The Importance

of

Business Process Ownership

BASSA 2012

4 September

Presented by: Robert D’Alton

Metropolitan Life

Structure

1. The problem of 0wnership

2. Understanding ownership

3. The value of ownership

4. Ownership in the workplace

5. The cost of unclear ownership

6. The benefits of clear ownership

7. The causes of unclear roles

8. Resolving unclear roles

9. The “things” that need clear ownership

10. The roles that need clarification

11. Making it happen

Please note comments

for the end

The problem of ownership

The problem of ownership: 1

• Contention for ownership

– Conflict

– Military

– Ideological

– Company political *

The problem of ownership: 2

• Rejection of ownership

– Neglect

– Degradation

– E.g. Potholes on roads between towns

– E.g. Compliance*

What is ownership?

What is ownership: 1

What is ownership: 2

• An abstract relational concept

– Object is not changed

– Person is not changed

– Only perception is changed

– E.g. Citi Golf => BMW 3 series*

What is ownership: 3

• Primary responsibility

– Rights

– Obligations

– Critical interest in success or failure

• Secondary roles

– Want some rights

– Don’t usually want responsibilities

– Lesser impact of success or failure*

The value of ownership

The value of ownership

Not all things are equally valuable

Value = Benefit – Cost

• Benefit > Cost: Value > 0 = Good

• Cost > Benefit: Value < 0 = Bad*

Ownership in the workplace

Ownership in the workplace: 1

• Same social forces at work

• Business Process ownership is organisational

social currency

• Owning lots of high value processes = “Rich”

• Owning lots of low value processes = “Poor”

• Owning no processes = “Poverty”*

Ownership in the workplace: 2

• High value business processes– Lots of people (especially professional)

– Big budget

– Profit centres

– Easy to manage

• Low Value business processes– Few people

– Low budget

– Cost centres

– Difficult to manage*

Ownership in the workplace: 3

• Ownership gives power

• The more you own the more power you have– Own as much as you can!

– But preferably the valuable stuff

• He who has the most toys when he dies wins

• He who has the most valuable business processes/ responsibility/ power gets the promotion/ bonus/ increase*

Ownership in the workplace: 4

• Business processes are traded like stocks

– People and technology with it

• Perceived inequities leads to politics

• Office politics is friction generated over

business process ownership

• Politicians = levels of management*

+ Value

Business

Process

Business

Process

Business

Process

Business

Process

Business

Process

BusinessProcess

Business

Process

Business

Process

- Value

Business

Process

Business

Process

Business

Process

BusinessProcess

BusinessProcess

Ownership in the workplace: 5

The problem:

• There are some processes everybody wants to

own

• There are some processes nobody wants to

own*

The cost of unclear ownership

The cost of unclear ownership: 1

Overlaps: Everybody wants a say

– Frustration

– Confusion

– Additional “owners” –IT, BAs, …

– Wasted effort

– Disharmony, politics *

The cost of unclear ownership: 2

Gaps: Nobody wants to take responsibility

– Improvement black hole

– Compliance, auditing, reputational risk

– Death by e-mail & meetings

– Forgotten processes*

The cost of unclear ownership: 3

For the BA and PM

• Who wants to request changes?

– Everybody

• Who wants to sign requirements off?

– Nobody*

The benefits of clear ownership

The benefits of clear ownership

• Avoidance of wastage as described above

• Optimal usage of scarce resources

• Better scoping

• Directed solutions

• Ready-made job descriptions and KPIs

• Organisational and process improvements are more evident

• Less energy wastage

• Most bang for buck*

The causes of unclear ownership

The causes of unclear ownership

1

• Multi-skilled people or business areas

– Gradual accretion of process responsibilities

– Undocumented process responsibilities

– Irregular processes

– Leave: spread load around

• Comet-tails

– Leave area: drag some responsibilities along*

The causes of unclear ownership

2

• Undocumented business processes

• Incomplete job descriptions

• Inadequate transition management*

The solution to unclear ownership

The solution to unclear ownership

Know yourself

• Map business processes and role players

Executive buy-in

• Resolve overlaps and allocate gaps

Transition management process

• Maintain maps

• Avoid gaps and overlaps*

The “things” that need clear

ownership

The things that need to be owned

• Business processes

• Data

• Business Rules

• Budgets

• Projects

• …*

The roles that need clear

definition

Roles that need clarity

• Business process owner

• Business process performers

• Business element custodians

– Rules: process, legislative, accounting, calculations…

– Data

– Systems

• Process change management

• Downstream stakeholders*

Making it happen

Making it happen

• A central process register and role matrix

• Project to map everything

– “What do you do?”

• Start in one business area and work your way through

• Start anywhere with a single BPO – the value will become clear*

Conclusion

Conclusion

• Clear business process ownership is important

to:

– Improve processes

– Save money

– Reduce politics

• It will improve business analysis success

• It will add value to your organisation*

A few reminders

A Reminder

“If you always do what you always did you will

always get what you always got”

Pre-emptive answers

What does an owner do?

• Fully understands the responsibilities of the ownership role.

• Fully understands the process/function of which s/he is the owner. This means:– Understanding the business rationale of the business process, not just what it does. What business purpose does it fulfil?

– Understand the business rules governing the function and why they exist.

– Understanding the legal context that governs the business process, if any.

– Understanding the data elements that are critical to the function, who owns them, where they reside, who creates them, and who else uses them.

– Understanding which supporting systems there are, what they do (in functional terms), and who the technical custodians are.

– Understanding the inputs to the business process.

– Understanding the outputs of the business process.

– Understanding the transformations that happen in the business process.

• Understands the upstream business processes that create critical data or work for the owned business process.

• Understands the downstream business processes for which the owned business process creates critical data or work.

• Understand all of the other role-player’s responsibility and work at eliminating gaps and overlaps.

• Ensures that processes change as business requirements, legal frameworks, technology, upstream processes and downstream processes change, or as weaknesses, opportunities or threats are identified.

• As the process owner has to be answerable at the end of the day, no changes to their processes may be done without their explicit consent. This means business rules, forms, manual processes, systems processes, supporting systems and supporting data, whether these elements are shared with other process owners or not.

• Can delegate aspects of the business process role to lower-level business process owners or to custodians.

• Inherits decisions from a higher-level business process owner.

How is ownership established?

• Devolves down organisational structure

• Lands on a willing body’s lap by default

• Lumped together with vaguely similar

processes.

• Subtly shifted due to inadequate ownership*

Ideally

• A higher-level owner must identify a lower-level owner.

• The lower-level owner must fully understand the ownership role. – Exactly which processes and functions are included and excluded

– The scope of and limitations to responsibilities.

– Escalation paths

– The roles of all other players, especially higher-level custodianship delegations

• The lower-level owner must accept the ownership role.

• The responsibilities must be published and agreed by all role-players in that function/process

• The business process performer is not usually the business process owner – in other words the lowest level that business process ownership can be devolved to is departmental manager or in exceptional cases possibly team leader (supervisor) level.

Final final end