Process management is a highly effective method used in business to promote efficiency and effectiveness. Process management is a systems thinking approach to leadership that calls for an improvement program that is planned, coordinated, and evaluated through the synergistic efforts of management and labor. Process design begins with the leader's commitment to improving existing conditions.

The design of the improvement process is a comprehensive, step-by-step plan, which specifically states goals and objectives and clearly delineates roles and responsibilities, to improve existing conditions. Both shared responsibility and authority are essential to program success because the magnitude of the proposed change demands more than unilateral control and progress monitoring. Formative evaluation methods are used in the coordination phase to adjust for inadequacies in the process design. Evaluation, the fourth phase of the process design model, provides ongoing assessment to ensure quality outcomes.

Summative evaluation methods provide an overall assessment of the results of program implementation, whereas formative evaluation methods are continuously applied to the adjustments made from summative results. The infusion of formative evaluation methods eliminates the traditional practice of after-the-fact assessment, which evaluates artifacts that may or may not fulfill the original objective. Process management also replaces "volume thinking," the idea that more is better, regardless of what it is, and "randomized prescription," that anything labeled as innovative and somewhat successful must produce positive results.