Taking responsible risks with process management

Balancing ambition and practice

Successful business and management requires seizing opportunities to operate more efficiently, quickly or profitably. An opportunity is rarely without risk. Deliberate risk-taking can be effective, but requires insights and thoughtful choices. Optimal process management helps with this, as it can bridge the gap between practice and theory.

The power of process management

When you think of optimally designing, managing and improving business processes, you think of process management. This should lead to a proven and controlled process.

Implementing process management makes the organisation smarter and safer and adds value for (your) customers. It can result in shorter lead times and less waste. And, last but not least, to responding faster to risks and opportunities in a constantly changing world.

Read more about process management, process optimisation, process flow and process modelling.

The world is VUCA

That means as much as: the world is dynamic and changes follow each other in rapid succession. Nobody has a crystal ball, but in a VUCA world it is even more difficult to plan and to develop a relevant vision. But doing business or managing without looking ahead is destructive.

It is wise to make plans that give room to move. The best plans are directional and allow you to springboard and change plans if the (changed) situation demands it. Through trial and error, you experience what is effective for the organisation. So make plans, develop ideas and dare to take risks. But: what risks do you have, which ones do you take? Balancing between risk-taking and internal control is important for every company to be able to maximise market opportunities and minimise costs. Balancing this requires a high level of risk awareness in conjunction with a good understanding of internal control mechanisms.

Get a grip on risks with soft controls

You can do everything you can to reduce risks by focusing on hard requirements, strict rules and theory. But then you forget about (everyday) practice and people’s ability to anticipate it. You get a better grip with soft controls. With soft controls, you focus on creating a working environment that motivates and stimulates. This affects, for instance, employee loyalty, integrity and inspiration. Thus, you try to create a situation where the employee always acts in the best interest of the organisation. Where he/she is motivated to meet personal objectives and align these with the objectives of the department or organisation. Soft control aspects that play a role in positively influencing others:

• Manage based on trust;
• Style of leadership;
• Exemplary behaviour;
• Strong leadership;
• Holding each other accountable;
• A well-formulated vision, strategy and mission;
• Good working conditions;
• Personal development, training and education;
• Rewards.

This all has to do with risk management. Risk management consists of a number of phases. It is a continuous process where, as an organisation, you sometimes have to go through (some) phases again. In each phase, you can give attention to soft controls to make the importance of risk management clear. Phases of risk management and soft controls.

1. Governance: do all responsibilities within the organisation lie with the right people?
2. Identification: what risks can we identify within the organisation? Do culture and behaviour of individuals possibly pose a risk? At what level?
3. Assessment: what impact do the risks you have identified have? How do the soft controls work on that impact? Do risks decrease as a result, or not?
4. Embedding: how do we ensure that the right people manage the risks and show risk leadership? Here, it is important that everyone is aware of the impact of his or her own behaviour and cooperation on risks. Formal leaders can make the difference here by leading by example.
5. Monitoring: risk management cannot be done without hard requirements, rules, protocols and more. In this phase, you check whether these hard controls are in place and remain in place. But what happens if certain behaviour undermines these rules? It is important to continuously assess whether all noses are still pointed in the same direction.
6. Optimisation: by continuously monitoring and randomly measuring the status of soft controls in your risk management, you can intervene where necessary. Doing this in time will improve the operation of soft controls and reduce risks.

Five tips for choosing a process management system

To ensure the balance between people and systems, process management is becoming more urgent. If you want to map and monitor your processes, you can no longer do without a process management system. Other issues such as risk and quality management can also ensure that the organisation is ready for process management at a higher level. A process management system helps to structure and steer things in the right direction. After all, you can then continuously monitor and improve, thus making processes more efficient.

An important question is which issues to consider when choosing a process management system. To make the right choice, we give you five tips:

Do you want to know to what extent these tips apply to your situation? Then make an appointment with one of our consultants.

Choose process management support

The requirements imposed on companies by the government and society are becoming stricter. For instance, to increase safety levels and prevent socially far-reaching bankruptcies.

But that does not mean that practice stands in the way of ambition and taking advantage of opportunities. Precisely not. As we wrote earlier, it is a matter of balancing. Risk management software manages one and all. Such software supports relevant activities and tasks and is valuable for everyone in an organisation. Moreover, it helps organisations grow and the software is user-friendly and intuitive. Smart software from Zenya supports you in process management and helps you optimise.

Want to know more about how Zenya’s software fits your organisation’s process management needs and requirements and how we integrate it into our complete quality management solution? Request a customised free demo!