If there were a process-improvement star to wish upon, it would likely hear a lot of the following: How can I nurture more productivity, efficiency, and innovation across my organization — yet do so realistically, with changes beneficial for all?
Wishful thinking–be gone! A business process improvement strategy will connect the dots between how your organization performs today and how it can deliver tomorrow.
Through process-focused data mining, applying the right process improvement techniques, and critical and collaborative thinking, organizations can cultivate the sorts of workflows, task pipelines, and performance outcomes they wish for. More importantly, that wish gets grounded in reality, with new work processes you track and measure.
The results? A lean, mean, high-functioning business machine with continual, data-driven improvements. Let’s explore how.
Process improvement is simple in concept, but challenging in practice.
At its core, it focuses on a single question: What are the ways we get work done throughout the organization that directly contributes to the services we provide or the goods we produce — and how can we make those ways better?
Better, of course, is the operative word. For most organizations looking to perfect process improvements, “better” is achieved through two core methods: either by identifying, analyzing, and maximizing “value-added” tasks and procedures, or by identifying, analyzing, and minimizing their opposite, or “non-value-added,” tasks and procedures — in both cases to allocate time and resources more effectively.
In short, process improvements are all about knowing what’s contributing to or taking away from your organization’s business objectives throughout the day, then making measurable and manageable adjustments to achieve better results.
There are many theories on how to best define business objectives, and, therefore, remedy value-added and non-value-added activities.
Two strategies lead the charge toward value-based process improvements:
While these strategies might seem binary, it’s important to note their guiding objective is the same — to create processes that bridge from the work being performed to business goals achieved.
With a model-driven approach to process improvements, businesses and institutions create a structured, consistent, and replicable template for daily operations to align with higher-level business objectives.
Suggested improvements center on gap analyses — formal and informal appraisals on current task and project-management activities among teams or departments. Rounds of observation, staff interviews, and process-data mining of current digital applications and databases provide the backbone for the gap analyses, which businesses can conduct internally or through the expertise of a business process performance consultant.
After the appraisal, the next step is to adopt specific, value-based performance practices. Those practices become the template — or model — across the entire organization. With performance protocol standardized across teams, everyone is now working toward the same purpose, following the same practices to reach them.
In other words, organizations with a standard approach to business process improvements now have a go-to “recipe” to follow for peak performance — and ultimately peak business — success.
Advantages of Model-Driven Improvements
Disadvantages of Model-Driven Improvements
A measurement-driven improvement approach prioritizes quantitative information to build new, better business processes.
At the heart of this approach is performance data. Organizations implementing a measurement-driven approach to process improvements use data as the compass to find what’s working and what isn’t.
By tracking both real-time and historical performance outputs, individuals can better assess things like process error rates, repeated or redundant steps, actual workflow timelines, bottlenecks, constraints, chokepoints, and other inefficiencies detracting from daily momentum. In short, every point of a process gets characterized by a real number.
These numbers provide the path to unlock their own solutions. From the gathered data, organizations can draft new process and performance metrics they want to hit. They then tailor pieces of their business’ activities to see which best helps them achieve these updated metrics, creating a roadmap to overall process change.
Advantages of Measurement-Driven Improvements
Disadvantages of Measurement-Driven Improvements
The case for improving core business processes is intuitive.
You want your organization to work smarter, not harder. You want your employees’ time and talents to flourish. You want the business objectives set for that day, month, or fiscal year to see fruition. Anything short of this not only risks critical resources — it jeopardizes the future stability and competitiveness of your organization.
Consider the following reasons to invest in business process improvements, as well as what they can deliver:
Business process improvements work when they’re actionable, not abstract.
This gap is often the most difficult one to bridge, identifying the exact tasks, tools, systems, or steps detracting from leaner and more efficient work activities. However, difficult does not mean impossible.
We’ve got a few core strategies and suggestions for your business to implement today to see performance changes tomorrow.
Data are the foundation of process improvements. Data are the objective pieces of information showing precisely how operations function at the moment, providing a set numbers to focus on either improving or reducing.
Business process consultants like those at BTI specialize in process-focused data mining. We track and extract data directly from your current systems, displaying which specific projects, procedures, or places are working effectively and efficiently based on their process performance. The results are accurate and actionable, providing you detailed, objective insights.
There are dozens of performance metrics data mining can highlight. Just a few key outputs include:
With process data in hand, organizations now have direct evidence of value-added and non-value-added operations. No confusion, no generalities, no guesswork — only objective information diagnosing the source of current inefficiencies alongside their benchmarks for improvement.
That data then guides the implementation of model-based improvement approach. Organizations get the results-oriented, fact-based benefits of a data-driven improvement approach combined with the reliability of a model-based improvement strategy. It’s a seamless integration of analysis and action.
To generate lasting process improvements, organizations can’t overlook one key thing: people.
Identifying performance metrics and creating a standard model to achieve them is only half the equation. You can improve these processes and have great new goals on paper — but are the actual people these changes will affect on board with them?
A change management strategy solves this riddle. It helps institutionalize process improvements, turning them from new routines or rules into the widespread mantra that “this is how we work here — and here’s why.” Plus, change management allows employees to see their work as part of larger objectives and therefore contributors to the business’ success — as well as emphasizes how new process improvements will likely make their tasks more straightforward and more intuitive.
Buy-in, engagement, and acceptance are critical to seeing your transition succeed. Adopting an inclusive change-management strategy that focuses on real people is a crucial tip in your overall guide to process improvement.
A business process consultant can guide an enterprise across every stage of process improvements.
Your interests are their interests, your success their success. Indeed, a business process consultant’s career and reputation rest on their ability to guide you through process transformation, delivering tailored, long-term results.
That makes them a valuable and rare asset for your organization. With their fresh eyes, energy, and expertise, there’s a reason business process consulting has risen to be a nearly $10 billion industry and, on average, enhances participating clients’ project success rates by 70 percent.
Bringing on the right business process consultant is akin to hiring a new employee. Their time and talents will directly contribute to what your business can achieve. As such, there are a few key traits and characteristics to be on the lookout for:
There are dozens of benefits to hiring a business process consultant.
Business process improvements move your organization from one with potential to one with purpose.
We know it’s there. Let Business Transformation Institute help you see it, too.
Learn more about our tailored process improvement services, or contact us directly for information.
