Balaji Adhinarayanan In a less complex organization, process manager and owner could very well be the same person.

. In a complex organization split by business functions, it would be ideal to place the process manager and the architects who design and implement the process at higher level that spans across groups and have process owners ensuring that the process is applied consistently across the organization. Process owner need not translate to one physical headcount. It would be considered as a role. Overall accountability would lie with the process manager. Denise Heinle The process owner should state the goals and objectives across the different departments as they own the process, but should NOT be doing this in a vacuum. Processes are designed by Service Design so that those stakeholders are part of process design. The process owner then takes ownership of coming to agreeement with the various parties, documenting and ensuring they are followed and meet their objectives. Joe Gallagher Think of the process owners as the advocates for the process. They are accountable for the effective implementation of the process. They must report to senior management how the process is working. They must define the KPIs and CSI plans to improve the process. When people in the organization think of a process, the process owner's name and face should come to mind. Ultimately, the process owner must be very good at "selling" the benefits of the process to the organization including the business Process managers are at the execution level of the process. They are responsible for the accurate and effective implementation of the process. They report issues to the process owner. They provide daily governance to the process. They can also provide training, coaching, tool management, recommendations for improving the process, etc... At least that's the way I see it. Dimitris Mavroyiannis Dear Torbjrn, Absolutely. Process owner sets goals and monitors process managers. Indeed, they have this responsibility across departments. Rarely complex processes reside within single departments. (process owner has to be a good negotiator as well ;-). ) Torbjrn Dahlstrm @Joe - I really like your concept of "process owners name and face...", @Denise Anybody accountable for implementing any improvement in an organization will probably have to be very influential. @Dimitris - I agree, the owner sets the goals and monitors the process efficiency. @Balaji - I like the comment of "consistently across the organization...." @all, doesn't this then mean that per definition, it is not wise to have the process owner role and process manager role be appointed to one individual? How and who do you measure that the process does what it is supposed to do unless you ad some sort of accountability and reporting structure?

Simon Legg Torbjrn, following on from Deborah's comment .... as she says larger companies have both roles and indeed need them. In my experience a core process may well require a number of people to manage it to be effective on a global scale. In terms of accountability and reporting structure you are then touching on how effective the matrixed / management construct is for such an organisation. Typically if a process owner is great at governance, is a strong leader, an empathetic listener to the needs of different aspects of a business and is great at working within virtual organisations then it works. but its not easy and requires some very specific skills. Torbjrn Dahlstrm Thanks all for your comments. IMHO I believe that the biggest problem is the fact that appointed process owners (and sometimes also managers) usually neither understands nor believes in the actual business value and benefit of the process they are supposed to sponsor/champion. Especially when they are chosen from line-managers in the organization. And the main reason why process managers that are also process owners fail is due to the fact that they never succeed in actually getting top-management to understand and believe in the values of the processes. Not generic values but actual values to business. The process owners should understand, communicate and follow up on this value being provided and be personally accountable for the actual delivery of this value. The manager is responsible for performing the tasks necessary to realize the value. I would therefore like to say that I think it is detrimental to the implementation of any process unless you divide these two roles. Any comments on this? Looking forward to your replys. :-) Simon Legg hmm not sure I agree with you... in my experience both process owners and managers are normally fully bought into the processes and understand the business value... I have seen the bigger issues happen where they have lacked appropriate stakeholder and business exec support. That being said I agree on your statement "process owners should understand, communicate and follow up on this value being provided and be personally accountable for the actual delivery of this value. The manager is responsible for performing the tasks necessary to realize the value" So perhaps the statement is that it is detrimental when process owners do not have the full support of their appropriate stakeholders and executive champions. which in itself is potentially a big task in large organisation and may present problems when combined with the task of managing the process also. Torbjrn Dahlstrm @Simon. But I would think that both you and me (along with several others) know that far to often the process ower/managership is appointed to someone far away from the actual top management. Thus resulting in the processes not having the appropriate support and sponsorship from key stakeholders. In my opinion we need to make top IT management personally accountable for any implementation of processes/service management regardless of what role they might play. Otherwise

the line-matrix-structure of the organization will always kill the processes or just stop them from being cross-functionally effective.