Defining Process Ownership

White paper prepared by Codel Services Ltd ©

Introduction

Purpose of this Paper

This document sets out an approach to completing the Process and Owner signoff deliverable.

This will allow project/programme management, business/sponsors and audit to assess the fit of such deliverables against their respective requirements.

Given that SOX is a significant motivation to formalised business process definition, this document describes some of the ways to ensure SOX compliance.

Note: for details on how to obtain the template for this deliverable, please visit the templates section.

Objectives of Process and Owner Deliverable

The process and owner template must satisfy the following objectives:

	To formalise the acceptance of the process and embedded controls by the nominated process owners.
	To provide a consistency of approach to allow the owners to clearly see what it is they are signing off on, and to asses the impact on their existing processes
	To minimise later re-engineering of process documentation to make them “SOX” compliant
	To ensure that key project deliverables are SOX and internal audit compliant

This deliverable (and its template) will not seek to describe:

	It will not detail how the process is to be implemented – i.e. other than highlighting any steps that SOX needs to be shown, the detailed process steps are not shown.
	The technology to requirements to support the process. Given that technology primarily governs how the process is to be implemented it need not specifically be included at this stage unless the usage of a particular technology is an embedded business responsibility
	It will not detail how the controls are to be designed.

Assumptions

Process owners will formally accept responsibility for the process and controls once they sign-off the completed template.

It is therefore assumed that there is a formal governance framework to enforce this (i.e. through steering committee)

Emphasis of deliverable

Because this deliverables main purpose is to set who the owner is the process, how this process is designed is not material at this stage. This solution “neutral” view allows processes defined and owner assigned before the design actually occurs – effectively separating the “what” from the “how” – since the owner is primarily interesting in the former.

The “how” will be covered in the process design deliverables, which is itself a separate sign off later in the project.

This paper has been prepared by Codel Services Ltd to illustrate how structured business modelling can help your organisation. Codel Services Ltd is an IT Consultancy specialising in business modelling. If you would like further information, please contact us at: Deryck Brailsford, Codel Services Ltd, Dale Hill Cottage, Kirby-Le-Soken, Essex CO13 0EN,United Kingdom. Telephone: +44 (0)1255 862354/Mobile: + 44 (0)7710 435227/e-mail: info@codel-services.com