Successful Business Process Improvement

The quest for improvement takes many forms in today’s businesses both small and large. The grand daddy of these methods is Plan, Do, Check, Act formulated by Dr. Shewart, a USC professor about 1903. Subsequently, Dr. Demming perfected the quality movement in manufacturing about 1926, and many methods have been formulated since by the likes of quality guru’s such as Philip Crosby. During the 1980's the process improvement movement took on a new life when the U.S. government went all in. The movement for business process improvement continues today in many different forms.

I think our takeaway from these trail blazers is that a process or method can facilitate the improvement. Along my own journey I visited Motorola manufacturing in 1992 located in Seguin, Texas where they re-engineered secure phones through reverse engineering. Eventually they became one of the only companies I know of that achieved 6-Sigma (3 errors/million efforts) in manufacturing. As of today, most companies have adopted processes and methods to improve most facets of business.

When considering a process improvement, risk analysis should be undertaken to understand the level of effort, cost benefit analysis, and time required. I don’t know who to credit, but the 7R’s are a good place to start for proper impact assessment:

• Who RAISED the change?
• What is the REASON for the change?
• What is the RETURN required from the change?
• What are the RISKS involved in the change?
• What RESOURCES are required to deliver the change?
• Who is RESPONSIBLE for the build, test and implementation of the change?
• What is the RELATIONSHIP between this change and other changes?

Business process improvement runs the gamut and typically is accompanied by organizational change and change management. Each with their unique forms and characteristics, these segments of business organizations may include: Structural Change, Technological Change, Process Change, Cultural Change, Strategic Change, and Mergers and Acquisitions. ?

As a process improvement driver it helps to employ a strategy to facilitate the change that will accompany the desired outcome. I will suggest here, Dave’s 3 simple approaches to help you improve your business:

“The Cliff” proposes that the change strategy employs a lightning blitz to unveil and implement.

The Cliff is commonly characterized by leaders as “it is my way or the highway”. This strategy gets to the desired outcome the quickest and yet it can be the hardest for some employees.

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“The Long Pole in the Tent” proposes that people’s ability to change is multifaceted and requires time and great care to implement.

The Long pole is characterized by basic human behavior like resistance to change. Time and effort can effectively make about half of employees champions in this strategy.

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“The Blended Strategy” combines the Cliff and the Long Pole to find middle ground for a quicker completion but smaller gradient to implement.

The Blended Strategy is usually a compromise due to time or money constraints, and cares less about how many champions are made but how to limit saboteurs in order to get to the outcome.

I’m reminded of an organizational change I was asked to develop for a Fortune 1000 company, efficiency being the underlying driver for improvement. Over a month’s time I developed the 7Rs and presented it to the President in a business case format - the EVP and CFO also attended the presentation. Towards the end of the presentation, I offered Dave’s 3 strategies for implementation and after discussion, I was directed to implement the Blended Strategy. Over 6 months’ time I reorganized, trained, rewrote job descriptions, and other tasks necessary to redefine operations. Unfortunately, a byproduct of true improvement is the re-purposing of employees or a lay off of real human beings - definitely a negative impact. In the end we saved money, were able to reduce head count, made everyone more accountable, made improvements in customer service, and quality improvements.

The takeaway for you here is that whether you are involved in the design and implementation of process improvement or you are impacted by it, it is best to adopt a healthy appetite for acceptance so that it doesn’t negatively impact you mentally.

I'll follow up this article with more on the change curve and change strategies, but until then should you seek further insight or want to contribute feed back feel free to contact Dave Howell, 210-618-6566 [email protected] .