Business Process Management Tools

Business process management tools are comprised of planning, organizing, staffing, leading, controlling and coordination. Planning involves selecting missions and objectives and the actions to achieve them; it requires decision making like choosing future courses of action from several alternatives. No real plan exists until a decision (a commitment of human or material resources or reputation) has been made. Before a decision is made, all that exists is a planning study, an analysis or a proposal. There is no real plan.

Organizing is a part of managing that involves establishing an intentional structure of roles for people to fill in an organization. It is intentional in the sense of making sure that all the tasks necessary to accomplish goals are assigned. It is hoped that the tasks are assigned to people who can do them best. The purpose of an organization structure is to help create an environment for human performance. It is a management tool and not an end in and of itself.

Staffing involves filling and keeping filled the positions in the organization structure and identifying the work-force requirements and inventorying the people available do this. These people are recruited, selected, placed, promoted and appraised. Thus, both candidate and current jobholder's skills are developed to accomplish their tasks effectively and efficiently.

Leading influences people so that they will contribute to organization and group goals; it has to do predominantly with the interpersonal aspect of managing. All managers would agree that their most important problems arise from people- their desires and attitudes, their behavior as individuals and in groups. Therefore, effective managers also need to be effective leaders.

Controlling is the measuring and correcting of activities of subordinates to ensure that events conform to plans. It measures performance against goals. Plans show where negative deviations exist, and by putting in motion actions to correct deviations, help ensure accomplishment of plans. Although planning must precede controlling, plans are not self-achieving.