November 2007
Bottom Line Process Improvement
By Toni
Roldan
Win Win Workplace Consultant
Organizations are always looking for ways to become more efficient, to produce more, and to keep clients satisfied. An area that always merits consideration is process review and improvement. When looking to make changes to your process, know what you want the end result to be; that is, how will you know that the processes you've defined are contributing to the success of your organization?
- Is it a reduction in production time for your product or service?
- Is it better quality?
- Is it savings on salary due to reduced touch-points or better hand-offs?
- Is it higher client satisfaction?
- Is it reduced costs?
Without an understanding of what the ultimate goals are you could end up making changes with no return on value.
When you define or change your processes it is worthwhile to delve deeper. In addition to laying out your workflows, also note the time (in hours) and duration (in days) that it takes to complete each task. This will expose those areas where your workflows are stagnant or where functions aren't moving as efficiently as they should. Set your expected targets for each of these tasks so that you can evaluate how well your organization is performing.
Fortunately, this is not a one-shot pass over. If you find that what you've put in place is not working, then you have opportunities to re-evaluate. A good idea is to build a process review cycle into your organization's overall plan. Will you evaluate your processes once per year, bi-yearly, or more frequently? This will help you to grow with your organization.
Ideally, processes change when your organizational structure changes, when new systems are implemented, as growth goals are defined, and as industry best practices and competitors raise the bar. The end result will be more satisfied clients, organizational consistency, and better time-to-market for your product or service.