In the last part, I wrote that this part would be about processes and strategy. However, let me make a small change and first address the modeling of an organization, based on the process approach, before relating processes to strategy.
4. Modelling an organization – mapping processes
ISO 9001:2015 clause 4.4.1 states that an:
Organization shall determine the processes needed for a quality management system.
How can that be done?
We need to develop a model of how the organization works having as its building blocks what we call processes.
4.1 What is a model?
“A model is an external and explicit representation of part of reality, as seen by people who want to use the model to understand, to change, to manage and control that part of reality”
Michael Pidd in “Tools for thinking - Modeling in Management Science”
Remember, we don't draw a model to answer ISO 9001:2015 requirements, and please auditors. We draw them because we want to understand, to change, to manage, and control our organization's present and future.
Models are always a simplification and an approximate representation of some aspects of reality, models reduce complexity, simplify the original or the future to be built, to reduce the noise produced by reality, and thus highlight, distinguish the critical factors, for the object of study concerned. The model does not show all the attributes of the original, it only illustrates those attributes that are relevant, or suitable for the observer/creator/user of the model to manipulate. Models do not need to be accurate to be useful, models are simplifications, and their usefulness lies precisely in that approach.
All models are wrong, some are useful!
- processes are not departments,
- the organization chart is not a process map,
- the vertical and horizontal views of an organization are very different.