Method

Business process management

In French: Gestion des processus

Managing by processes means organising steering around what crosses the company to produce a service for the customer, rather than around the departments that make it up.

The problem it solves

An organisation by functions optimises each department for its own account. Each one meets its objectives, and yet the customer suffers delays, rework and contradictory information — because nobody is responsible for what passes between the departments.

It is at the interfaces that most delays are lost: a file waiting for an approval, a piece of information being passed on again, a decision going up the line. No functional dashboard brings them out, since they belong to nobody.

Appointing a process owner — someone whose scope follows the flow and not the organisation chart — is the central gesture of this approach, and the hardest: it creates a transverse responsibility in a vertical structure.

The three families of processes

Core processes produce what the customer receives: handle an order, deliver a service, ship.

Support processes make the first ones possible without the customer seeing them: purchasing, IT, human resources, maintenance.

Management processes decide and steer: planning, performance reviews, risk management.

The map that links them serves above all one purpose: showing that a malfunction experienced in a core process often has its source in a support process that is unaware of it.

Steering, not only describing

Many organisations stop at mapping and description. The documents exist, they are up to date, and nothing changes — because describing is not steering.

Steering assumes three things: indicators that measure the process end to end and not each step, a periodic review where those indicators trigger decisions, and an owner who has the means to act on steps they do not manage hierarchically.

Without the third point, the first two produce findings repeated year after year. It is the most recognisable symptom of process management that exists only on paper.

The common mistakes

Confusing process mapping with process management. The first is a document, the second a practice. A company can have an impeccable map and no transverse steering — it is even the most frequent case after a certification.

Cutting too fine. An organisation that lists eighty processes steers none of them: nobody can hold a review on eighty objects. About fifteen, of which three or four really tracked, is better.

On the shop floor — Business services

The response time to a customer request was measured by each department, all within their objectives. The end-to-end measurement gave nine days, seven of them waiting at the three interfaces. The first gain consisted of removing an intermediate approval that nobody read any more.

The other tools illustrated by this trade: services, it and engineering.

Frequently asked questions

What is the link with ISO 9001 certification?

The process approach is one of the principles of the standard, which explains why most certified organisations have a map. But certification attests to a documented system, not to effective transverse steering: the two are often found separately.

Who can be a process owner?

Someone who knows the flow end to end and has real access to the decision-makers of the steps concerned. The title matters less than the mandate: without an explicit mandate from senior management, the role is reduced to running meetings with no power.

What is the link with Lean Six Sigma?

Process management provides the permanent framework — who steers what, with which indicators — and Lean Six Sigma the one-off improvement projects. One without the other runs out: projects without a framework let the gains dissipate, a framework without projects observes without correcting.

Where should you start?

With a single process, chosen for its customer impact and its transverse nature. Describe it end to end, measure it from one end to the other, appoint an owner, hold three reviews. A steered process then serves as a demonstration; a complete map from the outset convinces nobody.