The Process Approach
by Career Expert on June 20, 2006
The Process approach
A way of viewing the company and your role in it as a whole
Chapter 10 p.3
I’ve heard people refer to the “Process Approach”, but I don’t understand what it is all about and how I can benefit from it.
The Process Approach is about a way of viewing the company and your career as a whole. Explore the diagram below. Remember that you are looking at a simple and logical framework for all business activities and initiatives. The approach applies to all activities (from selling, ordering, admin, etc.) and can be uniformly applied.
When processes are in place, people know what to do, when and for whom, eliminating the need for process loss and uncertainty.
It also eliminates fragmentation of departments/teams and reduces the possibility of empire-building. People can take charge of their jobs, freeing up their manager’s time to enable him to concentrate on the improvement of business processes.
Central to the process approach are five simple rules that introduce order into chaos:
State the objective of the process – what must be achieved?
State the reason – why must the objective be achieved?
Formulate how the process is to achieve this objective (the process requirements) What must be done in what way to achieve the objective? Focus specifically on what the desired output and required input is.
Design the primary process to handle the requirements – what must be done
by whom, by when, for whom, and with what?
Define the process control mechanism – what mechanism(s) will be used as an indicator(s) of how well the process is working?
A way of viewing the company and your role in it as a whole
Chapter 10 p.3
I Ask
I’ve heard people refer to the “Process Approach”, but I don’t understand what it is all about and how I can benefit from it.
I Answer
The Process Approach is about a way of viewing the company and your career as a whole. Explore the diagram below. Remember that you are looking at a simple and logical framework for all business activities and initiatives. The approach applies to all activities (from selling, ordering, admin, etc.) and can be uniformly applied.
When processes are in place, people know what to do, when and for whom, eliminating the need for process loss and uncertainty.
It also eliminates fragmentation of departments/teams and reduces the possibility of empire-building. People can take charge of their jobs, freeing up their manager’s time to enable him to concentrate on the improvement of business processes.
Five simple rules that introduce order to chaos:
- State the objective of the process – what must be achieved?
- State the reason – why must the objective be achieved?
- Formulate how the process is to achieve this objective (the process requirements). What must be done in what way to achieve the objective? Focus specifically on what the desired output and required input is.
- Design the primary process to handle the requirements – what must be done, by whom, by when, for whom, and with what?
- Define the process control mechanism – what mechanism(s) will be used as an indicator(s) of how well the process is working?