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Simplicity – How Complex are your Business Processes?

7/25/2023

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Over time, business processes can become increasingly burdensome as companies accommodate changes in the business. Change is good if it supports changing customer needs, but how often do companies make changes because of internal pressure?
 
After eliminating bureaucracy, removing non-value added activities, and avoiding duplication, the next improvement technique focuses on simplifying the business processes. Simplification, or streamlining, means reducing or eliminating the complexity of an activity in a business process so that the process becomes easier to understand and more efficient to implement.
 
Companies can act as their own worst enemy, causing business processes to become bloated by continually adding complexity–a little at a time, so no one notices the build-up. To simply a process, begin by evaluating each step in the business process and define how to simplify each one, eliminating any unnecessary handoffs, and identifying the process owner. When a business process spans multiple departments though, how do you define the process owner of the end-to-end process? The answer is whoever has accountability for the results.
 
The simpler you make the business process, the easier you can tell what’s working and what does not meet the customer needs.


#BPI #BusinessProcess #ProcessImprovement #leansixsigma #process

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The “Efficiency” Component of Business Process Improvement

7/18/2023

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The objectives of business process improvement are to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and adaptability of a company’s business processes. While effectiveness relates to delivering what your customer or client cares about, efficiency addresses how to save time and resources when administering the business processes.
 
Efficiency affects the employees responsible for the overall process, the workers in a department or departments, and how easily they can use the business process. When you reduce the amount of time it requires to accomplish a task, whether by eliminating bureaucracy or improving cycle time, you are on your way to freeing up your employee’s time and realigning your resources to work on more value-added work. 
 
To eliminate bureaucracy, ask your team if an activity supports a statutory, auditory, legal, or tax requirement. If not, eliminate it. Sounds easy? It is not, especially when it comes to audits. If a task supports a government requirement, you cannot simply remove it, but do push back on audits because most companies audit too much.
 
Validate the reason for the audit and do not act surprised when someone tries to make it sound critical. Whenever I challenged an audit, most managers made it seem as if the world would fall apart if they eliminated an audit. After much challenging on my part, the majority of my clients faced reality and decided they could eliminate (or significantly reduce) the specifics of an audit or the number of audits performed. Ask how much an error would cost and balance the answer with how many hours employees dedicate to an audit.



#BPI #BusinessProcess #businessprocess #processimprovement #leansixsigma
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Business Process Improvement Brings Change

7/5/2023

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Does your company want to improve their business processes? Of course, right? Who doesn’t want to make their processes more effective and efficient? You want to deliver what customers want. You want to do so in the most efficient way. You want to be on the leading edge of the revolution. Or do you?
 
Many people say they accept the notion that change is the norm and they embrace it. Of course, that is what companies expect their employees to say. After all, we have heard for years, the only constant is change. But, how far have we really come as human beings to accepting this concept? Change is good as long as it does not negatively affect me, is probably the honest answer. How many of you can honestly say you hunger for change? Real change. Change that affects you personally? Even positive change disrupts your day-to-day life. While the theory sounds good, the reality challenges our private world.
 
Change though is inherent in business process improvement (BPI), so when you lead a BPI effort, prepare yourself for the natural angst you will observe from some employees in your organization. Your role in leading BPI is to display sensitivity and not take pushback personally. Recognize human behavior and know some employees place much of their personal value on their job. Listen to employees talk and explain how the changes will help the company remain competitive, which helps them retain a job in the end.
 
#BPI  #BusinessProcess #processimprovement #continuousimprovement

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