Structuring a Process Management Center of Excellence

Rafael Paim, D.Sc. Vanessa Nunes, M.Sc. Bruno Pinho

GEOS - Operations and Systems Engineering and NP2Tec - Research and Practice Group in GEOS
Management, Department of Production Engineering of Information Technology, Department of Applied
the Federal Center for Technological Education Celso
Suckow da Fonseca.
Informatics, Federal University of the State of Rio de
Janeiro (UNIRIO)
brunor.pinho@gmail.com
229 Maracanã Ave. - ZIP 20271-110, 458 Pasteur Ave. – ZIP 22290-240,
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
+55 21 2566-3066 +55 21 2530-8088
rafaelpaim@cefet-rj.br vanessa.nunes@uniriotec.br
Flavia Santoro, D.Sc. Claudia Cappelli, M.Sc. Fernanda Araujo Baião, D.Sc.
NP2Tec NP2Tec NP2Tec
flavia.santoro@uniriotec.br claudia.cappelli@uniriotec.br fernanda.baiao@uniriotec.br

ABSTRACT excellence, including its organizational structure, value chain and

In view of the growing complexity and scope of processes in
organizations, it is increasingly necessary to structure their
process management tasks. Organizations have sought guidelines
to structure a process center of excellence - PCE. However, there
is still no consensus on how to structure this kind of
organizational unit. This paper proposes the organizational
structure and main macro-processes entailed in setting up a PCE.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
J.7 [Computers in other systems] – Process control
General Terms
Management Design Performance, Standardization.
Keywords
Process center of excellence, Business process lifecycle
management, BPM governance
1. INTRODUCTION
Over time, organizations have been increasing their interest in
process management institutionalization. The growing complexity
and scope of processes, and the frequency with which process
modeling, improvement, deployment, integration and
coordination occur require companies to structure in such a way
as to manage their processes [2][6]. In such a context,
organizations have sought concepts and guidelines towards
structuring a process center of excellence [1][3]. However, there
is still no consensus on how to structure a process organizational
unit or governance, and endeavors in this direction are under way
in a variety of academic and business institutions [4].
This paper proposes the structure of a process center of
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main macro-processes. This definition was based on literature
research, interviews and case studies conducted in companies that
have organizational units for process management purposes.
2. PROCESS MANAGEMENT TASKS
There are three possible models for process management:
completely functional management (organization structure
contains no formal representation of processes, only departments
or organizational units); functional management of cross-
functional processes (cross-functional processes are recognized by
the organization, which continues to have functional elements, but
acknowledges cross-functional processes as of secondary
importance) and completely by-process management (cross-
functional processes define the major dimension for
organizational design)[6].
Paim, Caulliraux & Cardoso [6] point to a set of tasks necessary
in process management, classified into 3 groups: Designing
processes; Managing processes; and Fostering Evolution and
Learning. Sixty-one practitioners evaluated this set of tasks in
relation to both the degree of importance and the process
management model established in their organization. That study
indicated process management tasks, although it did not show
how these tasks make up a managerial process nor who might be
responsible for carrying it out. This paper builds on those tasks to
order them logically into a “process management process”.
3. DEFINING PROCESS MANAGEMENT
STRUCTURE
In order to gather information on the structure of a process center
of excellence, a study was conducted with the following purposes:
(i) to understand what view large organizations take of process
management; (ii) to identify those possibly involved in organizing
process management tasks; and (iii) to identify how process
management tasks can be structured into a process management
process. The method used in this study comprised three stages:
1) Definition and Planning: literature review of prior studies and
preparation of a conceptual framework. This yielded a selection of
56 papers, most notably [3][7][8][5]. Some of the papers argue
that organizations should have a process center of excellence.
However, none of them presented a clear, consistent proposal for
structuring such an unit or governance. [6] provided foundations
for designing the initial version of a macro-process for a PCE.

281
2) Preparation, collection and discussion: preparation of
questionnaires, interviews and discussion of the macro-process
proposal. The business people interviewed included process
center of excellence managers in large companies in various
sectors of Brazil’s economy. The interviews gave a picture of how
they were managing their business processes and were important
in validating the tasks of a standard process center of excellence.
Table 1 shows those units responsible for (R) and collaborating in
(A) each of the process management tasks specified in the study.
3) Analysis and conclusion: specification of the macro-process
and the organizational structures of the process center of
excellence. The process center of excellence proposed is
normative and coordinative, prescribes methods and tools that
guide management of the organization’s processes, and acts as a
communicating link among the various departments involved. The
macro-process of a Generic Process Center of Excellence is
divided into four types: Managerial, Process Design Lifecycle
Management, Day-to-day Process Management, and Support.
Table 1 – Process management activities in organizations
Managerial processes
The managerial-type processes ensure that processes are managed
in the most interconnected and integrated manner throughout the
organization. It enables the center of excellence to: promote
process governance by attributing responsibilities and presenting
results; understand the organization strategy and align all business
processes with that strategy; prioritize processes and select the
best tools and techniques for managing them; manage the budget
allocated; set standards of work and carry out audits; manage the
portfolio of projects, adjusting work standards used in previous
projects to new projects; and lastly, manage its own processes.
The process design life cycle
Processes of this type range from the need to understand, through
to the deployment of, new ways of working, and allow the center
of excellence to: prepare and carry out process improvement
based on modeling of the “as is” situation and according to
parameters defined for the processes; and define process-related
indicators, systems, competences, risks and responsibilities.
282
Day-to-day management
Processes relating to day-to-day management are regarded as an
end purpose when the center of excellence also plays a role in
coordinating day-to-day matters in the organization. These types
of process enable the center of excellence to: monitor and control
process execution; record process performance; record and control
deviations with impact; and evaluate process performance.
Support for the process center of excellence
The processes relating to support for the center of excellence are
responsible for: preparing and maintaining the process center of
excellence team; maintaining process center of excellence
systems; recording process-related learning; and maintaining the
process center of excellence communication plan.
4. CONCLUSIONS
This paper identified a basic structure of a process center of
excellence, by finding conceptual frameworks and conducting
interviews in Brazilian companies. The PCE may be essentially
normative, focusing on work project design and directed more
towards AS IS modeling, improving and deploying new
processes. However, it may move into coordinating and
controlling the activities and resource allocation that occur as part
of organizations’ day-to-day operations.
These objectives were disaggregated into tasks necessary for
process management and transformed into a process management
process which, after being divided into four process types, was
presented to the five companies participating in the study. The
outcome was that the processes were validated within the five
organizations, which increased the degree of confidence in using
the model for structuring the process center of excellence
proposed in this study.
The case studies revealed that PCE are not responsible for day-to-
day management (see Table 1). Therefore, it’s not possible to
state these cases as being more closely associated with by-process
management. The cases were also useful to create and validate a
“process management process”, with preliminary tasks time and
logic sequence. Future work will be done in order to apply and
validate the proposal.
5. REFERENCES
[1] Davenport, T., The Coming Commoditization of Processes.
Harvard Business Review. Vol.83. No. 6, pp. 100-108, 2005.
[2] Fettke, P., Loos, P. & Zwicker, J., Business Process
Reference Models: Survey and Classification, In: Bussel et.
al. (Eds.), BPM 2005 Workshops, LNCS 3812. Springer-
Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, 2006.
[3] Hammer, M. The audit process. Boston: HBR Press. 2007.
[4] Harmon, P., Wolf, C., The State of Business Process
Management, Business Process Trends, In:
www.bptrends.com, 2006, 2007, 2008.
[5] Holland, D., The Process Enterprise, Executive Excellence,
pp. 10, 2003.
[6] Paim, R., Caulliraux, H. & Cardoso, R. Process Management
Tasks: a conceptual and practical view, Business Process
Management Journal, Vol. 15. N. 5, 2008.
[7] Reijers, H., Implementing BPM systems: the role of process
orientation, Business Process Management Journal, Vol.12.
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[8] Richardson, C., Process Governance Best Practices: Building
a BPM Center of Excellence. 2006.