Process Management

Process management and the management of activities within an organization is one of the management functions associated with organizing. The work of the people in organizations takes place through their activities that need to be scheduled within the organizational structure, and assigned to specific workers in the specific workplaces. Apart from activities, in any organisation, also processes exist. In terms of managerial activities and processes within the organization there are two basic approaches.

The functional approach (functional management) - defined in 1776 by Adam Smith and based on the traditional division of labor according to specialization, and also on the fragmentation of work into the simplest tasks so that they are easy to do by unskilled workers. The functional approach leads to the division of labor with an emphasis on simple operation, which in turn leads to the division of labor between the organizational units which are divided on the basis of skills (functions).
The procedural approach (process management) - emphasises the successive flows of activities across the organization, i.e. processes. Compared to the traditional vertical functional approach based on design and procedural changes of organizational structures, the procedural approach is focused horizontally - on processes. The procedural approach became very popular in the 90s of the 20th century, when the approach began to be talked about extensively in regards to processes and reengineering, also because of the intense onset of modern information and communication technologies that enabled radical changes in the processes in organizations.

The basic procedural framework in an organization is the production process, which passes horizontally across the organization. Process management is closely related to process optimization.

Process management methods focus on thecorrect setting of processes in a particular area or within the entire organization and on process innovation:

Methods of process analysis (analytical techniques, methodologies) focus on the identification and detailed analysis of individual processes:

ARIS Methodology (prof. A.W. Scheer)
IDEF3 Methodology
Time slides

Methods of optimization, redesign and process reengineering focus onthe improvement of processes in an organization. In principle, they are divided into methods of step improvement (business process reengineering - BPR), methods of process improvement or change (redesign) and methods of continuous process improvement, based on quality management. All methods typically use one of the methodologies for process analysis and for the analyzed processes, then apply the appropriate form of improvement.

Reengineering
Reengineering by M. Hammer, J.Champy
Reengineering by T. Davenport
Reengineering – Kodak Methodology
PPP (Participatory Process Prototyping) - Gappmaier
Generally, for continuous process improvement, methodologies from a field of quality management, such as TQM (Total Quality Management), Deming cycle PDCA, DMAIC, Six Sigma may be applied.