Business Processes Can Pit Creation Versus Evolution

“It’s not the tool, it’s how you use it that matters.” This and other cliches describe how technology and methodology can be used on a limited basis, abused or used to your distinct advantage in a competitive environment. BPM suites, by themselves, are not an advantage until they are deployed in service to company goals and objectives in a strategic, evolutionary fashion. 

Avoiding Stasis

Lately, I’ve been sensitive to the terms “project” and “process”. It’s ironic, really. I mentioned in an earlier post that “project” mentality can be a bit dangerous in that project management fundamentals always imply an end (closure). As people see that the end date exists, it’s easier for them to detach from the project (emotionally and intellectually) and remain as passive witnesses rather than active laborers and inventors. This is especially true in organizations that have a bad track-record with projects and implementations. Too many people await “the end”.

I also find that there is a mentality among people that percieves the “creation” of a process as a one-time event. The process becomes a noun and an object to be “treated” and refined like a patient in surgery. People see the current process as an object and the new process as simply a new and different object. It’s as though a process gets created then exists as long as possible until it expires. They’ve turned a verb (process) into a noun (process).

Making Process a Verb

I want to promote process improvement in the context of continuous process improvement. Process management, analysis and improvement are never-ending approaches to running an organization. BPM is not an initiative nor a project nor a workshop to attend. It is an evolutionary mind-set and encoded behavioral model (equipped with tools) that maintains constant variability, testing, and selection will always lead to survival and success.

What to do?

Perhaps you have some ideas and suggestions? The very best example of this evolutionary model I can think of is 3M’s. If you haven’t studied how they do business and are the least bit interested in continuous improvement and invention, go find out. My tendency these days is to want to re-write and re-name project management principles so they don’t imply and produce so much stasis and creationsim in BPM. At the very least, I want to encourage everyone to manage continuous process improvement in the broader context of product and market development, customer satisfaction and loyalty as well as continuous QI. 

Process management and improvement are not software and methods you employ from time to time. They are the operating system that is on and running 24/7/365.  How have you found success in this regard?

Build Business Process To Last Or Not?

Reading Jim Collins’ Built to Last reminds the reader that great companies (and non-profit organizations) are built around a core of immutable ideology. Yet he is clear in telling us that the same great companies were able to (if not internally-motivated to) constantly improve their processes and procedures. In the name of market development, customer service and innovation, change is embraced by the greatest companies. I love it and couldn’t agree more. However, in the move toward automating basic services such as those found in service and manufacturing sectors, are we losing the capacity for “on-the-fly” process innovation and improvement?

“The System Won’t Let Me”

Have you called a customer service center like that of Bank of America or been to a store like JC Penny and asked someone a simple question or asked them to perform a basic task only to hear: “The system won’t let me?” As a customer, how do you feel? Imagine working somewhere where you have to say things like: “I know that’s a great idea but I can’t do it. The system won’t let me.” My fear is that workflow and business process analysis gives us the tools and methods to improve quality, speed and service yet too much emphasis on automation will force more hard-coding of processes that can fall out of favor very quickly. Keep the method and stay flexible on the application side. If your IT bench isn’t very deep and modifications take too long, your beloved workflow and process-turned-user-interface may come back to haunt you later.

Don’t Automate It All

Leave room in your process, training and performance appraisal systems for employee ingenuity, grace, imagination and stellar service. Collins reminds us of the Nordstrom fanatical service standards. Employees are rewarded for delivering purchases to customers’ hotel rooms! He reminds us how it is that Mariott originally evolved from 9 small restaurants to a global food distributor and hotel chain by first packing lunch boxes for the passengers of a local airline despite the fact that it wasn’t in their strategic plan. If we remain too rigid in our standards and too dedicated to our plans (a la Project Management), we lose the opportunity to act in positive and rewarding ways when the moment calls for it. Evolution consists of golden moments when variation from the norm produces very good results!

Seize The Moment – Keep The Core, Change The Process

It may sound like a radical departure from standards and requirements, rules and workflow, however inspiring your brilliant people to make recommendations and pursue the greatest outcome when the need arises is absolutely critical to your success. Fundamentalism in business leaves no room for creativity and problem-solving.

How can you pursue both process standardization (inherent in automation) and innovation? How can it be done in a smaller organization that lacks IT and programming depth if you hard-code all the work you do? What is your expectation for process improvement cycle-time in workflow and systems? Is that the same as allowing over-rides and exceptions to the rules? Can your people get away with saying: “Despite the system, I CAN do that?”

Tell me, how do you maintain that kind of balance and become great?

3 Simple Aims of Process Improvement: Simplify, Accelerate and Reduce Re-Work

Process improvement is a spacious topic, isn’t it? Our lexicons, bookmarks and book shelves are crammed full of approaches, methodology, terms and new software applications. The rate of innovation in our field is exhausting and the field itself is growing more holistic and cross-functional all the time. Yet, for all the new software, merging of IT and operations and clever methodologies, the essence of process improvement remains elegantly simple and highly effective. Continuously seek to simplify, accelerate and reduce re-work. If you can focus on those 3 simple objectives, I promise you will positively impact your costs, customer satisfaction ratings and value proposition.

Can’t See the Forest Through The Weeds

When you bog down in the weeds – particularly as a small organization – in the interest of developing your own expertise and resume, you run the (high) risk of running your ship against the shore. You’ll become so embroiled in project management and completing dizzying spreadsheets that you won’t be able to show enough progress and momentum to justify your initiative in the minds of leaders. I have seen projects suffer from a form of analysis “vegetation”….much worse than paralysis. Brain waves have simply stopped waving.

Blue Baskets

I try to remember the story of the Toyota employee who wondered why he had to run back and forth between the assembly line and the supply (parts) depot all day long. He went to Wal-Mart after his shift and bough himself a blue plastic laundry basket. The following day, he filled it with all the parts required at his station and swiftly did his job without having to run back and forth for each part. By methodically plucking parts from his basket, he was better able to focus on what he was doing and had fewer quality concerns (less re-work). 

That may be an over-simplified example but it’s a real model for effective change that can be produced by allowing people to SIMPLY improve what they are doing. He met all 3 important criteria: simple, faster, higher quality. If you multiplied that simple change by 500,000 cars per year, you’d discover an opportunity to lower prices, please more customers and promote a greater value proposition.

Improve Process Improvement Processes

If you haven’t already, take a look at how your process improvement process unfolds. Chances are, you can improve that first before you attempt to “fix” others. Doctor, heal thyself.