" Then, let me know what you think, and how processes are defined and prioritized at your organization.
Hi Michael,
I go along with you [about your] question "Who owns the process of defining and prioritizing business processes?"
From my perspective there will be growing a new management function inside companies which will have control of all aspects of processes in a company.
Like ealier project/portfolio management there will be a kind of process portfolio managent as a new kind of management area. This person (department) [will] consolidate all process relevant information inside the company and establish guidelines how to create [and] adapt processes. They also consolidate all information about processes in a general management plattform where they are able to see which process might have low or hight risks in the area of finacial, customer care or quality. Also there will be additional information who owns this process (person, system) and other information.
This is my understanding how things will develop.
I'm interested how discussion on this topic goes further.
Very best
Gerhard
Michael Dortch has been an analyst, 'information entrepreneur,' speaker, and writer about IT and 'the real world" for the past 30 years. After almost 10 years at the Robert Frances Group (RFG), Michael begins a new position with Aberdeen Group in September.
Dennis Byron is an analyst with ebizQ, focusing on Open Source Software as well as Business Process Management technologies.
