The Synergy between Process and Roles in Your Organization

You may know your coworkers' place in the organization, but where do they fit in a process? How has disorganization and proper role comprehension disrupted your business? 

As a manager, you know in theory and within your own mind how a particular project should move forward. And you know how each person on your team plays a part in that process leading to the final completion of the project. But, are you communicating both of those items clearly to your team?

Be honest. How organized is your team? How organized are your projects?

Most of the time, when an employee begins at a new company, or begins a new role within a company, that person is handed an organizational chart illustrating who each person in the company reports to. And most of the time the explanation of how this new person is to contribute to a particular process is never mentioned. The manager simply assumes that the new person already knows, or that the new person will ask the appropriate questions for clarity when the need comes up. Beyond that, roles and process are seldom revisited in conversation. And they should be part of your daily conversation with your team.

Each role filled by a member of your team contributes in varying ways to multiple projects and tasks. So, why are these conversations not taking place? And if they are, how can you clearly communicate to each member of your team their role and the relationship it has to each project?

Let’s answer a question with a question - Why not return to the tools you already have (or should have) at your disposal for the solution? Here’s an example:

Ok, so you are a Marketing Director, and you are developing a new campaign for your product line due to the changing of the economic conditions. Since there have been so many changes to your department recently, you decide to create an updated org chart and present it at the next department meeting.

This visual obviously works well in identifying the roles people will play in producing the deliverables for the new campaign; however you want to be clear that everyone understands the proper process the campaign needs to go through so you create a process map and walk through it with your team.

Click here to see a larger version of this image.

The process above illustrates the general procedure of the creation of the new campaign, and the initials in the boxes along with the color coding indicate the team member(s) responsible for the associated task; ultimately leading each person to a better understanding of how the building of the new campaign work is to flow from start to finish.

What you are able to do now is communicate to your team the role they play in the organization, and how that role fits into this particular project process of creating a new campaign.

From our example you can see that Jeremy Yates is responsible for beginning the drafting of the campaign message following the presentation of the research given by Thomas and Carlos, and then submit to Jan for proofing and editing (see below).

You don’t have to necessarily recreate the wheel in order to have better understanding of roles and functions from the people you work with. You simply need to focus on how to better communicate with your team on how each is an important participant to the team and the process by revisiting the subject on an ongoing basis.

What you will find is that your processes will improve, your projects and tasks become more organized and your people work smarter.

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