Business Process Improvement

If you are part of an organization, you must follow dozens of processes on a daily basis.  You take the same steps to generate a report, deal with a complaint, place a service request, take care of an incident, etc.

I am sure that there have been times that you have come across an inefficient process by running into a wrong report, unhappy clients, stressed out colleagues, increased costs, missed deadlines, and these are only few of the problems that a dysfunctional process can bring about.

That's exactly why it's so vital to improve processes when they are not working optimally. A process can be formal or informal. A formal process is also known as a procedure and is documented with detailed steps.  These kinds of processes are predominantly important when there are safety-related, legal or financial reasons for following specific steps.

Informal processes are a lot likely to be the ones you have created, or have been verbally handed down, and it may not have been written down.  Both processes have one thing in common: they're designed to structure the way that you and your team work.  When they are followed properly, there are fewer delays and errors, there is less duplication of efforts and there are more happy clients and stakeholders.

One method that has worked throughout my years of experience is the incremental process change that is aimed to improve what is already in place. Here are the steps that are taken through this method:

1.     Take a look at where you are in a process and where you like to be.  What is it that needs to improve before you get there?  Document, diagram, use any tools available to see the process visually. Explore each step and phase you are mapping in detail and specify the sub-levels and steps that need to be taken.  Consult the people in the organization that use the process regularly, to avoid overlooking anything important.

2.     Analyze your document and diagrams to investigate the problems within the process.  Things like: where are the bottlenecks? What made the costs go up? Which processes are least efficient? Where do clients or employees are most frustrated? Etc… Do a Root Cause Analysis, Cause and Effect Analysis or the 5 whys to find the origins of the issue.  Talk to those who are affected by this.  What do they think is wrong? How would they improve it? This will all give you the entire informational arsenal you need to tackle the issue in a more informed and efficient way.

3.     Now it would become the time to redesign the process and get rid of the problems that you have identified. It is always best to include those who are directly involved or affected with the process.  They would be more likely to buy into new processes if they are in this with you from the early stages. Of course you need to make sure that to begin with, they understand the process and what it meant to do.  Brainstorm, and narrow down the list of your possible solutions. Make sure not to forget impact and risk analysis of the new process you are thinking of implementing, so to understand the full consequence of the proposed idea. Update your process diagrams as things change.

4.     Secure the resources you need to proceed with the implementation of the new process.

5.     It is more than likely that by improving the process, you will be applying some changes to the existing systems.  In this you may need some new-hires or new software, etc.  The rollout of the process improvement, dependent on its size could prove to be a project on its own.   

6.     After the rollout, a close monitoring of the whole thing is needed in the upcoming weeks and probably months to make sure that everything is as per expectation. This also allows for the on-the-fly tweaks that need to happen. Make sure to ask everyone involved their opinion of how this is working.

Best of luck in your endeavours.