We run into this question many times when working with Enterprise clients on TM strategies. When asking process related questions during discovery interviews, inevitably the answers come with varying levels of understanding, confidence, and clarity on the state of talent management processes utilized within the organization. To remedy this issue, Knowledge Infusion recommends a three step method to define and transform talent management processes in the organization.
Business Process Transformation is the first step and takes a high level look at your talent management processes and offers the opportunity to rethink, blend, and challenge the way you are doing things today. It is a systematic way of putting down on paper the high-level tasks that a process must accomplish and blending together steps to ensure they meet defined business outcomes. A cross-functional team is typically assembled to do this work to ensure that the traditional HR functional silo mentality of process ownership doesn't influence end-to-end transformation. This work inevitably feeds the software/vendor selection process.
Business Process Design is the next step in the chain. This is usually performed after the software has been selected and the organization has knowledge of what the software can actually do. During this step, processes are refined to a more granular level of detail adding in the enabling technology that will support and drive the process in the organization. Roles and responsibilities, workflow, and other factors are also defined during this step.
Business Process Calibration is the final step in the chain and is performed during the software implementation process. During this step, processes that were refined in the design phase are calibrated to the exact capability of the software. There is usually some element of give and take to ensure the software can accommodate the process. As a result of calibration activities, the transformed TM processes are clearly defined, enabled by technology, and ready for roll out to the organization.
Sometimes, it helps to get really basic: how do you define "process"? Wikipedia defines process as "a naturally occurring or designed sequence of changes of properties or attributes of an object or system. More precisely, and from the most general systemic perspective, every process is representable as a particular trajectory (or part thereof) in a system's phase space."
So, in the Talent Management space, process refers a sequence or multiple sequences of actions, changes or attributes of an organization's talent - past, present and future. The great news is that almost all organizations have some kind of talent management process(es) or other. What's interesting is that often, those processes are not explicitly known or defined at an organizational level. Often, they evolve from an individual just doing something a certain way. So, before we can get to business process transformation, design and/or calibration, we need to simply identify the processes to begin with.