Process Ownership

Overview

Describes the concept of business process ownership and who is responsible for them.

Getting proper owners for business processes is called process management and is a large topic by itself.

Often the assumption is that the IT department is responsible for the business process, either because the process is not communicated well or because IT drives communication instead of the actual process owner.
Think about these questions:
- Who is really responsible for the business process?
- Who is concerned with the performance of the process?
- Who can't function if the process breaks down?
- Who owns or reports on the result of the process?
If you are a manager and you answered "me" or "my direct reports" to any of these questions, you are the Process Owner.
The "owner" of a business process is the nearest manager of the process or of those who perform it.

Vision for continuous improvement of the business process (very important!)
Define how performance of the business process can be measured as associated metrics
Monitor metrics over time
Initiate Business Process Redesign when metrics or circumstances affecting the process change