Explore the intricacies of process hierarchy in business management, as insights are shared on functional and end-to-end structures and the challenges of process ownership in organizations.
A new blog post of Caspar Jans was published on Feb 28, 2025 with the original title:
Process Hierarchy & Politics
Overview:
In this blog post, the author discusses the importance of process hierarchy in business management, emphasizing the need for a functional decomposition alongside an end-to-end process structure to effectively manage and govern business processes.
Core content:
- The author experienced consistent client discussions on the topic of process hierarchy, highlighting its significance in business operations.
- A dual hierarchy approach is recommended: a fully functionally decomposed process hierarchy and an end-to-end process hierarchy.
- The functional hierarchy organizes processes by domain, while the end-to-end hierarchy facilitates managing cross-functional processes.
- Ownership assignment for end-to-end processes can be politically challenging, requiring careful consideration of process impact.
- Different client needs can lead to varying conclusions on process management despite similar discussions.
Learnings:
- Understanding the dual structuring of process hierarchies can enhance governance and efficiency in business operations.
- Realizing that process ownership may cause internal friction urges thoughtful approaches to assigning roles.
- Recognizing the need for differentiation in process execution across jurisdictions ensures adaptability in process management.
- Client-specific concerns can reveal diverse perspectives on process hierarchy while still sharing a common foundation.
- Effective process management is a balancing act between standardization and customization based on unique business needs.
The original content was published in English.
