Why Every Power Apps Solution Needs a Process Owner

When we build solutions with Power Apps, it’s easy to get swept up in the fun and complexity of it all. The buzz around connectors, pipelines, Dataverse, solution layering, licensing models, offline capabilities, security roles. It’s a lot. And it’s exciting.

But in the middle of all that, there’s something critical that often gets missed. Something that has nothing to do with components or deployment pipelines.

The process owner.

I’m convinced this is the most underestimated role in any Power Platform implementation. Without one, you risk building beautiful apps that nobody uses, or solutions that only fix surface-level problems while leaving the core process untouched.

What Is a Process Owner?

A process owner is the person who is accountable for the performance of the business process you’re digitizing. That might be the inventory request process, the time reporting process, or customer onboarding. Whatever it is, the process owner is the one who understands it better than anyone else.

They know where the process breaks down. They know where rules are inconsistently applied. They know which steps users routinely skip and why. They are not just a stakeholder. They are the person who owns the outcome.

In short, they are the one who can answer the big question: “What does success actually look like?”

What Happens Without One?

Let’s get specific. Here are a few patterns I’ve seen in Power Apps projects where no clear process owner was identified:

• Workshops filled with five different voices and no one willing to make a decision
• Scope creep because no one is empowered to say no
• User testing that turns into opinion battles instead of validation
• An app that goes live but is barely adopted because the frontline users never felt it was theirs
• Or worst of all, a solution that gets used but reinforces a broken or outdated process

In many of these situations, the development team ends up becoming the default owner. But we are not the ones running the business. We can guide, structure, and build, but we should not define how your warehouse transfer process works or which status transitions are allowed in your case management flow.

The Process Owner Is Your Anchor

Power Platform gives us the power to move fast. But if we don’t tie that speed to something solid, we just move fast in the wrong direction.

A process owner brings stability and direction. They make sure that the solution reflects how the business actually works or how it should work.

They help the team understand edge cases, clarify the difference between must-have and nice-to-have, and ground the conversation in real business needs. They are also the ones who will challenge assumptions. For example:

• This field should be mandatory, otherwise we can’t invoice the customer
• That report is never used, we just generate it because the old system did
• These five steps could actually be automated

Traits of a Strong Process Owner

Not every process owner is ready on day one. But the strongest ones I’ve worked with share a few key traits:

• They are close to the process. Not too high-level. They understand the day-to-day reality of the users
• They care about the outcome and are invested in seeing the process work better
• They are willing to make decisions and stand by them
• They collaborate well across departments and roles
• They take responsibility beyond go-live. They help drive adoption and improvements after rollout

Who Should Be the Process Owner?

This depends on the process. In many cases, it’s a team lead, a service manager, or a senior operations coordinator. Sometimes it’s someone in finance or HR who owns the compliance and reporting side. In more complex or cross-functional processes, there might be two owners. That is fine as long as both are aligned and available.

If you ask around and no one can answer who owns the process, that’s already a red flag. Highlight it early and push for a clear answer. If there is no accountability, the solution will reflect that.

Power Apps Solutions Without a Process Owner: A Cautionary Tale

Let me share a real example, anonymized, of course.

I were asked to build a tool for a manufacturing team. They had outgrown email and sharepoint lists. During workshops, I heard a lot of “we think it should work like this” and “that depends on the case.” Nobody could fully explain how priority was assigned, how escalations were tracked, or how resolution deadlines were managed.

We kept pushing for a single point of ownership. In the end, there wasn’t one. Leadership wanted a solution but didn’t assign responsibility. We built a functional app. It ticked every box on the requirement list.

Two months later, it was barely used.

The old process, broken as it was, lived on in parallell in email and sharepoint. There was no one owning the new process. No one making sure people used it. No one updating documentation or answering how-to questions. It became a digital shell.

What to Do If You Don’t Have One

This happens. Sometimes there is no obvious owner. Maybe the process crosses several departments. Maybe the previous system was an Excel sheet managed by whoever had time. In that case:

1. Surface the risk clearly. Don’t let it sit in silence. Make it a blocker.
2. Ask for a business owner. Someone has to be responsible for making the process work. Push leadership to name them.
3. Avoid stepping into the role yourself. It’s tempting, especially if you understand the process well. But you are not the one accountable when things change.
4. Find a temporary business champion. If ownership is not formal yet, at least involve someone who knows the process well and can provide real input.

Final Thoughts

Power Apps makes it easier than ever to build fast, iterate often, and empower teams to shape their own tools. But that flexibility can also be dangerous if it’s not rooted in strong process ownership.

Without a process owner, you’re building with guesses and groupthink. You’re missing the person who ensures the solution solves the right problem, in the right way, for the right people.

Every successful Power Platform solution I’ve seen has one thing in common: a clear owner of the process it supports.

So before you design your next canvas app, model-driven experience, or Power Automate flow, ask yourself one simple question:

Who owns the process this solution is for?

If you can’t answer that, you are not ready to build.