Consistency → Efficiency → Scalability

This may be a no-brainer for some, so feel free to pass this by if your response to the title is "duh." For me, it took a little while to realize the necessity of serializing these pursuits.

If you're still with me, take comfort in knowing that I'll keep this "snack-sized" as with previous posts. I've been fortunate to spend the majority of my career working for firms in "growth mode." A pervasively evasive pursuit of mine has been enabling scalability. Taking something that works well for a 500-employee company and applying it to a 5,000-employee company (or even growing with the company) is an exceedingly daunting endeavor.

Consistency (not conformity)

If you have a process that works, but struggles to scale, I encourage you to try charting a roadmap focused on first identifying inconsistencies (i.e. exceptions) and driving them out. If your process mapping sessions are filled with "except," "unless," "but," etc. manage and map out what you can initially, but don't let the volume of potential exceptions stop you from operationalizing an effective process.

The goal initially is to identify where you may have some improvement opportunities. Inject some [virtual] andon cords at these points, incentivize your process participants to recommend and test improvements, and continuously drive towards as much consistency as possible. Once you have improved your consistency, let's talk about efficiency.

Efficiency (not just robots)

Improving the efficiency of a process isn't just about replacing manual efforts with automation. You should first seek to remove waste and waits. I gave an example of reducing waits in a previous article. Trying to introduce automation into an inefficient process will be costly and likely unsuccessful.

A good way to understand the efficiency of a process and identify improvement opportunities is to simply map it out. Document the who, what, and how involved, assigning time and cost estimates to every step (including exceptions). This gives you a framework to understand where you can maximize the value of your improvement efforts.

Scalability (not easy)

So you've improved your consistency, found some new efficiencies, and are ready to scale the process. Easy, right? Growth will present new challenges.

You'll definitely have an easier time of it now that you've cut out some waste, but this isn't a "one and done" type progression. You'll need to continuously revisit the stops in the journey to truly scale and maximize value.