Process Improvement

Process Improvement should be responsible for every department involved. Organisation as a umbrella should set up policies & targets. Each department is responsible to go Lean in their day to day work. Ways should be found to contribute to the umbrella as a string attached to it.

Some organizations have the luxury of having a dedicated Business Process Improvement team with the know how to recommend such changes. These teams encourage practices such as LEAN within the organization and assist departments in their Uptake. In the absence of such a dedicated team, any one of these can champion the process improvement effort:-

1) Business Departments (Quality and Non -Quality ) could be encouraged to define the problems within their areas and possible suggestions for improving them
2) These could be put forth to the Quality Department to receive guidance on the best way forward
3) These could even be tabled at the Departmental Managers' meeting to receive endorsement and support , either to spawn a new Project or bring about improvements in existing business practices
4) It may be suggested that an external agency , specializing in Process Improvement could be summoned upon

I agree with David Hernandez and Abhinav Chojar. Process improvements may begin from silos across the organization but it has to be brought out in the open and it's every body's responsibility to suggest improvements.

We as project managers can definitely look at the Enterprise Environmental Factors and Organizational Process Assets and suggest improvements in existing Business Processes.

Another group of people that can definitely recommend process improvements is most certainly Business Analysts who are closely working with the Business.

In the end, the implementation of the improvement is in the hands of persons of authority or the departmental heads who can provide the resources and funding to undertake the activity/project.