Avoid shared responsibilities for tasks by people from different functional units
Reijers, H., & Liman Mansar, S. (2005). Best practices in business process redesign: an overview and qualitative evaluation of successful redesign heuristics. Omega, 33(4)
The idea behind this redesign pattern is that tasks for which different departments share responsibility are more likely to be a source of neglect and conflict.
Reducing the overlap in responsibilities should lead to a better quality of task execution. A higher responsiveness to available work items may be developed also, so that clients are served quicker. On the other hand, reducing the effective number of resources that is available for a work item may have a negative effect on its throughput time, as more queuing may occur.
Foundational free Patterns
Combine small activities into composite activities
Assign a responsible individual for handling each case type
Form cross-department teams for end-to-end case handling.
If capacity is insufficient, consider increasing the available number of resources
Offer a green alternative with the same outcome, utilizing different steps, resources, or partners, while retaining the previous existing process
Let products appear greener
First-contact problem resolution
Establish a one-contact resolution for customer issues
Preference-based task assignment
Let people do what they love to do
Reassign tasks along the organisational hierarchy