Is Your Process Working As It Should?

How much time do you save by not having a proper look at your business processes and instead assuming that they are working as designed?

This is a bit of trick question, of course. It depends on how much time you have spent on developing your processes in the first place and the level of control / management you already have in place.

The stimulus for this blog post was me stumbling in to another upside down process that was deemed to be fine (I'm not really complaining, as this is what I get paid to sort out). My surprise was how far apart the two positions were:

Position 1 - perception - the process works but could be improved.

Position 2 - reality - there is no control and no one really knows how the process is meant to work.

The existence (duration) of the gap, to my knowledge, is about ten months.

The time to find out the size of the gap, approximately 30 minutes.

After the review an action plan was put in place and the process was under control in just a few days.

So, what is the lesson here?

If you have even an inkling that a process could be improved it is worth taking a few minutes out of your busy schedule to go an have a look. Smell the air. Touch the process. Speak to the people 'stuck' with it. See if it makes sense. Check if it looks right.

The time saved in the longer term is worth the hassle in the short term to make the effort to go and see what is really going on.

Giles Johnston
Author of Business Process Re-Engineering

Available for iPad.

Comments

The Kaizen Checklist is here!

Do you want to get better results from your Kaizen programme? Improve your business results quickly with my downloadable kit (including guidebook, workbook and templates) for only $39. Are you looking for a sustainable way to identify and implement improvements across your business? Practical improvement strategies The Kaizen Checklist is a downloadable kit that you can use with your management team to develop a system that suits your business and allow you to quickly implement Kaizen effectively at your place of work. This works great if you use it as the centre piece of your own internal workshop. The kit includes a 40 page guidebook, a workbook, four appendices and three templates. All parts of this kit are designed to get you up and running as fast as possible. If you are unfamiliar with Kaizen, let me stress that this is a simple improvement philosophy that is so much more than just ‘a Japanese word for continuous improvement’. I’ll cover what it...

How to get started with continuous improvement

We all know that continuous improvement is a strategy that is essential for business. It involves constantly seeking ways to improve processes, products, or services in order to achieve better results and outcomes. However, for many people, the thought of starting on the path of continuous improvement can be daunting. The fear of doing it incorrectly or not knowing where to start can be overwhelming. The key to successful continuous improvement is to start small and gradually build upon your successes. Here are some tips to help you get started if you are unsure of how to begin: 1. Identify areas for improvement: The first step in continuous improvement is to identify the areas that need improvement. This can be done by looking at the processes, products, or services that are not performing as well as they could be. It is important to involve all stakeholders in this process to gain a comprehensive understanding of the areas that need attention. 2. Set specifi...

Nail the number one improvement project

Over the past few weeks I have intervened in my client's continuous improvement programmes . I did this for one good reason: They weren't getting results. They caught the improvement bug, like so many organisations do. They got caught in the trap of wanting to change everything now! As I said, this happens to most of us from time to time. You start with some small improvements and you then identify more improvements you could get your teeth into. The next thing you know, you are trying to run ten improvement projects as well as deliver your day job. I know from bitter experience that this usually leads to having lots of loose ends rather than tangible increases in performance. So, what can you do about this? I know that with careful experimenting and resource management, you could find your sweet spot and figure out how many projects you can handle at once. Or, you can take the quick route and pare back your list until you have one priority. The one project that will give you t...

The Smartspeed Performance Improvement Blog