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Renew Your Processes and Get Better ROI

February 15, 2012 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Quality Management

Renew Your Processes and Get Better ROI
By Zenkara

We recently presented a seminar on reducing waste from your quality system.

Many companies have lots of warning signs:

  • Multiple versions of templates, forms
  • Different procedures but no one is sure which one to use
  • Procedures that are unnecessary or seem superfluous
  • Processes that were implemented but have never been reviewed or streamlined for effectiveness
  • Processes that take a long time to train new staff
  • Procedures/authorities that require more than 1-3 signatures
  • Staff find it difficult to follow a process – though they still get their job done effectively
  • Even conscientious staff don’t want to go through “the system” because it takes too long or is just too painful
  • More time is spent on getting the requirements of the process right, than getting the actual work done.

To get the most from your processes and management systems, you need to answer the burning questions:

  • What was the problem that was being solved?
  • Why did we do this originally?
  • Do we still have the problem?
  • Do we know what it was?

We have conducted research over the past 3 years and more than 85% of organizations we surveyed could not answer the questions with certainty – the original sponsors had moved on, the company had transformed, etc.

To start reviewing and streamlining what you have…

  • Allocate someone to perform an initial review to understand what is good for the business and helps staff
  • Inventory what you have (processes, forms, templates)

In this first step, make sure that everyone understands what you are trying to achieve ie. making their lives easier. Getting good engagement from staff is essential.

  • Identify pain points & determine activities to address
  • Prioritize by reviewing problems and issues that staff currently have at their “top of mind”; and
  • Align these with what the business needs and where it is heading.

Forming a Tigerteam can help foster a perception of Getting Things Done. It also enables you to see where the system is failing and the gaps that need to be filled.

  • Streamline procedures by amalgamating process steps and then the processes themselves to simplify and reduce the number of required activities to the bare minimum (and this is not zero)
  • Devise a vision of the improvement initiative

This can be done using Project Reviews, Project Post Mortems, Agile Retrospectives as an opportunity to kickoff the process and assess what is used, what is working, and what is broken.

Zenkara focuses on streamlining and deploying business processes and quality systems and accelerating decision making through OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) and metrics systems. Zenkara is located in Brisbane, Australia.

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