I am looking to put together some short sessions to gather the current process knowledge of a small team to then analyse it against the required level of process knowledge as the team have strayed away from the original process that was outlined in training and as a result the quality of work is getting weaker. I am just wanting some guidance if possible as to how to get the sessions running effectively if anyone has any best practises they could share?? Thank you.
Joanne Hord
3 Responses
Process outcomes?
The process mapping bit caught my eye here. It’s a key part of an approach to process and quality improvement known as Six Sigma, something I have been involved with for a number of years.
It would help to know what your intended outcome is –
is it to have the original process being followed by the team, or
is it to get to the root causes of why the original process is not being followed, and to address that first (with the possibility of ending up with a changed or even new process)?
This will give me a steer – otherwise I’d be tempted to overload you with information and tools!
Response to Martin
Hi Martin, thank you for your response. The process its self if quite new as the team and contract is new to the business. Since the process was first put in place there has been a number of minor changes which may not have been communicated effectively accross the team creating inconsistency. We therefore need to identify the correct process to follow.
an approach that worked
I recently worked with a client in the financial services industry who had a similar issue..people were not following the “proper” process and this was causing problems. The manager had tried to explain the procees but had not achieved any improvement.
We ran a session to actually map the process graphically (previously thay had only had a prose procedure manual) this clarified the process as it should run. (This took about 40 minutes) Then we selected points on the process that were relatively “unimportant” as opposed to the big obviously critical tasks and decisions. We assessed the Downstream Impact of these selected activities if they were either not done or done poorly or done late. We considered the impact on all the stakeholders in the chain. (This took about an hour)
The effect of this was quite remarkable as people realised that a job that “could be done by a trained monkey in 10 minutes” could cause so much havoc if the intelligent human being who was tasked with it didn’t do it well.
I hope this helps…if you want more detail please call
Rus