What is a Process Owner (or Care Pathway Owner)

Definition

The Process Owner is the person responsible for engineering the business process and for overseeing the cross functional performance of the business process. The Process Owner is a person from the business side of the organization. The Process Owner is a Business Process Engineering (BPE) role.


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Responsibilities

The Process Owner:

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  provides direction to the Process Design Team,
  implements the new policies, standards and procedures required for the new business process,coordinates the startup of the implementation on the new work facilities,
  coordinates the startup of the development and implementation of the new information systems and technologies,
  provides information to members of the Process Design Team, and helps the Process Design Team to understand the business process,
  reviews deliverables, change requests, and decision requests to confirm assumptions, ensure business requirements are met, and identify issues,
  provides feedback to the Acceptor on deliverables review,
  as needed, participates in Steering Committee Meetings.

Key Role Interactions



The Process Owner has key interactions with the following roles.



These interactions are guidelines only and do not reflect all possible project organizations.


With the Acceptor to help ensure a single consolidated customer response to any deliverable, change request, or decision request,


With the Project Manager to provide feedback on issues,


With the Business Process Engineering Specialist to help define current business processes and plan for the implementation of new ones,


With the Change Management Specialist to help assess the impact of change and define a change management strategy.


One Process Owner is required for each business process under study.


Skills and Experience



The Process Owner requires the following skills and experience:

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  in-depth knowledge and understanding of the business process being engineered,
  in-depth knowledge of specific customer operations, policies, procedures, standards, and existing technology and systems environment,
  ability to resolve issues,
  seniority required to ensure authority over the business process and its interfacesgood written and verbal communication skills,
  ability to commit time to the project,
  commitment to the project's success.

Interpersonal Skills



The Process Owner must also have a high level of General Business Skills - and they must be domain pertinent.