Importance of RPA Governance:
RPA is a journey and is evolving on daily basis. RPA technology has a wide-reaching impact potential and is therefore not limited to a certain function or team in any organization. In fact, even a single automated process will more than likely touch several parts of an organization. Adoption and implementation of RPA is a long-term initiative, so it is important to consider how automation and its governance fit in your organizational, digital, and IT roadmap and to prevent and mitigate mistakes.
RPA Governance Key Factors:
1. Identify and Choose appropriate projects for RPA. Ideal processes for RPA, particularly if you are just starting out, are high-volume, low complexity projects.
2. Pre-installation orientation. Before going live, it is essential to ensure bots are configured and tested thoroughly to make sure they will work in a live environment. Another important factor is to ensure you have included all the security aspects of the production environment. Robust testing is required to make sure the process is working within the different environments of the data center/cloud-hosted platform.
3. Onboard the robot-like you would a human employee. This is arguably another most important aspect of RPA governance. Assign bots a BOT ID, Asset Tag, name, and access to key applications such as portals, applications, mailboxes, etc.
4. Assign the robot a supervisor. Have a named person who supervises the bot to ensure accountability. Prepare for business continuity plans and define in case of outage how the functions will be performed, if there is another environment that can take over or if processes will be performed manually for the duration of the outage. A human who works with the robot makes sure the bot is switched on and identifies who is responsible for the exception reports and any necessary code updates, if necessary.
5. Have a procedure for code changes and version control. Robots will need code updates when there are changes to portals, email addresses, or other system changes. To ensure these are done properly, have a standard operating procedure for changes as well as process version control.
6. Have a Standard Operating Procedure. Best practice for robotics processes is not to let them go live without a process review, the Standard Operating Procedure to be completed and compliant with your policy
7. Reporting and Performance Metrics. Reporting and metrics will help you identify if there is a problem with the robot before it turns into a bigger problem. Continual monitoring, alert notification, and auto/manual remediation plans must be defined and ownership assigned. Availability, reliability, and performance metrics are some of the key ones to be taken into consideration
Because of the wide-reaching implications for RPA, organizations that set up a sound governance structure will be better positioned to reap the benefits of automation. Assemble your team of RPA “champions” from the “get-go” to ensure a smoother path for your RPA strategy.
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