Assess an improvement for approval

Once accepted and set to assess, Approver group members evaluate the improvement for approval before implementation can begin.

Before you begin

Role required: None (must be a member of the Approver group)

About this task

Figure 1. Continual Improvement Management - Assess Process Flow

Note:

Only one Approver group member needs to approve the improvement before moving to the next state. To require additional approvers, configure the CIM Approval workflow in Flow Designer.

The default expiration period for approval requests is seven business days. Pending approval requests are automatically canceled after seven days but can be resubmitted for approval.

Preconditions:

• Incident manager created an improvement request.
• Improvement Manager accepted and assigned the improvement request.

By default, an improvement requires approval before it can progress to the Implement state. You can disable the approval requirement using the sn_cim.need_approval property. When disabled, the Approver group field and the Approvers related list on the Improvement Initiative form are not shown.

Procedure

1. Navigate to All > Self Service > My Approvals.
2. On the Approval form, scroll down to the Summary of Item being approved section and assess the details of the improvement, including alignment with strategic objectives (strategies), business service, business process, priority, effort estimate, benefits, and why this improvement is important.
3. Click Approve in the header bar to approve the improvement.
   The improvement is ready for implementation by the Improvement Manager and Improvement Coordinator.

   A default CIM phase (CIMT number) is automatically created.

Approve an improvement

In the process of reviewing KPI performance in the Performance Analytics application, the incident manager noticed the Average time to resolve an incident KPI scorecard was too high (24 hours).

As part of the approval process, an Approver group member assessed the details of the improvement and approved it to begin implementation.

Table 1. Approval form

Field	Value
Approver	Howard Johnson
State	Approved
Approving	CIM0000135
Comments	--

Related reference

• Improvement field descriptions