IIIOrganization & Project ManagementAnalysis
Process Ownership in a Small Business: Who Answers for a Process
In many businesses someone is in charge of every department, but nobody is in charge of the processes in between. The path of an order from inquiry to payment belongs to everyone and therefore to no one. Process ownership closes this gap if it comes with authority.
Key takeaways
- The process owner is the one person who answers for a process working from start to finish. They do not have to carry it out themselves.
- According to Hammer (2007), every process needs five enablers: a clear design, capable performers, an owner, supporting tools, and metrics. If one is missing, the others do not hold.
- An owner without authority is responsible only on paper. Hammer describes a case in which a successfully piloted new process failed because the owner was not allowed to enforce it against the unit heads.
- In a study of Austrian manufacturing firms, process metrics, a process-oriented structure, continuous improvement, and above all a supportive culture were associated with better results (Kohlbacher and Reijers 2013).
Why does the process between departments belong to nobody?
Ask in a business with 20 employees who is in charge of sales, and a name comes immediately. The same applies to the workshop and accounting. Ask instead who is responsible for an order running smoothly from inquiry to paid invoice, and there is silence. Usually the answer is: everyone, or the boss.
Yet that is exactly where the costly mistakes arise, at the handoffs between areas. This leads to the guiding question of this analysis: does a small business need explicit process ownership for its most important processes, and if so, what does it look like without turning into bureaucracy? To answer it, we clarify the terms, present a thinking model, review the findings, weigh two perspectives, and describe a profile for the role.
A process that belongs to everyone is looked after a little by each and fully by none.
What is a process owner, and how does it differ from a department head?
A process is the recurring sequence of steps that produces a result. The process owner is the one person who answers for that process reliably delivering its result from start to finish. They describe the process, watch its metric, approve changes, and resolve conflicts at the handoffs. They do not have to carry it out themselves.
On the process map and on every process page following the one-page method, there is a field for this, the owner: who is responsible for the process and this page? In the language of the RACI matrix, the process owner is the A for the whole process. The same rule applies: exactly one person. Two people responsible means nobody is.
| Role | Responsible for | Typical question | In a small business often |
|---|---|---|---|
| Department head | people and tasks of one area | Is my area busy and well organized? | foreman, sales lead, accounting |
| Process owner | result of a process across areas | Does the order get through without queries and delay? | an experienced person from one of the areas involved |
| Performers | individual steps of the process | Do I know what to do and when? | everyone involved |
The difference between role and position matters. As the analysis on thinking in roles instead of people shows, one person can hold several roles, and each role has exactly one holder. In a small business, process owner is almost never a separate position but a role someone holds in addition.
The thinking model: Hammer's five enablers of a process
Michael Hammer, one of the best-known authors on process organization, spent several years working with a group of companies to study what makes processes perform well over time. The result was a maturity model (Hammer 2007). At its core are five enablers that every individual process needs.
| Enabler | Meaning | In the business | If missing, then … |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design | who does what, in what order, with what information | a one-page process page | nobody knows exactly what to do when |
| Performers | people with knowledge and understanding of the whole process | onboarding that shows the whole path | everyone optimizes their step at the expense of others |
| Owner | a responsible person with authority | named process owner with a deputy | the process falls apart into departmental interests |
| Infrastructure | tools and systems that support the process | one filing system, one system, templates | data is retyped, searched for, and entered twice |
| Metrics | figures that measure the result of the whole process | one figure in the KPI dashboard | nobody knows whether the process is improving |
Two ideas make the model useful. First, the enablers depend on each other. A weak owner cannot enforce a good design, poorly trained performers cannot carry it out, and without a metric nothing can be improved. Second, the weakest enabler determines how mature a process is. Hammer rates each on four levels. A process reaches a level only when all five reach it.
An everyday image makes this tangible. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Whoever strengthens only the strongest link, for example by buying new software while nobody is responsible for the process, does not make the chain more resilient.
What cases and studies show about process ownership
Hammer (2007) describes several cases from large companies. At an electronics manufacturer, a team designed a new order fulfillment process and piloted it successfully. But the process owner did not have the authority to oblige the unit heads to implement it, and the effort floundered. At the consumer goods company Clorox, work on the process from order to cash had been under way since 2002. By 2006, late shipments had fallen by more than 70 percent, and the share of perfect orders had risen from 19 to 70 percent. An assessment with the maturity model nevertheless showed that the process was less mature than assumed, especially regarding the performers' knowledge.
Source: Hammer (2007)
For manufacturing firms, there are also surveys. Kohlbacher and Gruenwald (2011) tested a measurement model for process orientation with 152 Austrian manufacturing firms and showed that it consists of several components. Kohlbacher and Reijers (2013) studied a random sample of Austrian manufacturing firms to see which of these components are related to results. Process performance measurement, a structure oriented toward processes, continuous improvement methods, and above all a culture that supports the process approach went along with better profitability, customer satisfaction, quality, and speed.
Behind the role there is also a finding that the guide on clarifying responsibilities with the RACI matrix describes in detail. Role ambiguity, meaning uncertainty about what one is responsible for, was associated with lower performance in the meta-analysis by Tubre and Collins (2000), with a value of minus 0.21. A process without an owner creates exactly this uncertainty at every handoff.
A separate role or the owner's job? Two perspectives
The first perspective says: in a small business, the owner is the process owner. They have the overview, decide conflicts between areas anyway, and an additional role would be bureaucracy. This is supported by the fact that in very small businesses, coordination across the hallway and the owner's direct supervision work well.
The second says: every important process needs its own owner below the owner of the business. The owner has no time to look after every process, and if everything lands with them, they become the bottleneck. This is supported by the fact that the number of coordination paths grows faster than the number of people, as the analysis on roles shows.
Business owner owns everything
- no additional role
- fast decisions, as long as they are reachable
- processes are looked after only when they have time
- every conflict lands with them
Named process owners
- three to five processes with one person each
- authority for changes within a frame
- one metric per process, reviewed monthly
- the business owner decides only what goes beyond the frame
From about ten employees, I consider the second perspective the more viable one, with one condition from the first: the business owner remains owner of the management processes such as annual planning and pricing and hands over only the core processes. What matters is what Hammer's case shows. Whoever becomes owner needs authority set down in writing; otherwise, as the guide on the RACI matrix puts it, they are responsible only on paper.
The process owner profile: how to set up the role
The tool of this analysis is the process owner profile. It fits on half a page and is filled in once per core process. It complements the process page, which describes the process itself.
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| Process | from signed order to invoice sent |
| Owner and deputy | Aylin (order processing), deputy Jonas (sales) |
| Result and metric | invoice within two working days of acceptance, measured as the share of on-time invoices |
| Authority | changes process page and templates, sets the handoff sheet, may return orders with missing information |
| Duties | metric monthly to the management meeting, review process page annually, brief new colleagues |
| Limit | changes affecting prices, staff, or other processes go to the business owner |
Worked example
Choose three to five core processes
From the process map, the processes that directly create customer value or go wrong most often. Not every process needs an owner right away.
Name the owner
An experienced person from one of the areas involved who knows the whole path. Not automatically the most senior.
Set authority in writing
What may the owner change without asking, and what goes to the business owner? The decision map from the guide on decision rights helps here.
Set one metric
A figure that measures the result of the whole process, not of a single step.
Assess the five enablers
Together with the performers, assign each enabler a level from 1 to 4. The weakest is worked on first.
Worked example with freely chosen values. The process stands at level 1 overall because owner and metric are weak. New software would improve the infrastructure but would not change the level.
How authority is delimited is set out in the guide on setting decision rights, with four levels from deciding alone to the owner deciding. Particularly important is the right to return incomplete handoffs. It turns the owner into someone who can protect the process rather than just repair mistakes afterwards. Where most of these mistakes arise is described in the analysis on interfaces between departments.
What follows beyond the individual process, and where the limits lie
Process ownership changes the conversation in the business. Instead of asking who made a mistake, the management meeting asks what the process needs so that the mistake does not happen again. This fits the finding by Kohlbacher and Reijers that culture above all was associated with better results. An owner alone does not create this culture, but gives it a place.
The limit lies in size. In a business with five employees where everyone works on everything, the business owner usually remains the natural owner, and a profile would be a formality. The role becomes sensible once there are handoffs between people who no longer talk to each other every day. A second risk is overload. Whoever owns three processes alongside their actual work looks after none of them well. One process per person is a good start.
Conclusion: does a small business need process ownership?
We set out to ask a small business needs explicit process ownership for its most important processes and what it looks like without bureaucracy. The answer is yes, as soon as processes run across several people and areas that no longer work together every day. Without an owner, the path of an order belongs to everyone, and the costly mistakes arise at the handoffs.
According to Hammer's model, the owner is one of five enablers, and they only hold together. This determines the form: a few core processes, one named person each with a deputy, authority set down in writing, and a metric for the result of the whole process. Responsibility that may not decide is no responsibility.
What you can put into practice right away
- Choose the core process at whose handoffs the most queries or mistakes arose last month.
- Ask yourself honestly who answers for the result of this process today, and write down the name.
- Name a process owner and a deputy and fill in the profile with both.
- Set a metric for the result of the whole process.
- Assess the five enablers together with the performers and start with the weakest.
Frequently asked questions
What is a process owner?
A process owner is the one person who answers for a process reliably delivering its result from start to finish. They describe the process, watch its metric, approve changes, and resolve conflicts at the handoffs. They do not have to carry it out themselves.
What is the difference between process ownership and department management?
Department management is responsible for the people and tasks of one area. The process owner is responsible for the result of a process that runs across several areas, such as from order to invoice. In small businesses both roles can lie with the same person, but they pursue different questions.
Does a small business need process owners?
As soon as processes run across people who no longer work together daily, usually from about ten employees, it is worthwhile for three to five core processes. In very small businesses, the business owner usually remains the natural owner of all processes.
What authority does a process owner need?
At least the right to change the process page and templates, set handoffs, and return incomplete handoffs. Anything beyond that, such as prices or staff, should be recorded in writing as a limit. Without authority, the responsibility exists only on paper.
How many processes should one person own?
One to start with. Whoever owns several processes alongside their actual work looks after none of them well. Only when one process runs stably and its metric is reviewed regularly can a second be added.
Sources
- Hammer, M. (2007): The Process Audit. Harvard Business Review, 85(4), 111-123.
- Kohlbacher, M.; Reijers, H. A. (2013): The effects of process-oriented organizational design on firm performance. Business Process Management Journal, 19(2), 245-262.
- Kohlbacher, M.; Gruenwald, S. (2011): Process orientation: conceptualization and measurement. Business Process Management Journal, 17(2), 267-283.
- Tubre, T. C.; Collins, J. M. (2000): Jackson and Schuler (1985) Revisited: A Meta-Analysis of the Relationships Between Role Ambiguity, Role Conflict, and Job Performance. Journal of Management, 26(1), 155-169.
