Work teams in process management

Summary

This research shows an analysis of the role that the work teams play in process management, from the strategic direction, this work was applied at the Hotel Villa La granjita, a tourist facility located in Business Improvement.

It arises from the need to promote teamwork focused on the selection, classification and documentation of business processes, turning these into the key result areas and reorganizing the entire strategic apparatus of the organization.

For its conception it is based on the bibliographic analysis and the use of group work techniques in the company, as well as work with experts, a weighted method of selection among others.

Introduction

It is obvious that to insert and stay in an increasingly changing and competitive environment, the best thing is that the sources of benefits are inexhaustible. Associated with such statement, it is found that the only resource that is inexhaustible, that is capable of adding value and that all the sources of advantages already mentioned can be generated from it, is the human resource, since it provides organizations with the Knowledge, the own organizational dynamics, the capacity for analysis and decision-making that allows the constant search for durability and balance with the environment, everything is achieved if you really do a conscious and dedicated job using the key tools. Teamwork is an effective technique for achieving objectives in organizations, which involves a group of people working in a coordinated way in the execution of a project (aulafacil.com).

Currently one of the projects to which more attention is paid is to process management characterized by an interrelated system of processes that together contribute to increasing customer satisfaction and is an alternative vision to the traditional one characterized by organizational structures of hierarchical - functional cut, which survives since the middle of the 19th century, and which largely hinders the orientation of companies towards the customer. (Consultants, 2006).

Process management began to gain momentum from reengineering, but it is not until now with the principles proposed in the ISO 9000: 2000 series of standards that the process approach can be considered as “a powerful way to organize and manage activities that create value in the company ”. The process approach removes the barriers between different functional areas and unifies their approaches towards the main goals of the organization, eliminates the traditional policy of trenches. It also allows proper management of the interfaces between the different processes. (Kaisen, 2006).

Management by process leads to (Peteiro, 2006):

A coherent process structure that represents the operation of the organization A designation of process managers, who must supervise and improve compliance with all the requirements and objectives of the assigned process (costs, quality, productivity, environment, occupational health and safety, moral) A system of indicators that allows evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of processes both from the internal point of view (performance indicators) and externally (perception indicators).

Specifically in Cuba, firm steps have been taken in the implementation of process management in the context of strategic management, as an alternative to provide economic solutions derived from greater efficiency and productivity in order to consolidate the Cuban economy, hence the need to form work teams aimed at the identification, documentation and organization of processes within Cuban companies in improvement, this being the problematic situation of this research.

From which the following scientific problem is derived:

How should teams work in improving companies, to implement process management in the context of strategic management?

The general objective:

Analyze the role of work teams in process management, according to the context of the strategic direction, applied to the Hotel Villa Granjita, which is in business improvement.

Development:

This work starts from looking for what elements and what steps must be followed to carry out the management by process. For this, a bibliographic analysis was carried out where it was found that the most important elements in working with the processes are the following:

Identification of the processes. Selection of the person in charge of the process. Determination of the process team. Analysis of the added value 5. Preparation of the flow diagram. Sequence of the processes and elaboration of the process map.

The authors define that the methods for managing by processes that are most closely linked to research are: The Methodology for implementing process management. (Carballal, 2006) and Procedure for Process Management (Nogueira, 2004), because they conceive some strategic elements, such as:

Mission of the processes Vision of the processes Objectives of the process Key success factors Strategic objectives of the organization.

Due to the characteristics and purpose of the research it is proposed, and in fact due to its own conception, the authors recommend that it be applied in companies that are inserted in some of the stages of the business improvement process (diagnosis, dossier and implementation), given two fundamental reasons:

The need for the commitment and involvement of senior management and members of the organization with the process of change, consistent with what is expressed in the methodological bases of Business Improvement. The depth with which the organization subsystem of the production of goods and services in business improvement, which implies the selection of the so-called «operational» processes in Process Management.

This work includes the preparation of the personnel for the global work of the processes, their selection, classification and documentation until the formation of the process team and its application in the Hotel Villa la Granjita Located in Cuidad de Santa Clara, Villa Clara province., Company that is in business improvement.

Staff preparation

For the realization of the moment, it is necessary to start with a preparatory stage that consists of creating the conditions and, above all, establishing the commitments of the management team of the organization itself that will participate directly in the design and / or redesign process.. (Castellanos, 1998). At this time, the team that will be in charge of managing by processes is formed, this new way of seeing the organization implies changes in the way of thinking of managers and workers when structuring the organization, therefore, the preparation of the personnel becomes a factor of success for the management by processes.

Goals:

1) Sensitize the people who are going to make the change of the organization towards a redesign based on process management.

Training of the work team for the global analysis of the processes.

This work team may be made up of internal organization staff, external or mixed, depending on the characteristics of the entity and the level of emotional independence of the participants, among other possible factors to consider in specific cases. This step should culminate in the selection of a team leader by the entity that will conduct the process and carry out the preparation required by the members to carry out the work. Any of the variants selected by senior management must be conditioned to achieve a multidisciplinary composition, experience and potential in the team to execute this process. (Castellanos, 1998), however, more specific characteristics related to other elements must be taken into account in the selection of work equipment.

No more than seven people (Keep in mind that not all will always be at the meetings.) Most of its members are from the board of directors. One team member has experience in charting a process diagram. The team must have knowledge of the activities to be studied.

Activities to be carried out with the work team

Provide training courses with the managers of the organization on teamwork, develop skills that allow them to do good teamwork, having the motto: The team responds to the end result and not each of its members independently. Knowledge about Process Management, with a view to gaining knowledge and understanding on the subject. Provide training systems to all those involved in working with the processes, which should be extended to the rest of the other members of the organization. The themes include: work with experts, Delphi method, Benchmarking, graphing techniques, nominal groups, among others.

Result of the application

At this stage it is selected in the work team in charge of working with the processes, which was made up of 12 internal people from the organization. A team coordinator is appointed, who is responsible for quality management within the hotel and is in charge of applying the procedure without incurring any violation of its stages.

Selection of processes.

In this stage, the relevant and key processes of the organization are selected, which are the bases of the organizational design and / or redesign, which the organization proposes and ends with their classification.

Its objectives are:

Select all relevant and key processes in the organization Classify organization processes

Identification of the relevant processes of the organization.

In this phase, the relevant processes of the organization will be identified. What are those global processes, which usually go through functional boundaries. To complete the process, the intervention of several members of the organization is necessary.

It should be noted that there is no "catalog list" of processes, therefore it is up to each organization to determine its own processes based on:

Your customers The nature of your activities Your strategy

The success and simplification of the work that follows will depend a great deal on the quality in the elaboration of the list of processes, their degree of completion and the way in which they are separated or added. (Saballo & Gutierrez, 2004).

For the selection of these processes the Delphi method or the nominal groups technique is used and the members of the board of directors are involved and for the selection the following premises must be taken into account. (Nogueira, 2004):

The name associated with each process must be representative of what it conceptually represents or purports to represent. The greatest number of activities carried out in the organization must be included in some of the processes listed. Otherwise, an analysis of them must be made, evaluating the possibility of joining them with others, restructuring or eliminating them. Processes that add value to the product must be identified. The processes must be focused on the satisfaction of internal and external customers. It is recommended that the number of processes ranges between 10 or 25 depending on the type of company (Amozarrain, 1999). As a rule, it can be affirmed that if few or too many processes are identified, the difficulty of their subsequent management increases. Although in this case it is proposed to select the optimal number of processes,Because these processes were part of the organizational structure of companies, the number of processes determined does not determine the effectiveness of the system. After this selection, a Benchmarking study can be applied, in companies related to the sector in which the organization under study moves and work on them, providing the particularities of each one. This completes the selection of the processes.This completes the selection of the processes.This completes the selection of the processes.

Starting from the definition of the processes, the restructuring of the key result areas is carried out, if necessary, to seek the coincidence between these and the work processes, and on this basis develop the entities' strategy.

Result of the application

The processes were selected taking into account what was stated at this stage, a Benchmarking work was carried out at the Hotel Los Caneyes and finally the following processes remained:

Strategic management, Quality management, Commercial management, Customer service, Gastronomic services, Accommodation, Assurances, Human resources management, Economic and financial management, Technical services. These processes pass into the organization's strategy as the key result areas.

Phase 2: Selection of key processes.

Once the list of relevant processes has been identified, it is necessary to establish priorities to be able to select which of these can be considered critical for the organization, add greater value to the product and have a direct impact on the external customer. For the determination of these key processes, the integrated selection approach is used (Machado, 2003), which is based on the integration of three existing approaches in the literature, resulting in insufficient application of each of them. These approaches are: Management selection approach: Involves the participation of managers in determining the processes that compromise compliance with the strategies, particularly the strategic objectives.

Approach with Information: Involves the collection of internal / external information regarding the selected processes, according to the client's criteria; who are asked for criteria regarding the different products and / or services provided, in addition to using information available in the different parts of the organization. Weighted Selection Approach: Taking into account the previous results, the board of directors and the work team prepare the matrix of strategic objectives vs. Impact with the process, repercussion with the client (Amorzarrain, 1999) and the weight of the process, this last element contributed by the author: The work team analyzes the following aspects for their better understanding and thus facilitates the elaboration of the matrix:

Impact of the process: Current and potential contribution of each process to the fulfillment of the strategic objectives and / or goals of the organization, Impact on the Client: Impact on the external client. Does it satisfy a basic customer need? o Does it indirectly contribute to satisfying it? (Carballal, 2006) Weight: Two elements are included; the short-term success of the processes and the necessary resources (including costs)

With these criteria, the matrix of Process Impact / Strategic Objective / / Impact with the client / weight, short-term success, resources must be formed. A score is given to each process (Harrington, 1997) where:

0 = no impact 5 = moderate impact 10 = high impact

The analysis will be carried out for each of the relevant processes as follows, according to expression 1:

(1) Where:

TP: Total Points IP: Impact of the process RC: Impact on the Client P: Weight ECP: Short-term success R: Resources

Application results

Table 1 shows how the selection of these processes remains:

Table 1. Matrix of Strategic Objective / Impact of the Process / Impact with the client / Scope (A), Size (T), Time (I), Resources (R).

* Adaptation of Amozarrain (1999)

Once the scores are given, the central tendency of each process is determined and the average score is calculated to select the key processes through expression 2:

Where: Mpc: Average of the key processes.

Ptp: Total process score.

N: Total number of processes.

The key processes are those that have values above the total average calculated for being the ones with the highest scores in each of the categories. (Machado, 2003). The final number of key processes will be directly related to the mission and vision of the organization, this result will also determine the order of priority with which the key processes that were previously selected will be studied and analyzed, since sometimes it is not possible to undertake the study and design of all the key processes at the same time, so it is necessary to work them in a certain order that facilitates, in the first place, that the Process Management Team gains experience and also that the change in the organization does not be as traumatic, if not more gradual, based on how they are implanted. This in turn contributesthat the culture of the organization gradually transitions from a functional conception or approach to a process approach. (Carballal, 2006).

Application results

Mpc = 87.5

The key processes selected were: • Strategic management.

Customer service Gastronomic services Accommodation

Phase 3: Classification of the processes.

To complement this order and to know how short and long-term decisions will be handled from the structural point of view, these key processes are classified into two groups, according to the authors:

Key strategic processes: These are the key processes whose highest score was awarded to the impact of the processes, with the strategic objectives. Key operational processes: These are the key processes whose highest score was awarded to the weight and impact with the customer.

The rest of the relevant processes are also classified into:

Strategic processes Support processes.

Application results Table 2 below shows how the hotel's key processes were classified:

The remaining relevant processes were classified as shown in Table 3:

Documentation of the process.

At this stage, the documentation of the process is carried out by preparing the process file. It includes the selection of those responsible for processes, the definition of limits, the people who will participate in the process, that is, the Process Team (EP), the definition of sub-processes and activities, the necessary resources and documentation, the analysis From the added value, the flow chart from which data such as: inputs and outputs with its requirements can be inferred, indicators of improvement and management are calculated.

Goals:

Prepare everything related to the documentation of the process. Build the process sheet.

Select those responsible for the processes:

The process managers are selected by the work team, which for this selection will take into account that these process managers will be managers of the organization and must comply with all the requirements established in the international literature and in the case of the business system. Cuban, the author, proposes that the bases of business improvement be reviewed as a guiding document. However, for this selection and in order to be consistent with the change process that the proposed procedure brings, it is proposed that apart from these mandatory elements, those responsible for the process team also have the following characteristics:

Strong change mentality They must know in detail what process-oriented work is like.

The person in charge of the process together with the work team are in charge of defining the limits of the process, where to start and where to end it. This is something that is not easy to do considering all the elements that interact in a process, such as the Inputs, human and material resources, procedures, outputs, etc.

Application results

In this phase, those responsible for all the processes and the limits of the key processes were selected. This selection was made taking into account the Business Improvement Bases that correspond to the second subsystem "Management methods and styles", adding the specific requirements of tourism for managers. (Table 4)

Phase 2. Form the process team: Once the previous phase has been completed, a Process Team (EP) must be created, made up of workers from the different areas or organizational units through which the process crosses key activities, that is, activities that add direct value to the process.

The team will be formed at the proposal of the person in charge of the process, following the articles issued in Decree no. 281 of the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers, which address the issue related to the socialist work brigade (team, group) and with the selection and integration of employment, articles 232 to 239 and 315 to 317. It must To be formalized by the management of the company, they must be taken into account with a view to the fact that these people are going to start a new occupation in the company, so that some elements will change (Carballal, 2006):

A team representing all interested functional disciplines is required. They are cross-functional and inter-organizational teams. The mandate must be granted by the management team. It must have certain coverage to make decisions. It is necessary for this team to have training in all the elements that will be part of the documentation of the process. The process team is the person in charge of doing everything related to the documentation of the process.

Application results

In this stage, starting from this phase, we will only work with the Accommodation process, since it is the distinctive process of any hotel facility which is made up of two sub-processes: hotel reception and cleaning and supplies, in Table 5, it is shown as formed the process team.

Phase 3: Construction of the process

Firstly, the mission and vision of the process will be elaborated to serve as a guide for all its members and to define exactly the reason for the team and the process. Teamwork with members of the process team is used as a technique (Machado, 2005).

Then we proceed to the definition of objectives, for which the following steps are executed:

Search for the impacts registered by each process with the strategic objectives and the contrast with the client, for this it is necessary to rely on the table where the key processes were selected. Display the strategic objectives that impact through the process. Analyze how the process affects with the client, by carrying out an endorsement issued by the client or asking clients directly about their needs and collecting their responses. Write the strategic objectives of the process.

Application results

Mission of the Accommodation process: We offer our clients the accommodation service in the Hotel, with careful attention to the reception service and offering our rooms with adequate hygiene, for which we have a staff prepared and committed to installation. Vision of the accommodation process: We are the leading process, for offering an excellent reception service, showing the best cleaning in our rooms, so we have a staff that has high professionalism in the service it provides, guaranteeing maximum customer satisfaction.

Objectives of the process, prepared according to the hotel reception and cleaning and provisioning sub-processes, as shown below:

Offer cleaning and provisioning service of rooms and noble areas with the established quality standard. Offer accommodation service and all the announced facilities.

The selection of the threads, with their activities and documentation were selected in table 6

Conclusions:

This research can only be applied in perfecting companies that are created for the process approach. The team formed to work with the processes is in charge of their selection, classification and documentation.

recommendations

The application of research in hotel facilities that meet the established conditions, as well as in other companies in improvement. The continuation of studies in work with processes in organizations.

Bibliography

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