If you're involved with process improvement projects and are finding a lot of problems coming your way as you try to deliver your projects don't worry, this is part and parcel of improvement projects.  The is a great Chinese proverb that comes to mind when we look at this and it's “you can't polish a gem without friction”. You will encounter problems, you will encounter issues and you will encounter things don't quite work right the first time. If you approach your business process improvement projects in a step-by-step way, then you will find that your projects will proceed and will get to their intended destination. You will realise the benefits and you will complete your projects. As long as you continue to be logical, sequential, and consistent you will find your business improvement activities will pay off. The ‘plan do check act’ process is wonderful in this instance because things do not always go ahead as planned. If you find you're strugglin...

Something that I've noticed when businesses are getting involved with process mapping is that they can spend an awfully long time mapping and not reaping many rewards. The insights you can gain from mapping the low level detail of a business can be incredibly useful, but the amount of effort and time required to map everything at this level can often be a waste of resources. A different approach that can be taken is to conduct a brief top level map of the business first and then use this to highlight areas of concern. In many cases problems with a business process reside at the top level and are the result of the way the business processes link together rather than how the individual steps work. Once the top level issues have been identified the process steps that are causing problems can be mapped in more detail. The areas that do not currently cause any significant distractions (unit costs aren't too high, quality is fine etc...) can be left alone until a time wh...