Improve My Business

Process Mapping should be the foundation for any initiative to increase the performance of your company. Whether you are trying to achieve cost reductions, increased quality, higher employee satisfaction, increased efficiency, decreased wastes, or improvements in any other company performance metric, you should start your initiative with process mapping. To show the importance of process mapping let’s start with an example we can all relate to, writing a paper.

If you were asked to write a report drawing conclusions about the value of a particular niche in a subject that you weren’t familiar with you wouldn’t start your research with a laser focus on the niche. If you did you would inevitably wind up writing a sub par paper. You wouldn’t have an understanding of the greater context of the subject and your paper would be lacking the depth of understanding that a well written report requires. Sure you may learn everything there is to know about that niche, but how could you draw an accurate conclusion about its value without first understanding how it fits into the overall subject. Most of us, if asked to write this kind of report, would begin by looking at the overall subject and seeing how it fits into everything else around it, then exploring the interactions between the different parts of the subject, then exploring our particular niche. This way, when we draw a conclusion about the value of the niche we have been exploring, we know that the conclusion takes into account how this niche interacts with the broader picture.

Trying to take on an initiative to improve the performance of you company without first going through a process mapping exercise is like trying to write the paper by taking a laser focus on the niche. Before you can try to improve the performance of any one particular area of your company, you first have to understand how each area of your company operates internally and how the different areas interact with one another. This is why process mapping is  invaluable for company performance improvement projects. With a good process map you will understand the ins and outs of each part of your company and how the work that makes your company run gets done. With this understanding you can then focus on improving particular metrics with an understanding of everything that affects that metric and is affected by it.

Targeting a performance metric and taking steps to improve it without having the context of a good process map will inevitably have negative consequences for your business. While you may be able to achieve increased performance in that area you won’t see or understand the organizational cost of those achievements. The goal of improving a performance metric is always to make the company as a whole better, and to do this you have to start from an understanding of how the company as a whole operates, which is precisely what a good process map gives you. Staring with good process mapping gives you the foundation you need to insure that your efforts to improve the performance of you company are achieved and sustained.

Technorati Tags: Business, eliminating defects, improvement, process improvement, process mapping, quality, Streamlining

There is a lot of positive press lately for green initiatives – you know, doing something that not only makes sense from a business standpoint, but is also environmentally friendly? Everything from hybrid cars, to turbine power, to solar cells, is getting some press.

Consider that process improvement is also a tool in the green toolbox – after all, if you are working to become more efficient, that promotes using the minimum… and if you are efficient, you will be more competitive, so you have a better chance of being, and staying, productive in your industry.

The next time that management is considering which green tool to champion, remind them that process improvement is the best green tool since it takes product quality, minimization of resources, employee innovation, and customer satisfaction into account.

Technorati Tags: enviornment, green business, green initiative, process improvement

In this Tech Talk article from the Worcester Business Journal, the author talks about the need to hire folks who understand process improvement, to help bring lasting change to organizations.   Read about it here.

Technorati Tags: process improvement, tech, Worcester Business Journal

When you find an error in your process or system, you should do an analysis of the reason you made that error.  Many times, you may find out that the reason that an error was made is that you don’t have a process - or that the process wasn’t followed (but that’ll be another post…)

So, if you don’t have a process - design one!

HOW do you design a process?  Easy peasy - map the process out.  How do you map a process?  Write down the steps that need to be done in order, try following those steps, then refine it until you’ve got it where  you want it.

Here’s an example:  we rent our Texas beach house out on VRBO and HomeAway. During this time of year, we get a LOT of requests for summer rentals.  The big risk is to rent the place twice for the same night(s) - double booking, so we want to make sure that we have a process in place.  Sure enough, we didn’t have our process in place, and ended up with a double booking this year; luckily, we caught it within an hour of accepting the second booking, so only had to apologize profusely and refund the deposit.  [It would've been MUCH worse if both families had shown up at the beach place expecting to stay for a week!]

So the problem remained - we had double booked.  How to revise our current process?

1. we stopped letting all folks take and make reservations - I am now the linchpin for the reservation process, and although others can check the account and answer queries, I’m the only one who accepts a deposit.
2. We track every reservation and deposit on a spreadsheet - and the process has to be followed in order.  So, a reservation has to be logged in and the calendar dates have to be blocked out before we deposit the money, as an example - to ensure that money isn’t accepted prior to verifying that the calendar is available.  The spreadsheet is sorted by date, so this should ensure that we don’t double-book.
3. Our double check for this is to make a copy of the check or credit card deposit, and to file those by dates  in a paper backup file.  [That's how we found out that we had double booked - the calendar hadn't been updated, but we had a deposit for that week already.]
4. Then, and only then, do we let our guests know that they have secured the reservation and continue the process.

We are hopeful that these tweaks will work for us, but are vigilant to identify possible ‘loopholes’ in the process, and plug them up. This is the essence of effective corrective action - monitoring to ensure that the process design is robust enough to prevent recurrence of the problem.

Have you had a problem, or made an error, and put a process in place to ‘fix’ it?  Post it here or contact me at marymcd@mcdcg.com - I’d love to hear about it!

Technorati Tags: beach home, process design, process improvement, process map

Do you feel overwhelmed with your to-do list? Is it something that can be compartmentalized, or delegated? Consider doing so… here’s some ideas:

1) Can you delegate some of the chores? If you have willing spouse/children, can they handle some of the chores for you? How about neighbors who offer services - petsitting, lawn services, etc. - can you free yourself up sharing the load?

2) Can you hire someone to take over the responsibility full time? First, decide what’s important to you. Second, analyze your calendar. What are you doing that is NOT important to you, but you continue to work on? Third, find someone else to do these tasks for you. In my case, I found a couple of someones, who can each focus on areas that they are strong in. (After all, if I’m trying to be efficient, I should play to my team’s strengths, right?)

3) Can you eliminate the task altogether? I’ve been doing this with my email account - weeding out the information, either unsubscribing, or auto-filing the notes for future reference. I used to subscribe to several ‘gurus’ in the field… now I’ve cut that down to 2 or 3. And only one of those is left in the inbox - the others are filed automatically, bypassing the inbox.

Any of these should help you divide and conquer - let me know which ones work for you!

Technorati Tags: efficiency, email, mcdonald consulting group, process improvement, working smarter