All Categories - Books by Susan Page

The Power of Storytelling in Business Process Improvement (BPI) Work

10/9/2023

I worked for The Walt Disney Company for twenty years and one thing you always heard about was the power of storytelling. After all, that is what Disney is all about, right?

In business process improvement efforts though, too often you encounter a bored audience. Change that by telling a story.

I compare step 2 in my approach to BPI to storytelling. This is where you establish the foundation (or create a blueprint), which equates to telling a story…one a team has to build together.

Using the scope definition document allows all employees to understand the key responsibilities of the business process and what customers want and expect from the process. It also outlines the challenges that exist in the existing process. Discussing this baseline information with the project team at the start of the first meeting allows everyone to have input and assists the team in coming to a common understanding of the business process. As a result, everyone can tell the same story.

And, when you involve others in developing and/or approving the scope of the business process, it causes all parties to better respect and honor any agreements made.

After completing the scope definition, think of yourself as a tour guide and tell others the story encompassed in the document. Do not bore people, but rather bring the process to life.

#BPI #businessprocess #processimprovement #process #leansixsigma

Employee Engagement is Key when Using Technology to Improve Business Processes

8/23/2023

Technology makes life easier right? Technology supports improving business processes by making them more efficient and increasing customer satisfaction right? Does technology give us a better work-life balance?

I wrote a few years ago how employees intellectually understand the importance of improving business processes, but sometimes they become hesitant when the work actually begins. They realize their world will change–the way they do things will change, the tools they use may change, and who they interact with may change.

For this reason, the human side of BPI is important. Things changed because of the pandemic and employees changed how they work. Technology’s importance rose as companies tried to keep things moving. And, while employees appreciate technology, it has to benefit them too–not just the business.

As you begin to redesign your business processes, do not forget to ask employees about bureaucracy and ask them to identify barriers stopping them from meeting customer needs. Strive to understand how employees interact with each other and with customers. Then, see if technology can help improve those interactions. Do not just assume technology solves everything.

#BPI #businessprocess #processimprovement #process #leansixsigma

Business Process Improvement AFTER the Pandemic

8/9/2023

The pandemic is over. Employees are returning to the office. Things are returning to normal. Really?

I wonder if things will ever return to the way it was before the pandemic. Many employees enjoy working from home and managers developed more comfort with that scenario during the pandemic. Of course they did not have any choice for a while, but what about now? Well, from the people I talk to, many employees do not necessarily want to go back to the office, but some companies insist.

As I said before, change is a constant. Once change happens though, it becomes harder to rewind. Establishing business processes that support remote working can help retain valuable employees; and provide a wider pool of candidates to select from for future openings. Think about employee efficiency and how to support the idea of remote employees. Happy employees deliver effective processes, which support customer satisfaction.

Review your company’s business processes with the filter of remote workers. Think of the talent pool that could open up to you? Processes can bring structure and enable all employees to operate under the same rules no matter where they work, but perhaps in a healthier environment.

As a manager, if you feel uncomfortable with employees working from home, ask yourself “why?” Do you have a trust issue? If so, that is a totally different issue to address.

#BPI #BusinessProcess #Processimprovement ##process #leansixsigma #continuous improvement

Simplicity – How Complex are your Business Processes?

7/25/2023

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

The “Efficiency” Component of Business Process Improvement

7/18/2023

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

Business Process Improvement Brings Change

7/5/2023

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

What Does the Customer Value?

6/28/2023

Do all the steps in your business processes add value to your customer? Would they pay for a step if they knew it existed?

When you work on improving your business processes, ask this question. Step 6 involves applying a series of improvement techniques to a company’s existing business processes. One of the techniques, value added, requires you to examine the steps included in a business process and eliminate any step that does not add value to the customer.

This can surface political issues because an internal partner may cling to a particular step for a variety of reasons, but if you focus on the step’s contribution to the customer and the bottom line, it is hard to go wrong. Of course, this goes back to customer needs and how well you understand those needs.

Always ask, would the customer pay?

#BPI #BusinessProcess #processimprovement #leansixsigma #continuousimprovement

Consider Customer Needs Your North Star

6/19/2023

When a process does not work, you may hope it will get better on its own or that the problem will simply go away. Can you put out the fire and move on to the next problem? Unfortunately, there is no quick fix to improving business processes. Unless you spend the time uncovering the root cause, nothing will change. You may temporarily stop the pain, but it will not last for long.

And try not to blame employees, which is a great way to kill any business process improvement (BPI) effort. When a department stops performing at the desired level, ask what has changed. Have customer needs increased, do you have changing priorities, has the competition for your product or service increased, or is it another business impact? Priorities continually change as a business stabilizes and evolves. Products and services have to change to keep pace with the competition.

Customer needs have a way of increasing over time – the bar continues to rise as you meet existing needs. Consider thinking about customer needs as your company’s North Star; let those needs guide you throughout any BPI effort.

Engage employees around customer needs and involve them in any process improvement effort. Let them know you are not pointing your finger in their direction, but rather looking at how you can collectively improve the process to keep customers engaged and committed to your product/service line. Position customer needs as your North Star. Directionally, you cannot go wrong.

#BPI #Business Process Improvement #Customer Needs #processimprovement

Painting a Vision for Business Process Improvement

6/13/2023

Engaging employees in a BPI effort can appear daunting. We know most people do not like change, so how do you encourage employees to help change your company’s business processes? Telling them it’s good for the customer, while true, may not speak to them emotionally. Create a vision for the work that speaks to the emotional side of employees.

But how do you do this? This does not mean writing a vision statement and posting it on the wall. It means verbally describing the end state with words that help employees mentally “see” the future. Do you see the difference in these two statements?

After we improve this process, our company will experience a 20% decrease in customer complaints.
After we improve this process, our customers will send us testimonials, will follow us on Facebook, and will write positive reviews of our product on Amazon.

The first statement provides a quantitative statement that addresses the analytical side of an employee’s brain, while the second statement paints a picture that an employee can visualize.

Combine both analytical statements and descriptive statements when beginning a process improvement effort to effectively engage employees.

Align Business Processes to Customer Value

5/24/2023

Do your employees know what your customers value? Yes, you say. Are you sure?

Customer needs and what they value change. Did you see any changes to your customer’s needs during the Covid crisis? Part of continuous improvement includes reevaluating your customer’s needs to make sure your processes continually deliver what they value.

Empower your employees to think about how they do their work and allow them to align their work processes with customer value. Strive to ingrain process improvement into your company’s culture. While culture is one of the hardest things to change in a company, and it won’t happen overnight, think of the power of all employees feeling responsible for process improvement to achieve customer satisfaction. It might just become part of your company’s DNA.

And what is technology’s role in this discussion? Every year technology changes and it just keeps getting better and better. It can contribute significant savings if you have solid business processes in place that support the customer.