What If...We don't have a process owner?

Quite simply, you lose. You can invest as much time and effort in process definition and mapping as you wish. You can commit a team to assessments, gap analysis and process mapping exercises. You can define the objectives, KPIs and KGIs and then document and publish your process. But without a process owner you will not be able to:

• Identify a single "go-to" person to hold accountable for the process


• Know who is qualified and authorized to make changes to the process


• Update the performance and indicator metrics as business conditions change


• Mature the process to accommodate changing customer, business and IT needs


• Drive continuous improvement to the process


• Get buy-in for use of the process by those who would prefer doing business they way they always have


• Mature the process as personnel become more skilled and automation is introduced


• Expand the process scope to other business or regional segments


• Train users, customers and management in the use of the process


• Manage the process for success


• Pro-actively identify risks to the process


• Know when the process is in control and, perhaps more importantly when it is about to go out of control


• Survive an audit


• Ensure consistency in the process output


• Manage, control and ultimately reduce costs by removing process inefficiencies


• Achieve broad and effective integration of processes

Now, do you think it is important to identify a process owner? Not only is it important, it's vital. Yet one organization after another insist upon working on their processes with no clear understanding as to who will own them. Or, they appoint a single individual with process ownership responsibility across all processes. That's unfortunate, as it is hardly reasonable to expect a well qualified Incident Management process owner to be equally effective in Capacity Management.

You must treat a process as a living, breathing entity. Processes must nurtured and cared for so they will evolve and grow in alignment with changing business conditions and technology. It does no good to spend time on a process only to have it gather dust, age and progress into obscurity and irrelevance. Unlike fine wine and Italians, processes don't get better with age - particularly if they are neglected.