From a working team to process management – working on creating a process map at WUT

What tasks does the work of the Team for Process Management involve?

The Team for Process Management was appointed following the decision of the head of the Management Team for the project „Excellence Initiative – Research University”. Its main objective is to take on initiatives for building a process approach in the entire Warsaw University of Technology as a modern research university. The work is realised under Action D31 Optimisation of administrative processes through the introduction of Process Management targeted mainly at research projects, an independent review of appropriate administrative processes at WUT, preparing their optimisation proposals, facilitating work of teams responsible for the implementation of the electronic document management system (including modelling processes with the BPMN notation) and preparing and conducting training for the WUT academic community.

Who are the members of the Team for Process Management?

The team consists of 11 experts who are WUT employees representing different competencies concerning the process management implementation. They include people at the Faculty of Management at WUT:  Dr Marta Kruk, Dr Piotr Kryś, Agnieszka Kucharska, Sylwester Pięta, Dr Danuta Rojek and Dr Michał Wiśniewski. There are representatives of other WUT units in the team, as well such as Professor Włodzimierz Dąbrowski, who is Vice-Dean for Studies at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, and Dr Katarzyna Sala, who is head of Team for Quality Management Systems. The Centre for Innovation Management and Technology Transfer at WUT is represented by Dariusz and Centre for Information Technologies is represented by Michał Trzeciak. I am honoured to chair this team. To sum up, our team is diverse, with representatives of various units, which provides us with all indispensable competencies necessary to implement the set tasks.

How does the Team for Process Management work?

We have been working intensively on that since the beginning of 2021. The tasks determine the rhythm of our teamwork, which focuses on constructing a map of processes for WUT, in particular, mapping the selected processes. We provide substantive support to EDMS working teams dealing with process mapping in five areas: commercialization of research results, office e-instruction, public procurement management, project management, and education.  Each working team has an assigned moderator or moderators from the process management team concerning the preparation of the process sheet (process modelling and description, among others), which was designed by our team. As a process management team, we meet every Tuesday. We discuss current issues and tasks to perform and discuss any arising problems.  We act together, so if it’s necessary to support a specific working team, we take appropriate action. We try to engage all members of our team to achieve as best outcome as we can and to bring benefits to all WUT employees and units.

What is a process sheet?

A process sheet is a detailed description of the current process (the so-called AS-IS) at WUT. It consists of: particulars precisely describing the process data, process description as a model in a specific tool, verbal description, and table process. A key element at this stage is to indicate the links with other processes and areas for improvement in individual processes. The task of each EDMS team is to prepare a process sheet visualising the entire process with our moderators’ support. A ready document is fundamental in implementing electronic document management at WUT.

What does the cooperation between the Team for Process Management and EDMS working teams look in practice?

It is best to use specific examples of implemented work. A team headed by Agnieszka Gawrońska-Chrobak, dealing with the public procurement management process, was supported by Dariusz Parzych. After finishing work, they sent a completed process sheet to me for verification. I added suitable comments and made corrections to which the working team responded. At this moment, you should say the document is ready. Other EDMS teams are working parallelly.  In the Team for Project Management headed by Małgorzata Woźniak (supported by Dr Danuta Rojek, Dr Piotr Kryś, and Michał Trzeciak), recommendations for the prepared process sheet were implemented and corresponding work on the sheet was completed. Work is nearing completion in the team for commercialization of research results, whose head is Anna Rogowska (with Dr Marta Kruk and Agnieszka Kucharska as moderators). The team is headed by Helena Lechnio (moderator Dr Katarzyna Sala) and is responsible for describing office e-instruction, which is one of the most extensive processes. Nearly 60 sub-processes have been identified there. Most of them have been modelled, with two related to incoming and outcoming correspondence, which will be introduced first into the electronic document management system (EZD PUW). The team for education headed by Michał Kucki is working parallelly. The team is preparing a description of nearly 100 sub-processes. Dr Michał Wiśniewski is the team moderator. Additionally, teamwork was supported by Professor Włodzimierz Dąbrowski as an expert. Moderators meet with working teams regularly – once a week. Although in the case of more extensive processes, those are meetings lasting a few hours and taking place a few times per week. After completing the work, working teams present their results during the meeting of the Steering Committee for EDMS.