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This article is about the origin, use, and evolution of a model that Geary A. Rummler and his colleagues used for 25 years to explain the place of process in organizational performance improvement. The tool was used to scope improvement projects, identify where changes should be made to improve performance, and craft an appropriate implementation strategy and plan. The tool became a key device for helping people understand what they were designing when they took on performance improvement projects.

In the second part of our article, we examine the potential pitfalls in the process-managed organization (PMO) and describe the "type of journey that will lead to success." Most setbacks for a PMO are results of discrepancies found in the underlying foundation; typically the process identification is most likely to be the cause. Processes in organizations do not manage themselves-a cross silo organizational system is required to operate the organization for optimal efficiency.