Process Owner: A Vital Role in Six Sigma

A repeatable, organized series of actions can be described as a process. These behaviors are meant to produce a particular outcome. Every organization's efficient and effective management depends on the process.

The process owner role is important because they manage the whole procedure, or the target laid down by the organization. They are important because they make sure that the desired expectations or the target laid down by the organization meet the expectations.

Let's understand the course's details and how to Learn Six Sigma Online through this blog.  

What is a Process Owner? 

A process owner is the only person fully in in-charge of controlling a process. The process owner's roles and responsibilities are to accomplish a process using the appropriate personnel and resources fully. He also oversees financial and technological aspects to conduct the process and deliver excellent results that meet organizational requirements. 

Difference Between Project Owner and Project Manager 

Basis	Project owner	Project manager
Scope of work	The project manager oversees the product team's daily operations.	The project manager is in charge of the project's overall scope.
Area of work	The process owner is concerned about what are the specific targets that an organization has to achieve and why is it relevant to the growth of the organization.	The project manager on the other hand ensures that the project owner's specifications are followed.  They are concerned about how the target would be achieved and who is suitable to do it.
Accountability	The process has this person "Accountable" for it. They stand in for this procedure throughout the entire organization and are the go-to person. They will make sure the process is precisely defined, planned, and recorded. They will make sure that the procedure includes a set of governance policies.	A process manager ensures that the process's daily tasks and procedures are being completed. In order to make sure the work is done; this role supervises the practitioners.  This function is occasionally coupled with the one that the process owner plays, and both are carried out by the same person.  To ensure that the process activities are carried out, a global organization can have one process owner and then a "process manager" for each area.
Focus and goals.	A process owner concentrates on providing continuing support for product capabilities and value streams throughout the long term.	A product manager overlooks the long-term aspects of creating a valued product and the value streams and product capabilities. Maintains attention on the upcoming sprint and release.
Scope	Process owner Deals with the internal management	Process manager Deals with internal and external management both.

Characteristics of a Process Owner

The characteristics of a process owner are:  

1. He is a subject matter expert:  

Business process owner roles and responsibilities also include subject matter expertise in every project step. They supervise everything, including inputs, outputs, raw materials and resources, supplier needs, customer requirements, interactions with other processes, and so on. 

2. Owns the Process Performance: 

He is in charge of the key performance indicators, metrics, costs, and profit & loss accounts. He also lays down the methods to track the performance ups and downs and what corrective and preventive actions must be taken. He compares the end product with the plans laid down and accordingly modifies the procedure.   

3. Manages Training & Feedback:  

He oversees the Lead's and Team Members' skills and expertise. He establishes the qualifications to be considered when hiring, determines the need for training, creates the curriculum, evaluates performance, and gives his team performance feedback. 

4. Acts as a motivator:  

He leads the team in following the procedures and rules, encourages and stimulates the team to enhance performance, and establishes a career path for his team members. This is what it means to manage a team. 

5. Possesses leadership qualities:  

One of the most important process owner's roles is to Set team goals and objectives while considering business policies and procedures. They support the team in reaching performance goals and lay up a career path focused on accomplishing those goals. 

Skill Set of a Process Owner

Following are the below-mentioned process owner skills: 

1. Change Management:  

Process Owners are the ones who draw the process for the competition of the task. However, sometimes there is a need to alter the process or the other aspects of management. Therefore, a process manager must always be reluctant to make such a change. Process owners need to be able to drive changes at every level, from operations to senior management. Thus, they must possess the knowledge and abilities to do so. 

2. Effective Communication:  

A process owner must understand the art of communicating the right things correctly. Good communication is the only way to drive process improvements, enforce compliance, and ensure consistent efforts from the staff.

Consequently, the Process owners must be able to convince senior management at the top level, communicate with stakeholders about the modifications in a process, and convey the significance to the operational level. 

3. Influence and power in business: 

One of the most important qualities is the influential power of the process owner. For process owners' jobs to be successful, they must be in a position of authority and influence along with Excellent process design and mapping.  

4. In-depth Process Knowledge: 

A process owner must have complete knowledge about the process and be aware of how a change to a process will affect the business. The process owners of processes cannot work alone. They must comprehend how the company operates to build processes that consider how any changes will affect the company's various departments. 

5. Leadership:  

The process owner must be positioned to inspire people, negotiate well, and coordinate efforts between several departments. 

Roles and Responsibilities of Project Owner

Following are the roles and responsibilities of a six-sigma process owner:  

Constructing the vision 

The product owner serves as the team's director and develops development projects' objectives and visions utilizing their high-level perspective.

The business process owner's roles and responsibilities are communicating with all stakeholders, including customers, business managers, and the development team, ensuring that the goals are clear, and the vision aligns with company objectives.

Everyone involved must be on the same page for a project to succeed. A product owner can assist the team in maintaining that goal by producing a product roadmap.  

1. Product backlog administration

This is one of the most important process owner roles. Process owners also overlook the proper control of the product backlog. The product owner must compile the backlog of items and prioritize them following the overarching strategy and corporate goals. The product owner must also map out project dependencies to determine the proper development order. 

2. Prioritizing the tasks

Prioritizing needs is one of the product owner's major responsibilities. To put it another way, they must balance the three factors of scope, budget, and time, balancing priorities in light of the demands and goals of all parties involved.

An example of the process owner scope can be that a product being developed must be released within six months. The product owner will need to evaluate which project components have the flexibility and which don't as the project advances to decide how and when to create each iteration and product component. 

3. Observing the stages of development

The product owner should devote a lot of effort to guiding the actual development of the product after the vision, strategy, and goals for the project have been established. They play a significant role in all phases of the event, including planning, fine-tuning, reviewing, and sprinting.

In collaboration with the other team members, the process owner lays down each step a department must follow and then also writes down the potential problem that could arise within the management.  

4. Anticipating client needs

A process owner's key responsibility is to anticipate the client's needs so that the management can focus all of their energy on pleasing their consumers and finding solutions to their concerns. 

Ready to take your project management career to the next level? Enroll in our online project management classes and achieve mastery with ease. Our course is designed to help you unlock your potential and succeed in the field. Start your journey now!

Who Can Become a Process Owner

Process owner job description and other courses like Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Training Online are suitable for product developers, software development architects, software development managers, Software designers, developers, and testers. 

Following are the career paths you can pursue after becoming a process owner: 

1. A business analyst: A business analyst, or BA, serves as a point of contact between the IT division and the various business units.  
2. Project manager: as we saw in the abovementioned tabular difference, both jobs are closely associated. Therefore, a product owner can also act as a project manager in the organization.  
3. Product manager: A product manager can identify and express the end-users needs while concentrating on the product-market fit.  
4. CEO: if you attain enough experience as a senior product manager, you can be designated as the organization's CEO. At this level, you will be mainly responsible for laying down processes and procedures at the top level and dealing with the clients.  

Salary Insight of a Project Owner

The average process owner's salary ranges from about 13 lakhs to 93.4 lakhs. This might also vary according to the experience, for those with higher experience can expect pay with an average yearly pay of 20 lakhs based on 22 salaries. 

Conclusion

Thus, we can say that the process owner course is very important for overall development, laying down processes and procedures. A process owner boosts the service management process owners' real-world expertise, knowledge, and experience.

Additionally, the course gives you the best preparation for your practical learning. To become a process owner, you can enroll with us to learn  KnowledgeHut Lean Six Sigma Online or other process owners’ six sigma courses to master at it.