Process owners: key to process improvement

Process owners need tools to plan, organize, lead, and control workflows. Here is how Tallyfy supports process ownership and improvement.

No matter how efficiently your business carries out its processes, there is always room for process improvement. Efficient processes can make your business more profitable, help you to improve quality and customer experience, and ultimately, enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

To successfully improve your processes, you need to appoint process owners. To understand the key role that process owners play in process improvement, let’s take a closer look at who they are, what they do, and how you should work with them. Finally, we will sum up the reasons why your process owners are the key to successful process improvement.

Process owners and processes

A process is a set of activities that turns inputs into outputs. Those inputs come from another process and are passed on to the next process until a final product is achieved.

The beauty of processes is that they are repeatable. You don’t have to reinvent the way you work every time you have something to do. In fact, variation is the one thing you want to avoid.

Variation makes your results unpredictable. As a result, your business runs carefully plan processes and tries to ensure that they will always be carried out in the same way. As a business owner, however, you have more important things to do than micro-manage your employees and make sure they are efficient with their processes.

What you can do, however, is appoint process owners. They ensure that processes are carried out as planned and that the results are passed on to the next process smoothly. When you decide to improve a process, the process owner becomes all the more important.

A process owner cannot have tunnel vision. He or she has to see the “big picture” and how their process fits into it.

Being able to design, implement, and improve processes is part of the task.

Knowing how the process interacts with other processes, and improving on that when possible, goes with the territory too. Finally, process owners choose measurements or Key Performance Indicators that will show whether process improvement plans are working out as they should.

All the elements of management: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling are therefore part of a process owner’s work.

At the same time, the process owner may not be the person in charge of every staff member who engages in a process. But most of the activities should fall under the process owner’s control, and he or she should be able to influence any parts of the process that are not.

What process owners do

“Plan, organize, lead, and control,” is a simple way of summing up a complex concept. So, what type of tasks do these four words embrace? A process owner must be able to:

• Formally define an entire process.
• Explain how the process links and interacts with other processes.
• Choose an appropriate system for documentation.
• Know what is required to train staff so that they execute their part of the process well.
• Communicate any instructions on procedures to be followed.
• Ensure that the desired level of quality is achieved by those following the process.
• Provide staff with the resources and information they need.
• Keep processes running efficiently, improving them whenever possible.
• Solve problems and prevent them from recurring.
• Implement any changes to the process effectively.
• Work with the internal suppliers of the process about what is needed from inputs.
• Meet the needs and requirements of the process receiving outputs.
• Use performance information to set process improvement goals.
• Follow up to see whether performance goals are being reached.
• Identify and mitigate process-related risks and explore process-related opportunities.
• Develop and suggest process improvements.

Process owners, therefore, develop and run processes, but they also constantly look for ways to improve them, and since you are embarking on process improvement, you can see where process owners enter the picture.

How process owners improve processes

When a need for process improvement is picked up, the process owner plans carefully first. In discussions we have had about transformation leadership, we consistently see that effective process owners combine operational strategy expertise with change management skills - the ability to lead teams through critical transitions while managing day-to-day operations. They answer the following questions in the process:

• What are we trying to achieve?
• How can we perform tasks so that we achieve it?
• When will we do it?
• What data do I need to track progress, and how will I assess it?
• What is the final plan?
• How will I communicate it?

Now that your process owner has worked on a plan, presented it to you, and has received approval, it’s time to put the plan into action. By now, everyone affected by the process will know what they are meant to do and what they are trying to achieve.

But plans are not yet practice. The process owner needs to move to the next step

Is the plan working in action? It’s time to check the results. During planning, the project owner decides on what information he or she needs to analyze to gauge success. Now the measurements are used to see whether the results match expectations.

Can the process improve next time around? The process owner decides what actions to take to make sure that it does and starts the cycle again, beginning with planning.

Example Procedure

Quarterly Strategic Planning & Goal Setting Workflow

1Revisit annual plan goals

2Break down goals into smaller chunks

3Review budget and benchmarks

4Create action steps and benchmarks

5Set expectations and timelines

+2 more steps

View template

Example Procedure

Employee Performance Review & Evaluation Workflow

1Schedule performance review meeting

2Define employee goals and development plan

3Create training and development plan

4Executive approval for senior manager evaluations

5Collect performance data and 360 feedback

+4 more steps

View template

Example Procedure

Multi-Tier Purchase Approval Authority Matrix Workflow

1Supplier approval (Tier 1 - Manager Level)

2Purchase authorization (Tier 2 - Director Level)

3Vendor acknowledgement and PO confirmation

4Define approval thresholds by tier

5Assign approvers by role and backup coverage

+3 more steps

View template

Who should you appoint as a process owner?

The whole point of having process owners is that you have one person who is in charge of making a process work well for you. Accountability matters here. A process owner may have a team to help with process improvement, but the responsibility remains with a single individual.

Usually, a process owner will be a manager, but choosing the right person for the task takes a little thought.

Experience with the process in question will help, but the willingness to drive change and make improvements rather than just maintain the status quo is a prerequisite. If process improvement is going to solve a problem a member of your management has raised, you might have the perfect candidate for process ownership.

Here’s something that separates good process owners from great ones: they understand what’s actually critical to quality in their process. Not everything matters equally. The best process owners can pinpoint the three or four factors that truly affect whether outputs meet customer expectations - and they obsess over those. They don’t chase every metric or try to perfect every detail. They focus ruthlessly on what customers genuinely care about, which usually isn’t what you’d expect until you ask.

The other trait I’ve come to value? Process owners who regularly get out of their chairs and go see the work happening. There’s a concept from Lean called “going to the Gemba” - basically, walking to where the actual work gets done instead of relying on reports and dashboards. Sounds obvious, right? But most managers don’t do it. The process owners who physically observe their processes in action catch problems that never show up in data. They spot workarounds people invented because the official process doesn’t quite work. They hear complaints that never make it into formal feedback channels. A process owner who stays stuck in meetings and spreadsheets misses half of what’s really going on.

But just as a process doesn’t exist in isolation, a process owner also has to have the people skills to work with process owners from preceding and subsequent processes. At Tallyfy, we’ve seen that the most effective process owners spend as much time building relationships with adjacent process owners as they do optimizing their own workflows. And from what I’ve seen across thousands of customer conversations, they probably need to work with people who are responsible for parallel processes that impact the one they are to own.

Needless to say, you need a rational but creative thinker who has a knack for spotting areas in the process that could do with improvement. In my experience implementing process ownership structures across mid-market organizations, your process owners need to keep their fingers on the pulse consistently, even once the process improvements are entrenched and are running smoothly. We have seen COOs in property management and legal services take ownership of complex multi-disciplinary workflows - their success comes from seeing the big picture while maintaining financial acuity about ROI objectives.

How to work with process owners

Once you think you have identified a process owner, you want his or her full cooperation. As the term says, you need an “owner.” For process owners to be passionate about business process improvement, they must be involved as early as possible.

Without early involvement, it’s difficult for process owners to feel as if they are part of a team that is aiming for exciting results. Instead, they may feel that they are being dragged along by the initiative rather than actively participating.

As soon as you know that there is a process-related improvement you would like to work on, it’s time to appoint the process owner and inform him or her of what you have in mind. If you have trained Six-Sigma Black Belts, one of them will share the responsibility for process improvement with the process owner.

Whether you have Six-Sigma Black Belts or not, your process owner is likely to need a team, and once again, he or she should be involved in the selection process.

As your process improvement project progresses, you will have meetings at which feedback must be given and presentations made. Even if you have a Six-Sigma Black Belt on the case, most of the communication should come from the process owner. The Black Belt is there to help with Six-Sigma-related specialist knowledge on process improvement, but the process owner is still in charge.

By giving process owners real ownership and by getting feedback directly from them, you foster their engagement and keep it alive.

Process ownership - a quick recap

So now that you know the “hows” and “whys” of process ownership, let’s do a quick recap…

• A process owner works with a process in which they have specialist expertise and in-depth knowledge that you don’t have. The ideas and advice you get are highly relevant.
• Process owners give you a single point of contact for any part of a process they are in charge of. You need only work directly with one person.
• Process owners take responsibility for process results and work to improve efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction.
• They don’t stop owning the process after process improvement initiatives wind down - they make sure you are still getting the improved results.
• Process owners work with the owners of adjacent processes to coordinate and improve workflows.
• They monitor work within their process and come up with new ideas for ongoing improvement.

Who owns your processes?

Of course, just appointing a series of process owners is not enough to ensure success. To really get the most out of them, you will need to arm them with the right tools.

Business Process Management Software (BPMS) is a must-have weapon in every process owner’s arsenal. The tool can help capture new process designs or adjustments, test out possible solutions, communicate requirements to process teams, and monitor implementation. And to put the icing on the cake, Tallyfy’s BPMS is free to try.

Give it a go and see how the software can help with process improvement initiatives.

Related questions

What is an example of a process owner?

Consider the “customer order fulfillment” process from Example 4 for a coffee shop. This might be the manager who manages everything from the order a customer places to when they receive their beverage. They act to keep the system up and running, troubleshoot for issues, and optimize for good customer experience and efficiency.

What is a typical process owner?

The Process Owner The process owner typically is a mid-manager or a senior manager with a lot of understanding of their process. They are like the skipper of a ship, guiding the process toward its destination. For example, in a production company, the production manager would be the process owner for the production line, ensuring it was running efficiently, producing output according to schedule, with a goal of continuous process improvement.

Who should be the owner of a process?

Process owner should be an individual, who have the power, knowledge and interest to lead the process. Think of them as cheerleader in chief and problem solver in chief of the process. They should have a top-down view of the process and recognize its implications for the business and other employees involved in the process.

What is the difference between process manager and process owner?

Imagine a process as a garden. The process owner is the landscape architect who draws up the garden and what it should look like.

They have the long view and the strategic responsibility. The process manager, however, is more akin to the gardener who tends to the day-to-day and make sure everything is working. The owner sets its sights on long-term improvements and the business goals they align with, while the manager is all about the nitty-gritty side of the business - daily operations.

What are a process owner’s responsibilities?

Role of a process owner A process owner has multiple responsibilities. They are a mix of visionary, problem-solver and cheerleader.

They are the ones who set the operational goals, track performance, locate improvement possibilities and advocate for change. They also serve an important role to interface with stakeholders, resolve conflicts and ensure the process is aligned with the broader organizational aspirations. It is like being the director of a play, albeit one with a terrifyingly long list of duties that includes writing the script and taking each actor’s final bow.

What qualities are essential for a process owner?

The perfect process owner is an exceptional mix of competences and qualities. They require the vision of an eagle for the bigger picture, the patience of a saint to be enduring and the creativity of an artist to develop ingenious solutions.

Essential skill include good leadership skills, good communication skills, analytical and problem solving ability. They should even be flexible, as the processes may change as the business needs change. Consider them the blade of a Swiss Army knife that is always ready to take on whatever is standing in its way.