How to know the process needs fixing?

• How to recognize a bad process?
• How to know your process needs fixing?
• What are symptoms of a bad process?

You may not be an expert in process improvement, but anyone can feel the pain of a bad process. By bad process, I am referring to the current way of working. Not how it looks on paper, but how it is performed at this moment.?

In order to address process issues, we need to face the facts and hear the truths about how it is perceived. To enter a constructive frame towards process issues, for this new year, I wish for many opportunities to improve processes.

Defects and complaints reveals valuable information for us to learn how product or service could be made even better. The main shift is in our perception of process problems. From now onwards, we're losing interest in blaming people (as it destroys enthusiasm much needed to improve). Instead we, as a team, join our creative forces together and enjoy the process of constructive problem solving. We are all beneficiaries of an improved process and relationships improve fantastically once we collaborate on improvements.?

Why do teamwork and atmosphere improve?

We are now aware of our common goal, to deal with the issue at hand. And we do so from a constructive and non-judgmental mindset. If you want to instil a continuous improvement culture in your team, use each process issue an opportunity to work closer together, to ask open questions to the team about their insights and ideas. It is no longer you, the sole responsible manager, that have to carry the burden. Allow for some trust in the team, listen and focus on the facilitation of the process of problem solving. Lean Six Sigma provides a series of process improvement best practices. By learning the principles and roadmap of Lean and Six Sigma, you and prevent falling into bias and stay focused on the goal.

Which is the goal?

The goal can be to;

1. Make the process more intuitive and easy to perform (Simplify).
2. Make the process more robust and precise (Less defects, more stable).
3. Increase the Customer Satisfaction (See Kano Model and CTQ-Tree).
4. Reduce costs (Eliminate Wastes of Lean and Defects with Poka Yokes).
5. Increase capacity to do more (By Improving Flow and Eliminating Wastes).

The running joke is how we go: "I don’t have time for process improvement" by which we delay the process of increasing our capacity (free up available time and energy).

I imagine this is due to lack of knowledge about Lean or how to approach process improvement in an easy and practical manner.

What are Signs of a Bad Process?

Here are a few signs I think indicates the need for process improvement;

• If your staff is frustrated with the process, stop and analyse the root cause.
• If your customer complains about it, quantify the problem and prioritise the solution.
• If there are long waiting periods or delays, map, measure and improve Flow.
• If process outputs are varied and unpredictable, standardise and control the process.
• If staff is not adhering to procedures despite receiving training, simplify it.
• If process changes makes life more difficult, deploy a working fact-based methodology. If it now (after change) takes longer to do the job or staff finds it more complicated, it is Not an improvement. Instead, share the expectation for management to walk the process before approving important changes in policy, to better understand impact.

This is when you get to stop & fix the process.

“All we are doing is looking at the timeline from the moment a customer gives us an order to the point we collect the cash. And we are reducing that timeline in the value stream by removing non value-added wastes.”–?Taiichi Ohno

I am at your disposal to offer assistance. Feel free to inform me if you believe I can contribute. I would be delighted to conduct a workshop for your team, guiding them on the journey to establish a Culture of Continuous Improvement and instill the practice of daily process improvement. My expertise includes delivering training, coaching, and facilitating process improvement initiatives.