Evolution of the process approach

ICL Services team addressed the conference «BPM: Business Process Management 2014», organized by CNews Conferences, with a report entitled «Evolution of the process approach on the example of ICL Services». The process approach does not lose its relevance and is becoming more and more valid.

Step 1: Education/adaptation of employees to changes

The formula for success of the process approach is the formation of a particular culture of process operation at all levels of management: understanding and compliance with the process approach by all employees of the company, starting from senior management.

Solution

For this purpose the company held its own process management training for all employees in managerial positions. At the same time we managed to engage all other employees in constant process improvement within the implementation of LEAN methodology in the field of IT services, which today guarantees their constant modification and improvement.

Step 2: Formation of documentation structure, creation of a library

ICL Services began with systemization of operation of processes and process documents of the company: first of all the company set its own definition of the process approach and process management terms. One of the most important and significant achievements was the identification of the main process areas and employees responsible for their development — process owners. Further, the company started to create a new structured library of the business management system, which architecture reflected the basic principles of the process approach. At this point there already was a need to optimize and simplify operating procedures for the library and the documents themselves, which would allow to exclude multi-page documents. ICL Services organizational development service experts changed the document generation approach: now it was divided into operating instructions, procedures and supporting documentation, processes and policies.

Solution

Thus, the first victory of the company was to get rid of the complicated structure of sub folders with documents on the portal. A «flat» one-tier library appeared. Templates were created for each document category. They were uploaded to the corporate portal (Sharepoint) for availability purposes and rolled into standard employee workstation images for them to be created locally.

Step 3: Organizational changes

After the formation of the library was completed, the focus has moved to the description and coordination of processes and related documents. Besides, the growth of the company continued, internal units that provide services inside ICL Services appeared. Processes were so fast that the regulations of a new process could appear earlier than the organizational change itself had been agreed. That is, the business process had already been described but the head management has not yet had time to approve it. Another difficult issue was the absence of communication channel aimed to improve business processes. To resolve this issue one could talk directly to a process owner but handling of such requests was not controlled and managed.

Solution

It was necessary to pick the solution to automate business processes. When picking it the ICL Services company was guided by the fact that It-professionals represent the key personnel of the company, there is a corporate standard and automation strategy, as well as a problem with the delay of change implementation, as well as limited budget, which the company was willing to spend on automation. It was necessary to start the process fast. Thus, having compared all the conditions the company’s experts chose Nintex and Doctrix. With their help the following processes were automated quickly: management of project knowledge base, organizational changes (this process was pilot for Nintex), internal and external complaints, corporate risk management, quarterly evaluation and contract management.

Step 4: Implementation of the internal audit system

Currently the internal audit system was created for the formation of an independent and objective opinion on the state of corporate management, key business processes, internal control and risk management. Qualified employees as well as external auditors, who assess the practices of ICL Services and lean manufacturing methods aimed to improve the internal audit system, are engaged in their implementation. Besides, the in-depth analysis and business process visualization tool PRO/VISION is used for the objectification of results obtained by audit.

Due to the extensive knowledge of ICL Services employees in process management, as well as instrument-aided business process analysis, this tool became the basis for services to external customers. In-depth process analysis PRO/VISION helps customers understand how the current process operates and proposes measures for its optimization.

In lieu of an epilogue

The process approach in ICL Services is already 2 years old and its development continues. The time spent to train employees is more than compensated by the benefits of the approach.

A positive aspect of successful transformation was the presence of a large number of certified ITIL professionals among end-users of internal services and serious development of the corporate portal as a single point of access to internal services and all information about the company. However, it should be noted that formation of the process approach would not be possible without the understanding and support from the company’s management, as well as without transformation of a corporate culture that goes along with organizational changes.

And last but not least, the process automation allows for strict compliance with regulations without creating a hierarchy of controllers and incurring the associated costs.