Process
improvement
How
much of what your organisation does is driven by the customer… (really!)?
Not just a ‘focus’ on the customer, but really driven by their
known and as yet, unknown needs? How many people in your organisation
know how they fit into your customer-driven processes?
Processes
dictate the way the component parts of an organisation work together and,
therefore, the ease or difficulty with which people do their daily jobs.
Processes have a direct causal impact on a company’s effectiveness,
often negative, but difficulties with processes can be addressed relatively
straightforwardly using some simple analysis tools and, crucially, common
sense. The key ingredient to successful process improvement – surprisingly,
often overlooked – is to involve the people who know what they’re
talking about, i.e. all the people who actually work together along the
process.
In
improving processes (or designing new ones to meet new customer needs),
you’ll be surprised how much progress you can make by mixing together
the following ingredients:
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The
people who actually do the job, and understand what’s broken
and what’s not
|
|
The
customer (Yes, radical isn’t it? How often is the voice of
the customer used in this type of exercise!?)
|
|
A
structured workshop (or series of workshops, or a working session,
a meeting, a get-together, call them what you like – whatever
suits your organisation’s style)
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| Simple flowcharting tools |
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Problem
solving techniques
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A
risk-free and open environment, to engender creativity and to
allow yourselves to be brave enough to challenge how you do things
now. If you were to build your organisation from scratch today,
how much of what you’ve currently got, would you keep?
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The
result: probably a better way of doing things, created by
the people who will go on to work with the improved processes,
and the people at the end of it… the customer.
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Of course, there is a time and place for deep process improvement interventions, such as six-sigma, but often the key to process improvement is simplicity, freeing up the right people to work on it, and giving them room to roam creatively. And always, always, understand how the customer fits into the equation.
