Chapter 9. Building a Process Support Organization

Many companies have a small staff responsible for the effectiveness of process management across the organization. The nature of these groups can vary from company to company. The degree of power, control, and empowerment they have as well as the services they provide can also vary. Some of these staffs are merely advisory; others are actively involved in managing the knowledge assets produced from all process initiatives.

In setting up a process management support practice, you have to decide how far you should go and will be expected to go. This chapter examines the opportunities and possible choices that make it easier to determine what your organization should do. I will do this by treating the support group as a business in its own right and applying the Business Context and Architect and Align phases to it.

By applying the first two framework phases to your own support group, you can define your own mandate and show others that the method works. I will go through each step and examine the range of choices. You will have to choose at each point how far you should take your group.