Explore the nuances of business process hierarchy with insights on designing functional and end-to-end structures, featuring reflections from a week of client discussions and process ownership challenges.
A new podcast episode of Caspar Jans was published on Feb 28, 2025 with the original title:
S04E02: Process Hierarchy & Politics
Overview:
This episode explores the significance of maintaining two process hierarchies in business management: a functional hierarchy and an end-to-end hierarchy, emphasizing their roles in defining process ownership and managing variations across different contexts.
Core content:
- This week, the author attended three meetings focused on the same topic: process hierarchy, showcasing its importance in business management.
- He advocates for a dual-system hierarchy: one functional and one end-to-end, facilitating more effective governance of processes.
- The functional hierarchy decomposes business areas, allowing clear process ownership, while the end-to-end hierarchy helps manage processes that span across different functions.
- Assigning ownership of end-to-end processes can be politically sensitive, requiring careful consideration of process impact.
Learnings:
- Understanding the dual hierarchies in process management can improve governance and adaptation of business processes across functional boundaries.
- Careful assignment of process ownership is essential to ensure smooth operation of end-to-end processes and mitigate organizational friction.
- Managing process variations is crucial, requiring tailored approaches based on specific requirements of different regions or product lines.
The original content was published in English.
