Defining (Identifiying) Key Processes in a Company - "Key Process Master List"

Helmut Jilling

Auditor / Consultant
#11
Re: Defining Key Processes in a Company - "Key Process Master List"

It sounds like you are on the right track. Those could be some of your key processes. There may be other processes as well, and certainly would be other supporting or administrative ISO processes.
 
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John Broomfield

Staff member
Super Moderator
#12
Re: Defining Key Processes in a Company - "Key Process Master List"

Hello all,

I am trying to identify all of our key processes for our company so that I can put them into a "key Process Master List" and I am not sure where to begin end. I guess what I am asking is can... anyone give me some advice on how to identify "key" processes for a company?

Thanks
TDSims67,

ISO 9001 requires you to determine the processes that are essential to the effectiveness of your management system.

It does not require you to define them so you can put them in a list.

Determine the processes that are key to your organizational management system's success by working with top management to understand how the organization works as a system for converting the needs of your customers into cash in the bank.

Start with the processes that get the work, do the work and receive payment. This is known as your organization's core process and it may comprise 5 to 15 key processes.

Your organization sustains and directs its core process with its other key processes. Most of these already exist and a few may come from the standard itself. Examples include recruiting and training, controlling documented information, auditing and problem solving.

Do this analysis on your organization as a system aided by the standard. Using someone else's list of processes will not work but could act as a bit of a checklist so you can seek exactly what your organization does to get work, do work and get paid.

Remember, your management system's processes are almost always cross-functional (in that more than on department or function is involved).

Your core process flowchart will run from customers having a need to your organization receiving payment for satisfying that need. It will show the sequence and interaction of the key processes in the core process.

Our clients have developed their process-based management systems this way since 1986. And top management love a management system that is worthy of their commitment.

John
 
Last edited:

John Broomfield

Staff member
Super Moderator
#13
Re: Defining Key Processes in a Company - "Key Process Master List"

thira7,

Do you also design training to fulfill Partner learning objectives? What about recruiting and verifying the competence of instructors? How does your NGO receive payment so you have the money to invest in maintaining and improving the system?

Keep up the good work,

John
 
C

CATERAF

#14
Re: Defining Key Processes in a Company - "Key Process Master List"

It can be quite tricky to identify processes initially! It sounds like you're on the right track. Without knowing your company it's hard to say what the processes are. However, a few key things that I have found helped me to identify processes. I hope something in here helps!

1. Think of what happens from the time a customer contacts the company (or from when you start searching for customers) and then trace that through to the time that you have satisfied the customer's needs (i.e., the project/job you're working on is finished). Don't go very deep as you jot it down.. go very broad to start with. e.g., for our company we do marketing functions to identify customer (process: marketing), they then contact us and we do some quoting and work out a contract (process: sales). If the project is big we pass it through to project management and they delegate and control who is doing what and when (process: project management). The engineers then use the information from project management to design their product and test it (process: engineering). When the design is tested and correct it then gets produced in mass through a particular set of procedures (process: production) etc.. all the way through to installation and commissioning.

2. A process can generally be broken down into lots of steps and may produce multiple 'things' (called 'outputs').

3. Generally, what comes out of (aka 'is produced by') one process may then be used to do the next sequential process. So it's an output of one process but it's an input of another. e.g., Sales produce a contract (output) which project management need to write up a project plan (a project management output). So, the contract is an output for sales and an input for the next process, project management.

4. Each step of a process can (but doesn't have to) have a procedure.

5. A process can have sub-processes. E.g., Production can be broken into Planning --> Producing the Product --> Validating the Product.

6. There are processes that support the main-line work that you do. For example, in order to do your work you need to purchase resources (process: 'purchasing'), you would also need staff to do the work (process: 'staff hiring') etc.

7. To help identify the main processes it can be good to draw very basic flowcharts going vertically down and then line them up next to each other in the order that they happen. If you find processes that can occur at any stage (E.g., you may need to purchase resources at many points), these may be additional processes or support processes.

Hope something there helps.. generally a combination of them helps to identify. It does take a while to get your head around.. just keep looking at the flows through your organisation and you'll start to notice patterns :) The key is to not give up.. ! :)
 
T

thira7

#15
Re: Defining Key Processes in a Company - "Key Process Master List"

Thank you. Your answer was very helpfull. Last week i was in a dead end and i really was desperate, however i start doing flowcharts and helped me a lot. Thank you for your help.
 
T

thira7

#16
Re: Defining Key Processes in a Company - "Key Process Master List"

About the money, we receive money from funders but this is mostly about negotiation skills and not a process (this is my view)
 

John Broomfield

Staff member
Super Moderator
#17
Re: Defining Key Processes in a Company - "Key Process Master List"

thira7,

All work is process.

"Negotiating donations" sounds like a key process to me. If not for the survival of the NGO then for maintaining and improving the NGO's management system (also see clause 6.1).

If you analyze the system rather more deeply you may find this process is owned by a senior manager whose competence includes negotiating:

"Promoting our work and securing donations to fulfill our mission".

It will likely include the maintenance of the information on your website.

John
 
T

thira7

#18
Re: Defining Key Processes in a Company - "Key Process Master List"

Yes this is true funding is very important. I will try to go deeper in this. I have one more question how can i put these processes in my Quality Manual, for example if i have a meeting process how can i relate it to the quality manual.
I hope this is clear enough.
 

John Broomfield

Staff member
Super Moderator
#19
Re: Defining Key Processes in a Company - "Key Process Master List"

thira7,

Meetings are activities within some key processes. An organization that manages conferences will call the conference (meeting) itself a key process but I'm not sure this is what your NGO does.

So, when including a meeting in your deployment flowchart of a key process show who chairs and who attends the meeting, the info sent to attendees so the can prepare for the meeting and describe the outputs of the meeting then go on to describe what the process does with these outputs.

Your quality manual could become very cluttered and confusing to users if it included all the documented procedures and work instructions that specify the way the key processes are carried out. This is why most organizations, these days, control and distribute the procedures, instructions (if needed) and forms separately to whomever needs them.

Your document coding scheme and computer network will enable this.

Then confine your manual to describe how the NGO Management System works to achieve its objectives. Keep it brief so it is a very useful document for any stakeholder to understand how the NGO works.

John
 
T

thira7

#20
Re: Defining Key Processes in a Company - "Key Process Master List"

The processes of Control of Documents and Control of Records are giving me some hard time. This two processes are used to define how,where and how we can retrieve our forms and reports?
 
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