R. Traunmller (Ed.): EGOV 2003, LNCS 2739, pp. 101104, 2003.

Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003

Process-Controlling An Instrument to Support the
Sustainability of Process Improvements
Margrit Falck
University of Applied Sciences for public administration and legal affairs Berlin,
Alt-Friedrichsfelde 60
D-10315 Berlin, Germany
margrit.falck@fhv.verwalt-berlin.de
Abstract. Business processes in the e-Government are relatively complex, in
particular which concerns the number of the persons and authorities involved.
In addition business processes have the tendency to change with the time. The
more complex the processes, the more largely is the danger, that they drift from
and fail the goals of original process modeling within a short time. The process
management requires therefore a process control, with which the constant
actualisation of the process organization and a continuous adjustment at
changed goals and basic conditions can be carried out. An organization concept
is presented, with which the transition of a BPR project to a continuous
improvement process is supported. It is reported on first experiences with this
concept.
1 Theory and Practice
Phase concepts of the business process optimization usually prescribe a stepwise
proceeding. The individual steps are very different in their temporal dimension. While
the data collection and analysis of the present process as well as the development of a
concept for a future improved process can take place into relatively short time, the
conversion of the concept to the reality needs substantially more time. Of course
concrete time conditions depend on the selected process, but the example of the city
administration of Mannheim shows that it is possible to analyze and improve a
process with 50-70 activities and 5-8 involved persons in 3,5 days. For the conversion
against it are planned check intervals by 30 days and one year. Usually the catalog at
conversion measures contains such, with those the change process can start
immediately and such, which remain because of their complexity in a queue of
planned projects. The longer the time up to the complete conversion, the more largely
is the danger that the project runs out and that the remaining objectives and measures
come into oblivion.
According to the method of process optimisation the new process organization is to
be evaluated after the conversion of the concept, i.e. the achieved improvement goals
are to be examined on the basis of the conceptual defaults. Time, duration as well as
way of the examination are dependent on the conditions and requirements in
individual cases. However, in each case the evaluation can take place only in an
appropriate time interval after the implementation of new process organization,
102 M. Falck

because it must have become "lived" from the involved ones a certain time and have
achieved a certain degree at routine, before sufficient data and experiences for a
progress control are present.
Both the conversion and the progress control need time, so that it comes in practice
to a temporal overlay of the two method steps.
Further it can turn out in the result of the progress control that optimisation goals
were not or only partly achieved, that new problems developed or that basic
conditions changed. Then influence is to be taken on the further process development,
in order to still reach targets or react to changes. For it the goals are to be specified
again and new measures are to derive.
In this way the different optimisation steps overlay each other. Therefore a
stringent goal orientation and tracking is required.
Even without purposeful effort business processes have the tendency to change
with the time. Carelessnesses develop or conditions change, on which involved
persons ad hoc react. In this way it can happen that after some time of the originally
conceived process organization nothing is more remaining.
It is therefore important to reach the sustainability of the process improvement
beyond the first optimisation beginning.
2 The Role Concept of Process-Controlling
The suitable instrument is the process Controlling, whose most important element is
the process manager. The process manager is responsible for the quality of the
process and have the task to steer the further development of the process continuously
on the basis of indicators and characteristic numbers. The main point of its work is the
observation of the process. He/she collects information about the process and about
problems during the process, evaluates the process quality, suggests measures for
further improvement and reports regularly to the management. He/she is the Coach
of the process or in context of e-government a process-referred CIO.
The special at the function of process manager is the fact that its responsibility is
integral i.e. transverse to the hierarchy and over organization borders away. This
stands in contrast to the function-oriented responsibility of the line managers of the
organizational units involved. The function of the process manager is a new role of e-
Government.
The process manager is supported in his work by the participants of the process.
Their co-operation consists in the following:
they provide for the topicality of the documents and the information used during
the process (e.g.. Telephone numbers, forms or templates),
they supply or examine data for frequentnesses and characteristic numbers,
they identify problems or weak points and
they suggest after possibility measures for improvement.
They form the process circle (similarly quality circles), whose work is to be
moderated of the process manager.
Process-Controlling 103


Fig. 1. The role concept of Process-Controlling
The common task of process manager and process circle is it to supply the process
organization to a continuous improvement process that, beginning with the progress
control the methodical steps: data acquisition, analysis and optimization go through
regularly.
The conversion of the optimization is to be regarded in the connection to other
processes, because changes in one process can lead quickly to unwanted side effects
with other processes. This task has the process panel. It consists of the process
managers of different processes, which coordinates the suggested measures for
process improvement.
The final decision over the realization of the suggested measures for process
improvement is task of the Decision panel. It consists of the line managers of the
organizational units taken part in the process.
The business engineer supports the process manager in the process documentation.
It knows GPM methodology and creates the connection to the information
technology.
104 M. Falck

3 First Experiences with the Role Concept
In the context of a project for process optimisation of internal-official service
processes 2002 was designated process managers for the first time in the citizens
administration of Berlin. The process organization included a main case with 10
subprocesses. Two authorities with 7 organizational units and altogether 19 roles of
co-workers were involved. To the assignment the principle applied: each business
process has one responsible person, but to one responsible person also several
processes can be entrusted. With the selection of the process manager we were guided
by the slogan, who has the largest interest in an improvement of the process
organization. The choice met on 3 participants of process, which was not line
managers.
Process manager and participants of process was instructed into her tasks in the
end of the project. Since that scarcely 1 year passed. The process circle met recently
the first time. The following was determined:
some of the measures decided during the project were not yet converted,
some of the originally decided measures became obsolete by other events,
some of co-workers changed and the new co-workers were not yet instructed into
their process-referred role,
informations in process-relevant documents changed, but the actualisation of the
documents was only retarded introduced.
From these experiences the following conclusions were drawn:
process manager and participants of process must understand themselves as a team
beyond the primary optimisation project and must co-operate closely in the team in
the continuous improvement of the process organization;
process managers must be continuously possible to collect informations about the
process organization. A support by automated procedures is desirable.
for the process manager the requirements from communication with internal and
external participants of the process are high. Communication does not only concern
the information collection. It includes also elements of tuning, presentation and
even from Mediation processes. The communication relations must be developed
and maintained beyond the borders of the own organizational unit. A support by
web-able instruments would be desirable.
the actualisation of process documents requires the quick access by those, with
which new contents develop. From this result requirements of content
management.