Process Development

In the past few years, legislation has been passed whereby there is an increased accountability for certain business processes. HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) translates into accountability for keeping patient records confidential. SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) translates into accountability for financial records. Companies no longer breeze through internal audits. In today's world there are steep financial penalties, public scrutiny and professional scorn associated with both companies and senior executives who fail to meet the newly defined standards.

Operating with a clear set of defined policies and procedures is increasingly becoming a need to have rather than a nice to have. It’s no longer acceptable for managers to simply manage their employees. To meet the increasing demands associated with compliance, productivity, increased competition, and other influencing factors, managers are faced with the need to not only understand what their employees do, but more importantly—how they do it.

RightProcess Overview

To help organizations quickly move from thinking and talking about the value of defined processes to actually putting it into practice, The Hastings Group is offering RIGHTPROCESS. This comprehensive solution delivers clearly defined policies and procedures based on a proven 3-Step Process Methodology shown below:

1 - Process Workflow Diagrams The first step associated with the IMS 3-Step Methodology focuses on defining effective process workflow diagrams. Specific guidelines for developing a process workflow that has the right level of detail is included in the methodology. A sample process workflow– the ultimate tool that allows managers to see a big picture of precisely how their organizations operates– is shown to the right.
2 - Policies & Procedures Next, with the process workflow complete, step two of the methodology defines how to identify where specific instructions are required in the form of clearly defined policies and procedures. The red borders indicate where these policies and procedures correspond to the process workflow. Furthermore, the methodology includes specific guidelines for writing effective policy statements and practical step-by-step procedures to ensure long-term, consistent execution.
3 - Performance Measurements Lastly, what gets measured gets managed. The third step of the methodology teaches how to identify all of the points within your process where there is an opportunity to measure performance. This is represented in the sample process workflow by the blue shaded areas.

Using RIGHTPROCESS, signing executives can proceed with confidence knowing the detailed documentation is designed specifically for execution. In other words, SOX compliance is not only dependent on an organization's ability to produce clearly defined internal controls (documentation) but they must also demonstrate their organization’s ability to execute over the long-term.

Frequently Asked Questions about Process Development

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