Execution · Organising to Growing
An owner for every process
Every main process has one owner who keeps an eye on the whole chain and improves it, and there's a written agreement with the line managers on who decides about the process and who decides about the people.
Worth reading first: Mapping your core processes
Does this sound familiar?
- Sales hits its target, the workshop is running flat out, and yet the client complains about delivery times.
- Whenever something goes wrong between two departments, it ends up with you.
- You asked the planner to keep an eye on lead times. The head of the workshop thinks she's interfering with his people.
- You mapped out your processes neatly. Six months later nothing about them has changed.
Who it's for, and when
For founders and leadership teams who know their processes, but see work getting stuck between departments and every problem landing with them. It comes up once you're no longer at every handover, in Organising, and comes back in Growing, when heads of department sit between you and the work. In Proving you still watch the chain yourself, and that's fine.
The model
“There has to be an owner [...]; otherwise, it will fall between the cracks.”
A main process runs straight across your departments. Each department looks after its own part, and the handovers in between belong to nobody. That's why every main process gets one owner. They sit alongside the line managers, not above them: the line manager looks after their people, the owner looks after how the work flows through the chain.
That boundary is where it goes wrong. Hammer describes owners who weren't allowed to change anything, and line managers who bent the process to suit themselves anyway. So write down on one card who decides what, and who referees when they disagree. There's a filled-in card below.
An owner also decides how. They choose which handover to tackle first and how to change it. You referee when they and a line manager can't agree, and that doesn't make you the owner. If a change goes wrong now and again, don't take the process back; ask what they need (the lesson Who's got the monkey?).
Every process has a result KPI, and in Boldcaster the process owner automatically owns that KPI too. What that figure asks of them each period is in the lesson An owner for every KPI. This lesson is about the process as a whole and the agreements with the line.
Michael Hammer, Beyond Reengineering (1996) and The Process Audit (Harvard Business Review, April 2007): the process owner as a permanent role alongside the line manager, and one of five conditions for a process that runs well. Verne Harnish took the owner per process into Scaling Up (2014).
Owner of the chain
From start to finish, across the departments. They often work in one of those departments themselves, but they look at the whole chain, and above all at the handovers.
Alongside the line manager
The line manager decides who does what, staffing, overtime and leave. The owner changes the steps and the handovers, in other departments too, but doesn't direct the people there. In a small company one person often wears both hats; agree when they're wearing which.
A referee
A new handover sometimes costs a department something, and then the line manager says no. Agree in advance who decides at that point, and how quickly. Usually that's you.
One improvement every quarter
An owner who only reports their figure changes nothing. Agree one improvement per quarter. They choose which one, and arrange what it needs with the line manager.
Pitfalls
Making the head of department owner by default
Whoever runs the biggest department in the process mostly sees their own part. They won't change a handover that costs their department something. Pick someone who can see the whole chain and has a stake in the end result.
An owner for every sub-process, none for the chain
Purchasing, the warehouse and shipping each have an owner for their part, but nobody looks after delivering orders as a whole. Then you've given the departments a new name, and the handovers still belong to nobody.
Watch and read
Hammer himself on the process-centred organisation, and why the process owner is a role of its own alongside the line manager.
Watch on YouTubeThe Scaling Up worksheet in four minutes, where you put one owner and their figure against each core process.
Watch on YouTubeHow to choose an owner for a process that crosses departments, the classic mistakes, and how the role differs from a job title.
Watch on YouTubeTo go further
Why Amazon stopped adding ever more coordination between teams, and gave every important piece of work one leader who's fully responsible for it.
Watch on YouTubeRead
Beyond Reengineering: How the Process-Centered Organization Is Changing Our Work and Our Lives
Michael Hammer · 1996 · ISBN 9780887308802
Hammer on the process-centred organisation and the process owner as a permanent role alongside the line manager. His article The Process Audit (Harvard Business Review, April 2007) is the short version, with examples of what goes wrong between owner and line.
View the bookScaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't
Verne Harnish · 2014 · ISBN 9780986019524
The chapter on the Process Accountability Chart: your core processes, one owner per process and a figure. Also published in Dutch as Scaling up: de groeiformule (Business Contact).
View the bookApply it
- 1
Choose one owner per main process
Someone who can see the whole chain and has a stake in the end result. Not the head of the biggest department by default, and preferably not you.
- 2
Fill in the agreement card, with the line managers in the room
Use the card below as a starting point. Go through it line by line to check it fits your company, and fill in the referee. A card the line managers haven't seen doesn't count.
- 3
Say it out loud and put it in the app
Tell the team who the owner is and what they can change. Add them to the process in Boldcaster, so they automatically own its result KPI too.
- 4
Let them choose the first improvement
Ask which handover they'll tackle this quarter and what they need from the line. They decide how. You only come in when they and a line manager can't agree.
Examples
Agreement card: from order to delivery
Process: from order to delivery, from confirmed order to product with the client on the promised date Process owner: Sanne, production planning Line managers: Ilse (sales office), Mark (production), Kees (dispatch) Result KPI: orders delivered on the promised date The process owner decides on: - the steps and their order - what has to be ready before an order goes onto the shop floor (drawing, materials, confirmed date) - what the next step receives at each handover - which improvement this quarter, and how The line manager decides on: - who does which work and who's on which machine - staffing, overtime and leave - onboarding and reviewing their people Together, by agreement: - a change that costs a department hours, people or money - an order that jumps the queue in the schedule Referee: the managing director, within a week, after hearing both sides. They decide on that one point only. Fixed slot: Sanne brings the current figure and the improvement to the weekly meeting. Review: every six months, or when a department is added.
Two hats at a software company
The onboarding manager owns 'from signed contract to live client' and also leads the onboarding team. The card says when she's wearing which hat: as owner she was allowed to introduce a handover checklist that sales fills in at signing. The sales manager still decides who sells to which client.
Do this in your own business
Everything up to here is free. What you fill in for your own business, you keep in Boldcaster.
- Go to Processes. On the Processes tab under KPIs you give each process an owner; that owner automatically owns the process's result KPI too. You'll see that tab if you're allowed to edit KPIs. If you own a process, you'll find its KPI under My KPIs.
- You look back on a situation from your own work. Only you can read what you write.
- You set a date with yourself, and on that day the app asks how it went.
- You assign the lesson to your team and see who has done it.
- The quiz counts towards your progress, and you see which lesson comes next.
Four weeks free. You'll land straight in this lesson.
Quiz
6 situations. You need 5 of 6 right. You can try again at any time.
1.The process 'from order to delivery' runs from the sales office through production planning and production to dispatch. Who would you ideally make the owner?
2.It's the busiest delivery week of the quarter. An operator asks for a day off. Who decides?
3.The owner wants orders to go to production only with a complete drawing. The production manager says no: his crew would sometimes stand idle. What's the best next step?
4.Since the production planner became owner, he moves operators to other machines himself and asks them to work overtime. The production manager is angry. What's going wrong?
5.The owner introduces a new handover checklist. In the first two weeks two orders go wrong. You could put it right yourself in an afternoon. What do you do?
6.A process owner reports their figure every week, neatly, with an explanation. Six months on, nothing in the process has changed. What's missing?
Nothing is saved here. In the app, the quiz counts towards your progress.
Read next
- Writing down how you work, without a thick manual · You write down one way of working that a colleague can follow without you, with an owner who keeps it up to date, and you know who knows it.
Not sure where to start? Take the growth scan