Is process improvement a noun or a verb in your company?

Or why do dedicated process improvement initiatives fail to deliver to expectations?

Your company seeks efficiency gains, profitability and productivity goals that require process improvement skills within the organisation. To achieve these goals, they assign Process Improvement titles, or create a dedicated department to achieving this.

As much as allocating a budget may be a demonstration of commitment and desire to achieve an outcome, in my experience that kind of approach to change can hinder, even become a significant barrier to realising consistent, long term benefits.

An example of best intentions:

To achieve a corporate objective of ‘customer first’, a business process improvement task force was established to undertake priority projects highlighted through employee feedback surveys. A wink towards Kaizen principles, this project successfully eliminated bureaucracy with essential back-office admin tasks around new project set-up. Significant improvements were made by this team with simplification of cross-departmental processes, clarification of roles and responsibilities. A KPI of 24hrs turn-around invoked, enabling the business to refocus back on the primary objective - their customer. Tick!

After only a few months, independent of the business improvement taskforce, back-office functions were offshored and a shared-services function introduced to deliver cost savings. Implemented following the old methods of doing things, the processes established by the task force were re-designed - yet again. Predictably, confusion around procedures, roles and responsibilities created delays. Communications between departments stopped, silos developed, processes became overwhelmed in bureaucracy and back-office admin tasks took longer than previously experienced, further compounding business frustrations and taking focus away from the customer once again.

If an organisation doesn’t know its history, it’s doomed to repeat it

Continuous improvement models operate at the organisational level. Sustaining the benefits of change is the most difficult part of any program. What was missing from the above example was a cohesive leadership plan. There was a limited experience in tactical project skills and a lack of formal process to improve and sustain effective change. Without adopting a process of reviewing lessons learned when commencing a project, significant changes within a company involving re-organisation, re-structuring and re-engineering can be self-defeating.

The need to improve is a continuous cycle of evolution for any company. It makes sense therefore, that focused initiatives championed by the workforce build experience. This experience with implementing successful change can flow through the organisation, strengthen skills beyond the dedicated change team and create the flexibility to adapt quickly if required by the wider workforce. By setting up process improvement as isolated initiatives, the bigger picture is often lost, organisational goals fail to be achieved as cross-departmental benefit opportunities are missed or adversely impact other departments.

Why continuous process improvement cultures are worth the investment

Leadership need to be engaged and work as a team towards the same goals with a shared mindset. That creates a shared accountability in achieving the same goals. Leadership must be able to articulate where to, how and why without negatively impacting other business functions.

A business is an organic system and Internal Project Portfolio Management ensures a coordinated approach to change, alignment and prioritization. The development of Project Management skills means there will be a budget focus on implementation. With appropriate levels of project governance, project definition and oversight, change projects can measure the impact of process simplification and workflow improvement projects in terms of corporate goals, and not by a criteria that is purely budgetary.

Develop and embed Change Management skills, such as teamwork and collaboration, in organisational culture. Project planning methodology will then remove departmental silos, standardise accountability across the company, and ensure continuous improvement efforts remain effective. As ideas emerge and are shared from within the existing workforce, employees become empowered, creating motivation and ownership to improve and sustain change. The mindset changes from a disengaged 'let it happen', to an engaged 'make it happen'.