David McCoy

I posted this as a response to a comment from my friend, Richard Veryard.  I attempted to define the “real” process owner, in somewhat of a street definition.  The definition has gotten some positive traction, so it might make an interesting main post:

The definition I use is simple: “The real process owner is he/she who stays awake the longest, fretting over a performance problem, while nursing a bottle of gin in his/her hand.” This harkens to a Solomon-like anti-wisdom that says, “let’s split the baby” as a way to finding out the truth. It only harkens to Solomon, it does not grab him with a bear hug. The process owner is the one who cares the most about the quality of the process, and who has the most at stake if it fails. “Take the child” is only something a true steward can say.

The genesis (no pun intended) of this definition follows:

I don’t know where I first picked that view up, but it was clearly from a wise friend, probably a fellow analyst. I think the original comment was “the process owner is the one with the KPI in his/her end of year appraisal.” I liked that, but wanted to make it even more pungent, ergo he who loses the most sleep is the process owner.

Is this definition jiving with what you see?

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Category: Business Process Management (BPM)     Tags:

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