Role

Intro

A role is the part played by a person or thing in a situation; when undertaken by a person, they are often called an actor. In EA and BPM, roles define responsibilities in processes and systems.

Key points:

• Clarifies accountability and handoffs.
• Supports access, approvals, and segregation of duties.
• Common use cases across EA/BPM/Data/App/Tech include swim-lane modeling, RACI, and authorization schemes.
• Pitfall: assigning roles without clear responsibilities or authority.

Examples:

• Approver, Requester, and Reviewer roles in workflows.
• System role for automated tasks in a process.
• Data steward role for quality and governance.

In practice:

Define roles with responsibilities, decision rights, and required competencies; map to processes and access controls.

Related terms: Actor; Lane; Governance

FAQs:

Q: Can a role be played by a system?
A: Yes; roles can be human or system responsibilities.

Q: How many roles should a process have?
A: Only those needed to clarify accountability and flow.

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