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Welcome back. We hope that you found an interesting overview of the various services that we can provide you, as you join our global network of resource management and risk management services.
When we chatted earlier we were talking about probably the most broad of the various risk management topics, and that is of Business Process Risk Management, and the moment that one starts to talk about Business Process Risk Management the International Standard that comes to mind is the ISO9001 y2008 Business Process Quality Management System.
There's a lot of confusion often about ISO9001 y2008; many people view it as a Quality Control System, which of course it isn't – quality control is one tiny element of IS09001. ISO9001 focuses on Business Processes, and how those are managed in a structured and risk-related environment – and the objective of that Standard is to ensure the effective management of those Business Processes, to ensure that we can continually meet or exceed the expectations of our customers and drive continuous improvement. Now that's quite a tall order – in order to do that we really need to be able to consistently assess the capability of any given Process; so the measurement of Process capability is one of the keys to really unlock the business value of this particular Standard.
The question is, where do we start? Now, Business Processes don't take place in a vacuum – they operate in your business environment, and this is our starting point. And what we do is to create a visual representation of your business environment; we call it a Commercial Business Model, and this model diagrammatically portrays the interrelated Processes that exist between the entities in your business environment. In essence, the Commercial Business Model demonstrates your organisation and the means that it follows to put money in the bank. You'll find an example of a Commercial Business Model on our free downloads engine-room on our website. The development of that Commercial Business Model is the first step in unlocking Risk Management in relation to Business Processes.
The second step is to take those Business Processes that we've identified on the Commercial Business Model and translate them on to a top level mapping document, and we call that document a Key Business Process Summary. This summary is one of the most valuable deliverables in your entire Quality Management System – you'll soon see why. I suggest you make a note of the following points which will provide you with that high level map; call it the A to Z of your Business Processes. The items that we identify on this top level map, this Key Business Process Summary:-
We start off obviously with the Process title – that provides us with the link between the Business Model and this Summary. Then we define the inputs, the "triggers", to that particular Business Process; what are the things that get that Business Process moving?
The next thing that we identify are the outputs - often called the records, and sometimes referred to as the work products – of that Business Process. And we identify those on this Business Process Summary.
Now we hit some of the interesting elements:
- Performance Measures: we need to define very carefully the Performance Measures for a particular Process. And you can see the links that we're going to start to draw between those Performance Measures and the capability assessment that can be done at a later stage.
- Responsibilities – usually far more than one (two, three, four, five responsibilities in any given Process) because typically those Processes run like mad chickens across your organisation and across departmental interfaces.
- And one single Accountability – that's the Highlander of your Business Processes; there can be only one. And it is the individual, the job function, the job title, in your organisation that is ultimately accountable for those particular Performance Measures. Often confusion with regard to Accountability; obviously the most senior person in your organisation is ultimately accountable for everything that goes on. What you're looking for, however, is the most junior level of accountability, not the most senior.
Next step is to have a look at the risks associated with that particular Business Process. Now, that Risk Assessment can take quite a simple approach in terms of high, medium and low risks, in other words a very qualitative evaluation to begin with, but it's best followed by a quantitative evaluation. What's important is to distinguish between the various categories of risk; we start off with, for example, risks relating to Corporate Governance and legal and regulatory requirements of that Business Process, we can move on to risks associated with revenue, with cost, with customer satisfaction, and with some of the specialised elements of risk (environmental, food safety, occupational health & safety). Those risks need to be tabulated against that Business Process. It's always best, at the end of that Risk Assessment, to summarise the significant risks that you've identified.
A couple of last things, before we leave the Process maps; the first one being the resources that you need in order to make sure that that Business Process works effectively - are there any particular skills, are there any particular software programmes, is there any particularly specialised equipment, that your organisation needs to make sure that that Business Process is effective. And we're going to use that top level map to help us now start to identify the capability of that particular Process.
Again, please feel free to find some practical examples of Key Business Process Summaries that contain real-life Business Processes which we've mapped, and you'll find them in our downloads engine-room on the website.
Having done the top level map, the third step is to take those Key Business Processes and now start to flow chart those Business Processes. And one of the biggest mistakes that you can make is to try and flow chart a Process to a level of detail that you would typically find in a job description. Not required; what you want to focus on is how do you manage and control the key risks associated with that Business Process, and define those management control techniques in the flow chart that you develop.
Good luck! It's an amazing exercise, it's lots of fun, and please feel free to contact us if you need further assistance, and have a look at the training page and you'll see that we have some specific training programmes that we offer that address these particular topics. Look forward to chatting to you next time. Bye for now. |