The following question is usually debated a lot amongst IT managers. “With which process should we start when implementing ITIL?” Everybody has their own views, but here are my takes on it.
Some consultants sat that one must start with Service Level Management. Theoretically, it would be the perfect option, but how are you going to negotiate SLA's on your MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) if you are not measuring your MTTR through Incident management. This way you will get an idea of your capabilities and of what a realistic MTTR would be for your support teams. It may however be a good idea to start with a Service Catalogue, but that is only one aspect of Service Level Management and not a process.
A lot of people state that one must start with Configuration management. Again, I think that it would be perfect in theory, but in practice it is a different story. How will you keep your CMDB up to date, if you do not have a mature enough Change management process to keep the data up to date? A discovery tool will help, but there is still information that may need manual updates via Change management, e.g. costs, locations, user’s asset tag nr's etc. Configuration management is also one of the most difficult processes in to implement and show immediate benefits for. It is usually better to start with something easier and something that will show immediate benefit with minimum effort.
The best place to start in my opinion is with Change Management. Gartner reports that 80% of infrastructure failures are caused by changes. So, if you can have ALL your changes under control as soon as possible, a lot of these failures will be prevented. That is definitely a quick win and quick wins is what you want to keep the motivation of support teams up and keep upper management committed to your project. It may be a while to realize the benefits of Service Level Management or Configuration Management.
A good one would also be Incident Management, it is a fairly easy process and you should also be able to gain early benefits.
When Change and Incident management are well on their ways you can start to look at the other processes, especially on the Service Support side.
Oh yes and obviously you will need a Service Desk right from the start...
My take on where NOT to start...
Problem Management - Can't have it without Incident Management
Configuration Management - CMDB will be out of date in no time without Change Management.
Service Level Management - Can start certain aspects, but no baseline without Incident and Change Management to negotiate SLA's with the customer.
IT Service Continuity Management - Difficult and expensive, no quick wins, good to have the CMDB first... Don't get me wrong, it IS important, but not my suggested place to start.
Release Management - You preferably need Change Management first.
Available & Capacity management - Possible to start with, but no real quick wins and more difficult...the ITIL books really get theoretical on these processes.
These are only my views and every IT department will have to look at what’s best for them.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Inspirational Power
Time management is absolute crucial nowadays where business decisions have to be taken often at the speed of light, leaders have to find spare time to prioritize their actions.
Time is the scarcest of all resources. Leadership should be about developing the ability to inspire people to reach high levels of performance and success. Being able to dream a vision and having the passion to communicate that vision by concentrating the attention at key strategies.
Listening, coaching, and mentoring being an inspiration for others while managing the change culture of your organization. These are the skills and competencies that leaders clearly need to focus on. To achieve this you have to free up time, which, actually seems to be a paradigm in current days. So how can we best cope with this situation?
Managers rarely have time to spot opportunities. Their daily work routine prevents them from taking the first necessary step towards being a Strategic Leader. Developing the capacity to craft an idea and transforming it into reality. First of all you have to believe that you are not unbearable. So why don’t you try and delegate more.
Most cases of, what seems to be, excessive workload are originated, because most managers are not able to influence the flow of their daily demands. It is a question of reacting instead of acting. Managers that take demands for granted and simply respond to them, rarely challenge themselves about the meaning these demands actually have, and if they really make sense or whether one could or should transform them. By being always "under fire," people never find time to ask themselves the vital Leadership question: "Am I busy performing the right actions?" We really need to frequently challenge ourselves about the usefulness for the business of some tasks we are performing. And how can we best monitor the level of importance for the organization that a specific request has? Well, here are 6 Questions that helped me to prioritize projects throughout my working carer. The answering of these questions helped me evaluating the degree of priority for a specific demand or project.
— "What economic benefit will this action bring for the company? — "Is this action aligned with the company's Vision and mission statement?" — “does it fit in the global strategy the company or department is perusing?” — "How will it satisfy stakeholders?" How important is it to your boss, your team, and other interested parties? — "What is my level of passion, skills, and energy for it — "Do we have the resources?" Are there sufficient time, money, and any other necessary resources to accomplish this goal? If you can't bring all six to the table, than probably, you're not going to achieve a high return on your efforts.
That should be one of the criteria that identify a leader, the ability to question routines. The simple fact is that being busy is easier than not. A higher level of adrenaline gives us the perception that we are fully occupied and busy as time is passing by. It is basically a question of being entertained, and most people, we have to admit it, feel more comfortable not having to think about the usefulness of some tasks. Answering to each new demand, providing an answer to the latest request, and complaining about excessive workload is easier than setting priorities, or reflecting about their relevance for the organization. It makes us occupied and people like that status, being the centre of attention, where people constantly ask them for assistance, information, or advice. If the pack is moving in one direction Strategic Leaders need to stop and ask themselves: Why are they (we) doing this?
Strategic leaders deal in different manners with requests and demands than their busy manager colleagues do. They need time to think and reflect. They look cool and relaxed giving the impression of being fully in control of the situation. Rather than simply responding to any issue that gets thrown at them, they handle their demands by:
-Designing a road map of how and when they want to achieve what in their jobs:
1.). For example, rather than keeping general goals in mind such as "sales increase " or "excellent after sales service," , that are no better than wishful thinking , they try to paint a general picture of how this objectives can be achieved, a vivid mental representation of your objectives that includes ways to achieve them. While reacting to demands can be distracting, the kind of personal road map that one needs to create should produce an up- side down effect: It allows us to align short term actions with the long term strategy, so that we can immediately point out our short term priorities and relate them with OUR vision and longer term planning. Such an approach is much more motivational and should produce better results as simply responding and reacting to demands and requests. 2.) Strategic Leadership means that you take a closer look at what you choose to do or not do. That way, you create space for actions that are vital for the organization rather than executing tasks you like or find most familiar or easy. It is important that you leave your comfort zone and try to get used to more unfamiliar tasks. It is therefore important that you as a Strategic leader develop your change management skills and competencies. Set priorities among your tasks, aligning your activities with your Personal Road Map.
3.) Practicing Time management also means monitoring the daily time we spent interacting with others. Reacting blindly and instantly to any demands that pops in is extremely time consuming and even exhausting as this means long lasting face to face discussions, telephone calls , etc. This is one of the main reasons why people complain about the multiple interruptions they face during a regular working day. Management is mostly about Team work, which means that a Strategic Leader must learn when, how and for how long one is available to spent time with his direct reports. We often spend more time then really needed with our direct reports, often because we want others to consider us a caring good boss by being always available. It is important that you provide them the feeling that you are there TO HELP THEM, ADVISE THEM, TO HEAR THEIR NEEDS AND SHARE THEIR CONCERNS, but this should not be at any time, any place and any time. Try to explain them that they have certain hours where Your door should be open for them , or if this is physically not possible due to space constraints ( Open space offices ), then try to get some reserved , restricted time for You to reflect and analyze.
4.) There are managers out there that constantly worry whether they are meeting others' expectations. They want to come under a good light at the group picture.
By trying to please everybody, these managers tend to get absorbed in speculations about what others expect, about the best way to meet those expectations, and the impact of not meeting them. The end result is that these managers fail, because in the quest of trying to please everybody they usually end up pleasing no one and ultimately do not find free time for following their one agenda. Strategic Leaders are aware that they can not meet every-ones expectations; instead they focus on their key stakeholders because these managers have the sensibility to know the influence these stakeholders have. Giving a strong and honest commitment to these key people implies having to say no to most of the less relevant ones. The biggest advantage of this strategy is that by focusing on these strategic stakeholders you can actively shape your actions according to the demands of these persons, and ideally will be to combine this strategy with being proactive. The attack is the best defence, action is better than reaction; Strategic Leaders present their own visions, projects and objectives before their Key Stakeholders come across and present their demands. This is a form of tailoring to your personal goals others expectations. Rather than arbitrarily building a relationship network with many individuals, Strategic Leaders, opposed to what most managers do, deliberately focus their time and effort on building strong and close ties with people who can influence the achievement of their objectives. This is a long term strategy that is based on the build up of solid long term relationships, and Strategic Leaders spend a lot of time developing their personal networks, not without a huge portion of true warmth, respect, and, even some friendship.
Henrique Plöger Abreu has a Master Degree in Business Administration. He has more than 20 Years of working Experience in Sales and Marketing as a B2B Consultant and Public Speaker. He is the President of the L.T.C. a non profit Organization.
Time is the scarcest of all resources. Leadership should be about developing the ability to inspire people to reach high levels of performance and success. Being able to dream a vision and having the passion to communicate that vision by concentrating the attention at key strategies.
Listening, coaching, and mentoring being an inspiration for others while managing the change culture of your organization. These are the skills and competencies that leaders clearly need to focus on. To achieve this you have to free up time, which, actually seems to be a paradigm in current days. So how can we best cope with this situation?
Managers rarely have time to spot opportunities. Their daily work routine prevents them from taking the first necessary step towards being a Strategic Leader. Developing the capacity to craft an idea and transforming it into reality. First of all you have to believe that you are not unbearable. So why don’t you try and delegate more.
Most cases of, what seems to be, excessive workload are originated, because most managers are not able to influence the flow of their daily demands. It is a question of reacting instead of acting. Managers that take demands for granted and simply respond to them, rarely challenge themselves about the meaning these demands actually have, and if they really make sense or whether one could or should transform them. By being always "under fire," people never find time to ask themselves the vital Leadership question: "Am I busy performing the right actions?" We really need to frequently challenge ourselves about the usefulness for the business of some tasks we are performing. And how can we best monitor the level of importance for the organization that a specific request has? Well, here are 6 Questions that helped me to prioritize projects throughout my working carer. The answering of these questions helped me evaluating the degree of priority for a specific demand or project.
— "What economic benefit will this action bring for the company? — "Is this action aligned with the company's Vision and mission statement?" — “does it fit in the global strategy the company or department is perusing?” — "How will it satisfy stakeholders?" How important is it to your boss, your team, and other interested parties? — "What is my level of passion, skills, and energy for it — "Do we have the resources?" Are there sufficient time, money, and any other necessary resources to accomplish this goal? If you can't bring all six to the table, than probably, you're not going to achieve a high return on your efforts.
That should be one of the criteria that identify a leader, the ability to question routines. The simple fact is that being busy is easier than not. A higher level of adrenaline gives us the perception that we are fully occupied and busy as time is passing by. It is basically a question of being entertained, and most people, we have to admit it, feel more comfortable not having to think about the usefulness of some tasks. Answering to each new demand, providing an answer to the latest request, and complaining about excessive workload is easier than setting priorities, or reflecting about their relevance for the organization. It makes us occupied and people like that status, being the centre of attention, where people constantly ask them for assistance, information, or advice. If the pack is moving in one direction Strategic Leaders need to stop and ask themselves: Why are they (we) doing this?
Strategic leaders deal in different manners with requests and demands than their busy manager colleagues do. They need time to think and reflect. They look cool and relaxed giving the impression of being fully in control of the situation. Rather than simply responding to any issue that gets thrown at them, they handle their demands by:
-Designing a road map of how and when they want to achieve what in their jobs:
1.). For example, rather than keeping general goals in mind such as "sales increase " or "excellent after sales service," , that are no better than wishful thinking , they try to paint a general picture of how this objectives can be achieved, a vivid mental representation of your objectives that includes ways to achieve them. While reacting to demands can be distracting, the kind of personal road map that one needs to create should produce an up- side down effect: It allows us to align short term actions with the long term strategy, so that we can immediately point out our short term priorities and relate them with OUR vision and longer term planning. Such an approach is much more motivational and should produce better results as simply responding and reacting to demands and requests. 2.) Strategic Leadership means that you take a closer look at what you choose to do or not do. That way, you create space for actions that are vital for the organization rather than executing tasks you like or find most familiar or easy. It is important that you leave your comfort zone and try to get used to more unfamiliar tasks. It is therefore important that you as a Strategic leader develop your change management skills and competencies. Set priorities among your tasks, aligning your activities with your Personal Road Map.
3.) Practicing Time management also means monitoring the daily time we spent interacting with others. Reacting blindly and instantly to any demands that pops in is extremely time consuming and even exhausting as this means long lasting face to face discussions, telephone calls , etc. This is one of the main reasons why people complain about the multiple interruptions they face during a regular working day. Management is mostly about Team work, which means that a Strategic Leader must learn when, how and for how long one is available to spent time with his direct reports. We often spend more time then really needed with our direct reports, often because we want others to consider us a caring good boss by being always available. It is important that you provide them the feeling that you are there TO HELP THEM, ADVISE THEM, TO HEAR THEIR NEEDS AND SHARE THEIR CONCERNS, but this should not be at any time, any place and any time. Try to explain them that they have certain hours where Your door should be open for them , or if this is physically not possible due to space constraints ( Open space offices ), then try to get some reserved , restricted time for You to reflect and analyze.
4.) There are managers out there that constantly worry whether they are meeting others' expectations. They want to come under a good light at the group picture.
By trying to please everybody, these managers tend to get absorbed in speculations about what others expect, about the best way to meet those expectations, and the impact of not meeting them. The end result is that these managers fail, because in the quest of trying to please everybody they usually end up pleasing no one and ultimately do not find free time for following their one agenda. Strategic Leaders are aware that they can not meet every-ones expectations; instead they focus on their key stakeholders because these managers have the sensibility to know the influence these stakeholders have. Giving a strong and honest commitment to these key people implies having to say no to most of the less relevant ones. The biggest advantage of this strategy is that by focusing on these strategic stakeholders you can actively shape your actions according to the demands of these persons, and ideally will be to combine this strategy with being proactive. The attack is the best defence, action is better than reaction; Strategic Leaders present their own visions, projects and objectives before their Key Stakeholders come across and present their demands. This is a form of tailoring to your personal goals others expectations. Rather than arbitrarily building a relationship network with many individuals, Strategic Leaders, opposed to what most managers do, deliberately focus their time and effort on building strong and close ties with people who can influence the achievement of their objectives. This is a long term strategy that is based on the build up of solid long term relationships, and Strategic Leaders spend a lot of time developing their personal networks, not without a huge portion of true warmth, respect, and, even some friendship.
Henrique Plöger Abreu has a Master Degree in Business Administration. He has more than 20 Years of working Experience in Sales and Marketing as a B2B Consultant and Public Speaker. He is the President of the L.T.C. a non profit Organization.
Incandescence
There lives within every individual a power, an energy, an incandescence of spirit that is being constantly held in check, like a dimmer switch turned way down.
A lifetime of being told: "we are nothing special; to stand out is egotistic and wrong; to conform is necessary; to be different is bad; the collective good must be served even to the determent of our own being; we must support; we must never defy; to question authority is inherently evil; the majority is always right; don't rock the boat;" -- creates an habitual thought pattern of lassitude, often leaving us without any sense of our ability to make a substantial difference and therefore with no real sense of urgency.
Surely it is in the best interest of every organization, every corporation to instill in it's employees a sense of pride, in the organization, in the work force and in themselves. People who are encouraged to take a long hard look at what their company is all about, at what it does to make a difference in the community, the country and the world, will begin to develop a sense of being a valuable part of something important, something worthwhile.
Creating this attitude goes beyond the publication of an idealized mission statement as so often proudly displayed in the lobby for the enlightenment of visitors. The organization must walk its talk to create employee buy in. Pride and loyalty are founded on belief and trust.
When the people at the top believe in the organization and it's people, demonstrating confidence in and respect for every employee, this attitude is emulated all down the line. This is the starting point for taking leadership from the top floor to the shop floor.
Pride in the organization is a starting point. When people are coached and mentored to look objectively at the roles they play within their company and the roles played by their fellow workers, they will learn to recognize that no company can achieve success or make a substantial difference without the effort and contribution of every employee -- including themselves.
When people are proud of their company and of the difference it makes, when they are proud of the accomplishments of their fellow workers, when they are proud of their personal input to the process or product, they must automatically become happier, better, more productive, engaged, workers and they will in turn encourage each other to be even more proud, happy and productive.
When such people are given the freedom to seek out and implement meaningful change, to work together to make a better world, to grow personally and professionally, to sometimes make mistakes and to learn from them, people power becomes an almost limitless force for growth. The incandescent spirit becomes a burning passion for achievement.
A lifetime of being told: "we are nothing special; to stand out is egotistic and wrong; to conform is necessary; to be different is bad; the collective good must be served even to the determent of our own being; we must support; we must never defy; to question authority is inherently evil; the majority is always right; don't rock the boat;" -- creates an habitual thought pattern of lassitude, often leaving us without any sense of our ability to make a substantial difference and therefore with no real sense of urgency.
Surely it is in the best interest of every organization, every corporation to instill in it's employees a sense of pride, in the organization, in the work force and in themselves. People who are encouraged to take a long hard look at what their company is all about, at what it does to make a difference in the community, the country and the world, will begin to develop a sense of being a valuable part of something important, something worthwhile.
Creating this attitude goes beyond the publication of an idealized mission statement as so often proudly displayed in the lobby for the enlightenment of visitors. The organization must walk its talk to create employee buy in. Pride and loyalty are founded on belief and trust.
When the people at the top believe in the organization and it's people, demonstrating confidence in and respect for every employee, this attitude is emulated all down the line. This is the starting point for taking leadership from the top floor to the shop floor.
Pride in the organization is a starting point. When people are coached and mentored to look objectively at the roles they play within their company and the roles played by their fellow workers, they will learn to recognize that no company can achieve success or make a substantial difference without the effort and contribution of every employee -- including themselves.
When people are proud of their company and of the difference it makes, when they are proud of the accomplishments of their fellow workers, when they are proud of their personal input to the process or product, they must automatically become happier, better, more productive, engaged, workers and they will in turn encourage each other to be even more proud, happy and productive.
When such people are given the freedom to seek out and implement meaningful change, to work together to make a better world, to grow personally and professionally, to sometimes make mistakes and to learn from them, people power becomes an almost limitless force for growth. The incandescent spirit becomes a burning passion for achievement.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Process Improvement
Why Do Process Improvement Initiatives Fail?
Many organizations have failed miserably in achieving their process improvement goals. Most of these failures occur because the organizations did not integrate their process improvement efforts with their management practices to achieve strategic business initiatives. As a result process improvement is pawned off to the quality department or some other staff functions.
A disciplined approach to process improvement prevents the catastrophic failure experienced by so many organizations. In a disciplined approach process improvement initiatives are targeted at improving those cross-functional processes that have the greatest impact on achieving strategic business objectives. These key processes involve a number of departments in the delivery of a product or service to the organization's customers. Successful process improvement initiatives recognize this horizontal flow of value creation and are structured accordingly.
Disciplined process improvement is what it takes to achieve positive business results. This means that work is accomplished and organizations succeed based on what occurs within key business processes. By linking strategic business goals, improvement efforts, and the business processes that most affect customers; process improvement does work, and some organizations do achieve results.
There are three basic reasons process improvement efforts miss the mark and do not accomplish critical business objectives.
1. They are not focused, meaning that process improvement is implemented erratically, with little regard for what is important.
2. Top management is not intimately involved in overseeing process improvement efforts. I call this the "bubble up" theory. Senior managers send employees to training, create a lot of teams, and wait for a host of ideas and improvements to bubble up. Top management think that process improvement, customer satisfaction, and cycle time will instinctively improve and that they will realize lower costs and higher profits. It does not work that way. Bubble up is all fizz and no discipline.
3. Some organizations have a vision, but lack the discipline or the focus necessary to make it a reality. Their process improvement efforts flounder because they do not:
- Focus on the key processes critical to achieving strategic goals
- Include top management in the selection process when identifying specific improvement projects
- Provide for regular senior management review to ensure that implementation produces both short-term and long-term results
The evidence is clear, a disciplined management-led approach is essential if process improvement initiatives are to succeed. The approach must be aimed at improving those vital few cross-functional business processes that result in a product or service for the organization's customers. Discipline is what differentiates championship athletes, dominant sports teams, and world class competitors. In the business organizations top management creates that discipline.
The important thing to realize is that those vital few or key business processes are the heart of the business. Identifying and improving them will in turn deliver dramatic improvements in product or service quality and the bottom line.
The As Is
If we lived in a perfect world, all employees would clearly understand their business processes, create their work, coordinate activities, manage the white space, be very proactive, quickly deliver products or services, and produce defect free work.
The world, however, is not perfect. Almost all organizations are structured and managed through functional departments (i.e. customer service, sales, marketing, operations, accounting, distribution, etc.). Such a functional structure effectively reduces a complex environment to manageable units. However, functional structures ignore the fact that products and services are delivered to customers through horizontal processes, that is, key business processes that cross functional department lines and require cooperation and collaboration from many departments.
In every organization, even if one department has primary responsibility for production, others play roles from marketing to distribution. That is the real world. Unfortunately, most organizations and most process improvement efforts labor under the false assumption that the world looks like the organization chart.
Today's customers are showing an increased willingness to challenge the inefficiencies and poor service of the functional approach. They are also rebelling against the costs associated with this approach. Work thrown over the wall at the functional transition points not only annoys and inconveniences the customer, but leads to a lot of rework. In fact, rework has been shown to chew up 30 to 50% of the total cost of doing business. Just as important is the impact on current and potential customers when products or services are late, defective, or too costly. It is important to understand that customers care about and react to the end product or service that is the sum of all the functional operations.
Yet over and over again in the workplace this concept is lost. Engineering worries about engineering, sales worries about sales, purchasing guards its territory. Manufacturing merely makes widgets. Customer service fixes problems, and management executes plans or people, depending on how it goes. Now and then everything comes together. All too often, however, everything falls apart, and customers lose. When the customers lose, the business loses them.
The Should Be
Disciplined process improvement emphasis is on managing key business processes across the organization. In other words, managing cross-functional processes rather than taking a functional approach that matches the organization chart.
Further, disciplined process improvement takes the responsibility for process improvement out of the quality department or other staff functions and puts it in the lap of top management. Disciplined process improvement requires that senior managers get committed and stay committed if they want sustained results. It puts the manager where he or she belongs: in the strategic leadership role. Management defines the organization's strategic goals and identifies the key business processes. Management selects the process improvement strategies and projects and regularly monitors progress to ensure the key business processes are structured and managed so as to achieve the organization's strategic goals.
Management does not sit around deliberating what went wrong with the process improvement effort or why it works in other organizations. Process improvement has only worked in organizations when senior management was committed.
Why The Emphasis On Discipline?
Disciplined process improvement does produce results. Refining your process improvement efforts by defining the key business processes that deliver products or services to your customers enables you to determine metrics that are important for creating things that the customer value. Using a disciplined approach will also help you overcome the common barriers to process improvement:
- Barrier #1: People dislike being measured: One of the secrets to getting better, making improvements, and increasing customer satisfaction is to realize that your employees don't like being measured. Typically, when companies measure their employees' work or productivity, they use the information to blame employees or point out their mistakes. While key metrics in the organization can indeed be useful, you need to use the metrics you uncover to identify how the processes or systems you have in place fail, not how your people fail.
Therefore, look at what you're measuring and decide if it is providing useful information. Is what you're measuring addressing what your customers value? After this analysis, you might need to totally change your current metrics. Or you might find that your metrics are correct, but the information is used to blame your people-blame your process instead, and then fix the process.
- Barrier #2: The "hero" complex: Sometimes managers think they know all the right answers. These "heroes" (and heroines) of the organization think they're golden. They don't want to be driven in a direction to improve because they think they're doing a great job already. They believe they're great managers and don't need to change. To them, changing something is an admission that something they did or implemented didn't work. These are the people who truly prevent an organization from moving forward.
All companies need new or revitalized processes, approaches, and techniques to find the hidden treasure in the organization. Help them realize that the golden opportunities are already there in the business-they just have to broaden their perspective to see these opportunities.
- Barrier #3: Getting collaboration between achievers and problem solvers: You can group all of your employees into one of two categories: Achievers or Problem Solvers. To identify the Achievers and Problem Solvers in your company, ask people two simple questions: 1) What is important to you about your work? And 2) Why is that important? Let's suppose you ask everyone the first question and they all answer that serving the customer is important. When you ask them why that's important, Achievers will give answers like, "We get more business," "We improve the bottom line," and "We increase market share." To them, it's all about achieving and what they get. Problem Solvers will give answers like, "We avoid having irate customers on the phone," "We don't have as many complaints," and "We don't have to do rework." To them, it's all about avoiding pain. Once you know which category everyone fits into, you can bridge the gap between the two mindsets so everyone works together effectively to improve your processes.
Conclusion
As your organization continue to grow and change, it is important to understand that some of the processes that worked well in the past may be ineffective in today's rapidly changing environment. The stakes are high and the challenge is clear: you must continue to improve your processes to remain competitive. By improving processes, you improve results.
Successful process improvement efforts must be integrated with management practices to achieve strategic business objectives. It is a disciplined approach that will help you discover new opportunities, reach top performance, and quickly increase customer satisfaction. Give it a chance. Once you realize what disciplined process improvement can do for your organization, you won't give it up. It is a habit forming endeavor that will transform your organization.
Many organizations have failed miserably in achieving their process improvement goals. Most of these failures occur because the organizations did not integrate their process improvement efforts with their management practices to achieve strategic business initiatives. As a result process improvement is pawned off to the quality department or some other staff functions.
A disciplined approach to process improvement prevents the catastrophic failure experienced by so many organizations. In a disciplined approach process improvement initiatives are targeted at improving those cross-functional processes that have the greatest impact on achieving strategic business objectives. These key processes involve a number of departments in the delivery of a product or service to the organization's customers. Successful process improvement initiatives recognize this horizontal flow of value creation and are structured accordingly.
Disciplined process improvement is what it takes to achieve positive business results. This means that work is accomplished and organizations succeed based on what occurs within key business processes. By linking strategic business goals, improvement efforts, and the business processes that most affect customers; process improvement does work, and some organizations do achieve results.
There are three basic reasons process improvement efforts miss the mark and do not accomplish critical business objectives.
1. They are not focused, meaning that process improvement is implemented erratically, with little regard for what is important.
2. Top management is not intimately involved in overseeing process improvement efforts. I call this the "bubble up" theory. Senior managers send employees to training, create a lot of teams, and wait for a host of ideas and improvements to bubble up. Top management think that process improvement, customer satisfaction, and cycle time will instinctively improve and that they will realize lower costs and higher profits. It does not work that way. Bubble up is all fizz and no discipline.
3. Some organizations have a vision, but lack the discipline or the focus necessary to make it a reality. Their process improvement efforts flounder because they do not:
- Focus on the key processes critical to achieving strategic goals
- Include top management in the selection process when identifying specific improvement projects
- Provide for regular senior management review to ensure that implementation produces both short-term and long-term results
The evidence is clear, a disciplined management-led approach is essential if process improvement initiatives are to succeed. The approach must be aimed at improving those vital few cross-functional business processes that result in a product or service for the organization's customers. Discipline is what differentiates championship athletes, dominant sports teams, and world class competitors. In the business organizations top management creates that discipline.
The important thing to realize is that those vital few or key business processes are the heart of the business. Identifying and improving them will in turn deliver dramatic improvements in product or service quality and the bottom line.
The As Is
If we lived in a perfect world, all employees would clearly understand their business processes, create their work, coordinate activities, manage the white space, be very proactive, quickly deliver products or services, and produce defect free work.
The world, however, is not perfect. Almost all organizations are structured and managed through functional departments (i.e. customer service, sales, marketing, operations, accounting, distribution, etc.). Such a functional structure effectively reduces a complex environment to manageable units. However, functional structures ignore the fact that products and services are delivered to customers through horizontal processes, that is, key business processes that cross functional department lines and require cooperation and collaboration from many departments.
In every organization, even if one department has primary responsibility for production, others play roles from marketing to distribution. That is the real world. Unfortunately, most organizations and most process improvement efforts labor under the false assumption that the world looks like the organization chart.
Today's customers are showing an increased willingness to challenge the inefficiencies and poor service of the functional approach. They are also rebelling against the costs associated with this approach. Work thrown over the wall at the functional transition points not only annoys and inconveniences the customer, but leads to a lot of rework. In fact, rework has been shown to chew up 30 to 50% of the total cost of doing business. Just as important is the impact on current and potential customers when products or services are late, defective, or too costly. It is important to understand that customers care about and react to the end product or service that is the sum of all the functional operations.
Yet over and over again in the workplace this concept is lost. Engineering worries about engineering, sales worries about sales, purchasing guards its territory. Manufacturing merely makes widgets. Customer service fixes problems, and management executes plans or people, depending on how it goes. Now and then everything comes together. All too often, however, everything falls apart, and customers lose. When the customers lose, the business loses them.
The Should Be
Disciplined process improvement emphasis is on managing key business processes across the organization. In other words, managing cross-functional processes rather than taking a functional approach that matches the organization chart.
Further, disciplined process improvement takes the responsibility for process improvement out of the quality department or other staff functions and puts it in the lap of top management. Disciplined process improvement requires that senior managers get committed and stay committed if they want sustained results. It puts the manager where he or she belongs: in the strategic leadership role. Management defines the organization's strategic goals and identifies the key business processes. Management selects the process improvement strategies and projects and regularly monitors progress to ensure the key business processes are structured and managed so as to achieve the organization's strategic goals.
Management does not sit around deliberating what went wrong with the process improvement effort or why it works in other organizations. Process improvement has only worked in organizations when senior management was committed.
Why The Emphasis On Discipline?
Disciplined process improvement does produce results. Refining your process improvement efforts by defining the key business processes that deliver products or services to your customers enables you to determine metrics that are important for creating things that the customer value. Using a disciplined approach will also help you overcome the common barriers to process improvement:
- Barrier #1: People dislike being measured: One of the secrets to getting better, making improvements, and increasing customer satisfaction is to realize that your employees don't like being measured. Typically, when companies measure their employees' work or productivity, they use the information to blame employees or point out their mistakes. While key metrics in the organization can indeed be useful, you need to use the metrics you uncover to identify how the processes or systems you have in place fail, not how your people fail.
Therefore, look at what you're measuring and decide if it is providing useful information. Is what you're measuring addressing what your customers value? After this analysis, you might need to totally change your current metrics. Or you might find that your metrics are correct, but the information is used to blame your people-blame your process instead, and then fix the process.
- Barrier #2: The "hero" complex: Sometimes managers think they know all the right answers. These "heroes" (and heroines) of the organization think they're golden. They don't want to be driven in a direction to improve because they think they're doing a great job already. They believe they're great managers and don't need to change. To them, changing something is an admission that something they did or implemented didn't work. These are the people who truly prevent an organization from moving forward.
All companies need new or revitalized processes, approaches, and techniques to find the hidden treasure in the organization. Help them realize that the golden opportunities are already there in the business-they just have to broaden their perspective to see these opportunities.
- Barrier #3: Getting collaboration between achievers and problem solvers: You can group all of your employees into one of two categories: Achievers or Problem Solvers. To identify the Achievers and Problem Solvers in your company, ask people two simple questions: 1) What is important to you about your work? And 2) Why is that important? Let's suppose you ask everyone the first question and they all answer that serving the customer is important. When you ask them why that's important, Achievers will give answers like, "We get more business," "We improve the bottom line," and "We increase market share." To them, it's all about achieving and what they get. Problem Solvers will give answers like, "We avoid having irate customers on the phone," "We don't have as many complaints," and "We don't have to do rework." To them, it's all about avoiding pain. Once you know which category everyone fits into, you can bridge the gap between the two mindsets so everyone works together effectively to improve your processes.
Conclusion
As your organization continue to grow and change, it is important to understand that some of the processes that worked well in the past may be ineffective in today's rapidly changing environment. The stakes are high and the challenge is clear: you must continue to improve your processes to remain competitive. By improving processes, you improve results.
Successful process improvement efforts must be integrated with management practices to achieve strategic business objectives. It is a disciplined approach that will help you discover new opportunities, reach top performance, and quickly increase customer satisfaction. Give it a chance. Once you realize what disciplined process improvement can do for your organization, you won't give it up. It is a habit forming endeavor that will transform your organization.
Evolution Training
If you are part of an organization, you will notice that the organization might sometimes change as it grows. This evolution can either be large scale or only incorporate small changes. With a dynamic and volatile economic climate, it is necessary for all organizations to update themselves with changing times. However, preparing your business for evolution can be intimidating if not challenging. You can tap on business evolution training services to help you benefit when considering implementing changes to your business. See how you can benefit from training that will aid you in your business evolution practices.
Training allows you to grow personally
When you receive business evolution training, you are first made aware about how to gain knowledge and grow personally. Once you are able to implement changes to yourself and evolve as a leader or superior, your business will naturally evolve such that it reflects the evolution that is evident in you. Therefore, training directs your attention to yourself before looking outwards. So, if you want your business to grow, training will equip you with skills to first work on yourself.
Rediscover passion and focus shift
Many business owners set up businesses not only for financial reasons but also as a means of expressing themselves and fulfilling their desires. Therefore, if these people lose the passion to perform or excel in what they do, this lack of passion will reflect on their business. Training will therefore allow business owners to rediscover the passion they have for their business and revisit the reasons they set up the business in the first place. This way, business owners will be able to shift your focus to the business once again and work on the business with all heart and might. Such renewed passion will be beneficial in business evolution.
Learning from prior evolutions
Business evolution training will allow you to gain knowledge from evolutions that have previously taken place in your business. Instead of forgetting about the lessons learned along the way during previous evolutions, training will shift your focus to those lessons once again. This way you will be ahead of yourself as you apply the lessons previously learned to the new challenges you face.
Training allows you to grow personally
When you receive business evolution training, you are first made aware about how to gain knowledge and grow personally. Once you are able to implement changes to yourself and evolve as a leader or superior, your business will naturally evolve such that it reflects the evolution that is evident in you. Therefore, training directs your attention to yourself before looking outwards. So, if you want your business to grow, training will equip you with skills to first work on yourself.
Rediscover passion and focus shift
Many business owners set up businesses not only for financial reasons but also as a means of expressing themselves and fulfilling their desires. Therefore, if these people lose the passion to perform or excel in what they do, this lack of passion will reflect on their business. Training will therefore allow business owners to rediscover the passion they have for their business and revisit the reasons they set up the business in the first place. This way, business owners will be able to shift your focus to the business once again and work on the business with all heart and might. Such renewed passion will be beneficial in business evolution.
Learning from prior evolutions
Business evolution training will allow you to gain knowledge from evolutions that have previously taken place in your business. Instead of forgetting about the lessons learned along the way during previous evolutions, training will shift your focus to those lessons once again. This way you will be ahead of yourself as you apply the lessons previously learned to the new challenges you face.
Organizational Culture
Every organization builds itself by first establishing its own culture. This culture gets shaped as the organization deals with and overcomes external and internal challenges. Once the organization is successfully able to overcome these challenges, reaping success, the values built along the way are retained. Let us now see how effective changes in a company can be established.
Founders' Values
An effective culture is created through the history it brings with it. The company's culture is first established during its early years through the values held by its founders and the vision they have for the future of the organization. The entrepreneurs who establish the business should clearly lay out the organization's rules, structure of the company and decide on the people they want to work with them. These founder values will then become part of the corporate culture, which in turn helps the organization to succeed. Once these values have been established, they can be passed on to new members within the organization so that everyone is aware about how to best increase the success of the organization.
Industry Demands
Effective organizations can also be created through taking into account industry demands. Companies within the same industry can have very different cultures. Nonetheless, at the same time, industry demands can act as a compelling factor for them to develop some similarities. For instance, companies within the high-tech industry are likely to all have innovative cultures and those within the non-profit arena will be people-centered. As such, an effective change needs to be created by adhering to industry demands that may need companies to adopt certain practices, which inevitably forms a part of the corporate culture. As such, an organizational culture can only be effective if it adjusts to the industry.
Founders' Values
An effective culture is created through the history it brings with it. The company's culture is first established during its early years through the values held by its founders and the vision they have for the future of the organization. The entrepreneurs who establish the business should clearly lay out the organization's rules, structure of the company and decide on the people they want to work with them. These founder values will then become part of the corporate culture, which in turn helps the organization to succeed. Once these values have been established, they can be passed on to new members within the organization so that everyone is aware about how to best increase the success of the organization.
Industry Demands
Effective organizations can also be created through taking into account industry demands. Companies within the same industry can have very different cultures. Nonetheless, at the same time, industry demands can act as a compelling factor for them to develop some similarities. For instance, companies within the high-tech industry are likely to all have innovative cultures and those within the non-profit arena will be people-centered. As such, an effective change needs to be created by adhering to industry demands that may need companies to adopt certain practices, which inevitably forms a part of the corporate culture. As such, an organizational culture can only be effective if it adjusts to the industry.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Business Succession
The real secret to succession planning is to think beyond a person as successor and think of the business transforming. Evolution is a better framework to think of an organization. We know humans die...organizations can live...if they chose to evolve. A great way to focus on succession planning is to think beyond the individual and frame the discussion on the organization. Here are 4 tips to begin succession planning.
1. Decide what the organization stands for. If it's not clear, then you've discovered one of the first issues to work on. Today all sorts of words are used to formalize this, but the simple and honest answer is what in the world your purpose is. What difference do you make in the lives of customers? What difference do you make in the lives of employees? Search for why the business exists. You may be lucky to still have the founder of the business. Founders are a treasure of soulful purposes why the business started and exists. If you're talking about profit, sales and customers. Try again. A powerful example we share is words from our founders..."to provide, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Search for the words which make you shudder.
2. Make clear what you wish to protect. Succession planning is about choice. If the company were to lose all the assets today...no brick and mortar. What is left? People, values, purpose. Of course the easy and no brain-er is protect assets, protect money. But is that really the answer? You should quake a bit when you've discovered what you wish to protect. Is it honesty, courage, integrity, responsibility? Move over to the soulful side and you'll protect the most important.
3. Assess what's missing now. Before beginning with the job posting, stop and think what is missing? Go deeper and think about what it feels to work in the organization. If you've honestly answered the first two questions, it is very clear what is missing. Beware, profits, sales, efficiency measures are economic measures and only lagging indicators of how the job is getting done. If people are engaged, energized, honest and creative...the economics follow. If economics are struggling. It's the organizational culture.
1. Decide what the organization stands for. If it's not clear, then you've discovered one of the first issues to work on. Today all sorts of words are used to formalize this, but the simple and honest answer is what in the world your purpose is. What difference do you make in the lives of customers? What difference do you make in the lives of employees? Search for why the business exists. You may be lucky to still have the founder of the business. Founders are a treasure of soulful purposes why the business started and exists. If you're talking about profit, sales and customers. Try again. A powerful example we share is words from our founders..."to provide, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Search for the words which make you shudder.
2. Make clear what you wish to protect. Succession planning is about choice. If the company were to lose all the assets today...no brick and mortar. What is left? People, values, purpose. Of course the easy and no brain-er is protect assets, protect money. But is that really the answer? You should quake a bit when you've discovered what you wish to protect. Is it honesty, courage, integrity, responsibility? Move over to the soulful side and you'll protect the most important.
3. Assess what's missing now. Before beginning with the job posting, stop and think what is missing? Go deeper and think about what it feels to work in the organization. If you've honestly answered the first two questions, it is very clear what is missing. Beware, profits, sales, efficiency measures are economic measures and only lagging indicators of how the job is getting done. If people are engaged, energized, honest and creative...the economics follow. If economics are struggling. It's the organizational culture.
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