ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Continual PROCESS IMPROVEMENT
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The following guidance can be effectively used to provide a focused, continuous improvement and innovative process that can impact the future of an organization. The goal is to quickly identify and eliminate unneeded processes, procedures and work activities. Additionally, the approach provides a process to focus on implementing new processes and actions that will create greater efficiencies and foster excellence everywhere. Organizations need to look at challenging the status quo as a way forward, the pursuit of fresh, innovative ideas, and a process to develop both the individual and collective organization agility. Challenging the status quo is a way to embrace change, and facilitate the endless search for new possibilities. Quoting Max DePree, author of the book The Art of Leadership “We cannot become what we want to be, by remaining what we are.” If organizations are to change, they must challenge the status quo.
The approach provided here is inclusive, in that it encourages all stakeholders in every position within the organization to take a critical look at, and identify anything that needs elimination or improvement. This will require responsive leadership, and the creative and innovative participation of each organizational member.
For greatest impact, quick on the spot meetings/brainstorming sessions, action plans, and swift execution/implementation, will be required to constantly eliminate inefficiencies and implement new and more efficient methods of conducting business. This highly focused improvement initiative requires frequent recommendations to responsive leaders, who in-turn must quickly make “business justifiable pass or reject decisions” to proposed changes. Items that require further collaborative study due to their complex nature, will need to be reviewed by add-hoc, cross-functional teams who can make responsible “up or down” decisions usually within days, but not more than a few weeks.
The “opportunity assumption” is that 80% of the work organizations collectively do is value-added. Due to old or no-longer relevant processes, procedures, rules and habits, or because of inattention to detail, lack of training, clarity or direction, 20% of what organizations do is open to elimination or improvement. Each organizational member knows best which improvements, specific to what they do on a daily basis, will yield the fastest and most significant productivity gains. This process challenges each individual to analyze, prioritize and optimize their time, experience, talents, skills and effort, so the organization can realize its full potential.
The “output” of this effort is to create a collective strong desire and mind-set by all stakeholders for challenging the status quo, through the implementation of continuous change and improvement in every activity of the organization. Also, the goal of a 20% reduction in “non-impact work” and “less than optimum performance” – within six months – places a measurable objective in the process. This 20% goal is definitely a “stretch goal” but one that is both attainable and required if an organization is to continue to profitably grow and become a leader in its sector. Change, true change, takes hard work by “all stakeholders.” Change also demands that every organizational member, no matter what his or her position, take ownership of the change process. Organizations become most successful when change is considered normal, and when not challenging the status quo is considered not normal.
The following four rules must be applied in a change initiative.
1. Safety must not be compromised.
2. Changes must make business sense.
3. Regulations cannot be circumvented.
4. Quality to the customer cannot suffer.
A high impact continuous change program presents an excellent opportunity for executives to appoint a high potential leader or leaders to orchestrate the innovation effort in their business segment. The action based learning, combined with the accomplishment of a stretch goal in which all individuals (a team effort) discover, develop and execute in an innovative environment, presents a specific and measurable leadership and team growth experience. In addition to this initiative being a learning and continuous improvement process, which encourages innovative thinking and action, it also provides each employee the opportunity to LEAD (Listen, Engage, Act, and Deliver) in the spirit and intent of a high performance organization. When looked at this way “continual process improvement” does not become a program, but rather it simply becomes “how the organization routinely does things.”
A streamlined four-step approach to use in meeting the objectives of a continual process improvement initiative is as follows:
1. Discover – The goal here is to brainstorm and identify areas for change and improvement. What provides the best business opportunity for improvement, savings and customer satisfaction?
2. Develop – This is the planning stage. It consists of the analysis of what needs to be stopped, started, continued, or improved, who needs to be consulted, what is the plan of attack?
3. Execute – This is the “action” step. Make the change and evaluate the impact! Could this innovative idea be used in other areas of the organization?
4. Measure – How did the change contribute to the 20% effort?
To keep a change initiative “action oriented” and a “non paperwork exercise,” the individual having business unit/product group/functional area leadership responsibility, should determine what metric they will use to demonstrate their area is working towards and reaching the 20% objective. As examples, the scoring of progress and results could be a paragraph or two explaining; actual budgetary cuts, reasons for not having to hire new headcount, the demonstration of beating scheduled release/completion/ship dates, a report showing a reduction of customer complaints or increase in customer satisfaction, which have a cost benefit, a re-alignment of talent to better optimize bottom-line results, etc. The objective is to keep the process simple, but demonstrate that solid innovative change initiatives are taking place through the involvement of all organizational members.
To help get your collective organizational as well as your individual creative juices flowing, consider the following list as simply a starting point, in your quest to quickly eliminate unneeded processes, procedures and work activities.
Within a team setting or as an individual brainstorm and ask yourself…can I reduce:
New hires
Bureaucracy
Material cost
Installation errors
Paperwork errors
Paperwork activity
Non-accountability
Telephone callbacks
Poor communications
Computer input errors
Scrap
Rework
Inventory
Downtime
Cycle time
Set-up time
Response time
Inspection time
Late shipments
Work in progress
Actual quality problem
Perceived quality problem
Travel
Meetings
Late reports
Late releases
Design issues
Supplier problems
Customer problem
Non-standard practices
Non-value added training
Non-aligned processes/procedures
Non-value added actions/procedures
In the pursuit of new ideas, consider the following when focusing on improving and implementing new processes and actions that will create greater efficiencies and foster excellence everywhere. Quoting Hammer & Champy from their book Reengineering The Corporation, “Process reengineering is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvement in the critical, contemporary measurements of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed.”
Most organizational operations are made up of a series of processes. Important processes include marketing, sales, order fulfillment, new product design and introduction, financial, information technology, customer support, human services, operations planning and production. The overall organizational business processes provide an excellent opportunity for creating greater efficiencies. In fact, the integration of agile workflow systems throughout the organization is important so that the organization’s business processes are clearly documented understood and optimize.
A good process requires more than simply documenting how something is accomplished. A good process takes into account how it impacts the overall operation of an end-to-end system and the organization at large and its customers (both internal and external). When improving or implementing new processes, consider the following questions.
1. How will this new approach add value and benefit the customer (internal/external) and the people using the process?
2. Does this new approach work “backward from the customer” so it does the best job of meeting the customer’s need?
3. Does this new approach simply automate or document a process that is ineffective in the first place or “does this approach truly do the right things better?”
4. What implementation issues will we want to avoid as we make the change?
5. Does the new approach “clearly align” with the business strategy and goals of the organization?
6. Does this new approach have the work or decision performed where and by whom it makes the most sense?
7. How will we measure the success of the new approach?
8. Is the new approach a “seamless” and “foolproof” solution?
9. Does the new approach fill a gap in the overall business/organizational strategy?
10. Does the new approach fit well with other areas or departments?
11. Does this new approach have accountability built into it?
An overriding thought, which can be useful when analyzing your business processes, is to keep in mind the statement “are we easy to do business with?” These words go a long way in supporting an organizational value of “customer-value focus” or “customer satisfaction.” Often, procedures and processes are installed for good reasons and with good intentions; however, sometimes although convenient for your department or area of responsibility, they cause problems for others. Always ensure the fix is well integrated, agile, and in concert with your organizations value statements and overall business strategy.
As you remove inefficiencies and improve and add new processes, you must also make a concerted effort to place the right people with the right skills in a position where they can exert the greatest impact. If a skill gap exists, training, retraining or hiring the skill to achieve continuous improvement must be accomplished. This approach will provide the organization the best opportunity to attain excellence everywhere. An organization is only as good as its talent.
Note: – Innovation through continual process improvement is not simply a science or an art. It is the passionate and continual entrepreneurial practice of seeking new answers to both old and new problems. It is also the creating of an organizational culture that seeks opportunities to maximize the use of human imagination, knowledge and potential. It is truly using the organizations collective knowledge to shape its future.
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Coach and author Roger Ingbretsen is a certified executive coach and organizational developer, providing organizational and career guidance to professionals, managers, supervisors and all individuals looking for "real world" career development and business information. His entrepreneurial approach will help you learn how to plan, lead and succeed in your career. Roger is the creator of the “Leadership Development Coaching Experience©” and author of the personal development reference eBooks, “Plan Your Career Now: The Survival Guide for the American Workplace” and “Master Your Career: Proven Strategies for Career Success©.” To know more and claim dozens of Rogers free articles go to www.ingbretsen.com or call 509 999 7008.
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