Macro processes: How the areas communicate and articulate

For many years, the structural design of companies had not evolved about the requirements of the organizational approach. A new concept of organizational structure is now defined that considers that every organization can be conceived as a network of interrelated or interconnected processes to which a management model called Process-Based Management can be applied.

As you may already know, Business Process Management, or simply BPM, is a management discipline made up of methodologies and technologies. Its objective is to improve the performance and optimization of a company's processes. To this end, processes must be continuously designed, modeled, organized, documented, and optimized.

In this sense, it could be said that process management seeks to improve processes in the areas that companies have continuously. However, not all processes can be worked in the same way, since, depending on their level of complexity, we can talk about macro-processes or micro-processes.

In this article, we tell you what macro processes are, how they communicate and how they manage to articulate the areas of an organization.

What are macro processes?

When identifying a Macro-process, compliance with the institutional function and mission must be guaranteed at the strategic, mission, and support levels. In this identification phase, the participation of the Management is essential, which must guide and validate the work of the operational teams.

In an organization, the Macro processes can be classified into Strategic Macro processes, Missionary Macro processes, and Support / Support Macroprocess according to the impact they have on the institutional Function, Mission and Vision. Thus, the institution analyzes the different activities it carries out and identifies its processes, which it classifies depending on its Strategic, Missionary, and Support / Support purpose.

The Macro processes group together the processes that share a common goal, so it is essential to correctly define the goals, ensuring their coherence with the institutional mission and goals.

The definition of the objectives for each macro-process must be clear and precise so that they can be understood by all the officials of the institution. For this, it is suggested to use verbs in the infinitive, in such a way that the action and the associated responsibilities are promoted.

Processes

A process is a set of interrelated work activities, characterized by requiring certain inputs (inputs: products or services obtained from other suppliers) and specific activities that involve adding value, to obtain certain results (outputs).

Once the macro processes have been validated, the processes must be identified, taking into account the directives of the Management Level. We suggest you assign each process a name that is related to the product or service you provide. To identify the processes, you must analyze the objective of each macro process and establish the expected products/services.

The processes, then, will have to be aligned with the achievement of the objective of the macro process, through the definition of their objectives.

When defining the processes, it should be considered that they must satisfy some elementary criteria that make their intrinsic characteristic: obtain results, create value for the recipients (citizens/beneficiaries), and respond to the constitutional and legal function,  mission, and vision of the organization.

For the definition of the objectives of the processes, the following issues must be taken into account:

• It must be verified that the identified processes allow obtaining the products/services defined in the objective of the macro-process from which they are derived. Otherwise, the missing processes must be added to guarantee their achievement.
• Align objectives with the expectations and needs of citizens/customers.
• Show how the flows of information, documents, and materials are organized.
• Reflect relationships with recipients (citizens/customers), with suppliers, and between different units (internal customers) or other organizations, showing how the work is carried out.
• They usually involve different functional units of the institution.
• They have a well-defined beginning and end.
• They must establish the correct way to execute the activities of the institution.

In process management, it is also necessary to know how to distinguish between three variables: tasks, activities, and processes.

• Tasks: an action that is carried out in a company and that involves a single employee.
• Activity: in a company, many tasks are carried out that are grouped into activities.
• Processes: later, if the activities take into account the information flows, they are passed to processes.

Subprocesses

Once the processes have been defined and validated, it will be necessary to analyze the complexity of the process to determine the need to create Sub-Processes to guarantee the effective control and compliance of said process.

The objectives of a sub-process must be consistent with those of the process from which they are derived. Its definition must follow the same guidelines as those defined for the objectives of the processes.

Process map

Once the macro-processes, processes, and sub-processes have been defined and validated, the organization can build its Process Map as a graphic representation of its management model. In this map, it will be possible to visualize the sequence of interaction between the macro-processes, processes, and sub-processes, as well as the link between each one concerning the Institution's guidelines.

Formation of work teams

For the formation of the work teams, it is key that the members of the same have an adequate level of technical competence and experience in the different levels of organizational management.

Likewise, it is necessary to ensure a high commitment from the Management Level, which guarantees absolute support for the work teams, including the selection of the best available talent.