Process stakeholders and SIPOC

- Whether you know it or not, you participate in one or more processes every day. Whether you work in a restaurant, a call center, a bank, a factory, or a bakery, you are a process stakeholder. What is a process stakeholder, and what are the roles of a process stakeholder? In other words, what are your roles in a process? Process stakeholders are people involved in a process, people who have a stake in a process who have an impact on how well the process performs. When people think of process stakeholders they think of people who perform the process, the operators or processors. Processors perform the work of transformation converting or transforming inputs to outputs in one or more activities in a process. For example, when you conduct an analysis for your boss, your work transforms data to useful information. You are a processor. But there are other roles in a process. In addition to processors there are suppliers and customers. Suppliers provide inputs to the process of process activities. Inputs can be materials, parts, documents, data, or information needed for work to be carried out. Most people think of suppliers as outside suppliers, external to the process. But there are suppliers internal to the process. You and everyone else in the process are suppliers. How is that possible? When you receive the work output of someone upstream in the process, that person is your supplier. Similarly, when you provide your work output to someone downstream in the process, such as when you provide the results of your analysis to your boss, you are performing the role of supplier. Your boss who receives your output is your customer, but you are also a customer. Remember when you received and used data from IT to prepare that report for your boss? You are a customer of IT. To summarize in this example, you performed the roles of processor, supplier, and customer. Processor when you transform inputs to outputs. In this case you transformed data to useful information. Supplier when you provide the results of your analysis to your boss, and customer when you receive from IT the data for your analysis. These three roles were first conceptualized decades ago by the late quality guru, Dr. Joseph M. Juran as the triple role concept. These process stakeholder roles come with responsibilities. Responsibilities are prerequisites for operational excellence. As a supplier you are responsible for knowing what's important and critical to your customers. Also you have to understand the needs and expectations for your outputs. In this example you need to understand how your boss intends to use the results of your analysis. This way the purpose and scope of the analysis can be defined. As a processor you must know what's important and what must be done well in the process. In other words, what performance criteria and process metrics should be established and monitored, and what targets must be set and achieved in order to satisfy customers. This information determines how you should plan, perform, and monitor your work in the process. As a customer you are responsible for communicating your needs and expectations to suppliers. Let them know what's important to you, and provide them feedback at appropriate intervals to let 'em know how well they're doing as your supplier. Every process stakeholder is a supplier, a processor, and a customer. Executing these roles and responsibilities well is a prerequisite for operational excellence.