The Units, in the first phase of the Pegasus Program, have identified, defined, diagrammed and documented their key processes, i.e. those that manage the activities leading to the delivery of the product or service to the user (external to the Unit).
- They are user-oriented and the possibility of meeting the user’s requirements and expectations depends on them.
- They consume most of the organization’s resources.
- Its optimization is decisive for the organization’s competitiveness.
- Contribute to the fulfillment of the mission/vision and the achievement of strategic objectives
The strategic processes (managing the relationship of the organization with the environment, the way in which decisions on planning and improvements are made) correspond to the organization as such. In this case the UPV.
As for the support processes (providing resources and support for key development), these have been left in the hands of each Unit, but following the same methodology and standards as those used in the case of the keys.
Identification of key processes
The Pegasus Units, when approaching the identification of their key processes, have asked themselves the following questions:
- What processes are the Unit’s reason to be?
- Which processes are initiated by the request of one or more users and end with the service to them?
- Which processes consume most of the Unit’s resources (personnel, materials, time, etc.)?
- Which processes have an impact on the Unit’s results or even on the Institution itself?
Elements defining a key Pegasus process
The key Pegasus processes have been characterized on the basis of a series of elements that have allowed their exhaustive definition:
- Process Name: Brief and representative identification of the process task.
- Process Description: Mission or object of the process. Its purpose. Its raison d’être. What it is for.
- Process Manager: Position, position, function (not person) with the capacity to act and who must lead the process to involve and mobilize the actors involved.
- Scope of the process: First and last activity of the process.
- Beginning of the ProcessActivity, usually external to the unit, that initiates the process. Basically of two types: user request (asynchronous process) and temporary event (synchronous process).
- End of ProcessActivity, usually specific to the Unit, which concludes the process.
- Process UsersThe process is provided by the process and its outputs are received by the demanders of the services provided by the process.
- Internal users:
- Entities: Management Bodies, Centers, Departments, Research Structures, Support Units…
- People: PDI, PAS, researchers, scholarship holders.
- External users: students, institutions, companies…
- Internal users:
- Process SuppliersThe process owner unit: they provide the inputs to the process, i.e., services that the process owner unit demands from them.
- User requirements/expectationsRequirements that the specified users demand from the Unit, and their expectations about the expected service.
- Participants in the processPassive subject that does not demand the service (is not a direct user of the service), does not provide inputs to the process (is not one of the suppliers of the process) and is not part of the Unit that owns the process, but that intervenes at some moment or moments during the development of the process.
- General diagram:Sequence of activities that take place from the beginning of the process (demand of the service by the user) to the end of the process (delivery of the service to the user).
- Associated procedures:They collect the precise and systematic way a set of tasks as part of a process.
- Regulations and standards to be met by the process: Identification of the general and specific rules that must be taken into account for the correct development of the actions of a process.
- Associated documentsThe following documents are included in the process: applications, forms, resolutions, etc.
Pegasus key process flowchart
When it comes to diagramming the key processes of the Units, Pegasus has opted for:
- A specialized tool for drawing diagrams such as Microsoft Visio, making use of an adaptation of the BPMN standard (Business Process Modeling Notation) initially developed by Business Process Management Initiative(BPMI) and is currently maintained by the Object Management Group (OMG).
- A self-developed application that, without being an Integral Process Management tool, allows the orderly storage of diagrams, the management of users, suppliers, indicators, etc. and that in the future will allow the monitoring of processes and the establishment of improvement plans.
Stages of implementation
In Pegasus, the following steps have been followed when identifying, defining, diagramming and documenting the key processes of each Unit:
- Basic training in process management and work on the first approach to the key processes of each Unit by the working groups of each of them.
- Working sessions, assisted by a facilitator from outside the Unit, to review the first approximation of the key processes and complete the identification sheet for each one of them. Diagramming of the identified processes and their associated procedures.
- Meta-validation of key processes (analysis of unit-supplier relationships and border conflict resolution).
- Dissemination and review by the total of each Unit of its key processes.
- Institutional validation of each Unit’s key processes manual.
- Publication and dissemination of key processes (Web of each Unit).