When talking about interdepartmental or transversal processes we are talking about those processes that cross different areas of a company and therefore, observing them in this way allows us to eliminate the scheme of activities in silos managing to cover the entire organizational structure.
Information technologies are often presented as a powerful catalyst for such a type of transversal collaboration within companies or even between different companies. However, for the vast majority of organizations, silo management is still the default form of management.
Aspects for working with transversal processes
Consider the business process, not the process of an area
It is important to make business processes and as such, the processes of an area or department are segregated into tasks or sub-processes of that transversal process. That is, you have to identify the overall business objective first, and then determine the tasks and roles that are associated with this objective. This will identify the business process, regardless of the areas or departments involved.
Determining the beginning and the end
Beyond creating a business process from scratch, it is important to see the current state: to design or create a solution that improves and enhances this process, current processes must be observed and evaluated. It is crucial that the manager does not remain only with what the collaborators tell you, but that you establish the scope of these processes, so that you can clarify the flow of tasks that are associated. The key to achieving this is based on a good survey of the process.
Look for roles and responsibilities aligned with business processes
In addition to products and technology being oriented to the needs of a user, the roles that impact a business process must meet the demands of that process to that meets the objective set to compete in a market.
Identify process leaders, not bosses
It is about looking for those collaborators who are potential leaders with a comprehensive vision of business performance, know the risks and provide solutions to mitigate them.
Generate a design prototype
The tasks must be analyzed and observed so that all interested (and involved) parties understand them, the important thing is that only one point of view is not imposed. For this it is important to be able to diagram the processes.
There may be variations in some processes, but at the macro level there is an established process: the company takes an input of resources, processes them, and generates an output (result). This is the macro-process, so it’s important to know it, and start breaking down the sub-processes that make it possible. In them the flow of information and resources must be fluid, dynamic, and optimal.
