PROFILE: Improving performance and agility

The role of business processes…

All businesses, in whatever the state of development and maturity will use business processes to deliver services and goods to their customers. These processes evolve over time as companies and public bodies become more mature, complex with embedded fixes for problems in the past and are conducted with implicit rules by front line staff. In the case of public bodies they are constantly impacted by changes in government policy also.

Documenting processes is seen as a painful process, because it takes a long time, involves a wide variety of staff and requires a number of tools to document the outcomes. Businesses are driven to provide this document ation for certification, supporting work instructions and training materials and in some sectors this documentation is a differentiator for winning contracts or demonstrating good public services. However senior management still consider this activity low added value.

In manufacturing it has long been recognised that viewing, reviewing and streamlining processes is the key to improving quality, customer service and reducing costs. A number of key tools and techniques have been developed around this requirement, such as TQM, Six Sigma and the 5S for example. Manufacturing processes tend to be very visible and as a result can be more easily visualised and subsequently transferred into words and diagrams. Also use of visual aids and problem solving techniques is well understood.

Applying these sort of techniques to public bodies and back office functions, such as finance or HR, and creative functions such as engineering or project management is much more difficult. So how do we raise the value of documenting business processes in the mind of senior executives, make the exercise more fulfilling for those engaged in it and speed up the process of documentation and review?

Why and what is Modelling?

So why should business managers be interested in process modelling? ‘Surely this is only relevant for certifying our operations?’ It is fact that most errors and inefficiencies are due to the way work is performed rather than due to the person performing it. By mapping and documenting the business process it is possible to analyse where improvements can be made, identify the correct balance of work and where to apply controls. It is also a fact that the longer the time it has been since businesses have been reviewed, the less streamlined and poor performing they are.

The statistics are that after 18 months there is 25% waste introduced into a process and within 5 years this has grown to 70%.

So how would each management level within a business use a process map? They all need different views of the business and a flat single level flow chart of the end to end business process will not provide this. For example the C band executives will require a very high level overview of the entire business showing how the Core business processes deliver the business and how they contribute to the strategy. If the Balanced Scorecard is used to articulate the strategy, then this will require targets to be set for the key business processes.

Middle management will require a more detailed drill down showing handovers between functions and how the cross-functional needs of business delivery to customers can be in conflict with departmental objectives or how poor handovers can affect downstream performance. They also need to understand how business policy as applied to their processes impacts performance.

Front Line staff require a fully detailed step-by-step, model of the process, showing the tasks, who does the work and how it should be done and how to get to work instructions, particularly for more periodic processes that are not day to day activities.

Making the Business Process Model the Centre of Day-to-Day Business

Once the business model is complete, it should be deployed for access by the entire business. By deploying the model to all staff a number of objectives can be achieved including knowledge transfer, continuous process improvement and increased business agility. The key to success will be the reuse of that work. There are many opportunities to do this namely:

–          Organisational design, such as introducing new departments.

–          Due diligence over mergers and acquisitions.

–          Setting realistic process performance measures.

–          Identifying role requirements, supporting competency definition and resource planning.

–          Supporting business improvement initiatives and the application of technology.

–          Supporting internal audits for security and segregation of duties, and quality certification such as ISO.

–          Training of staff who are new hires or promotions.

This represents a significant benefit to the business and therefore should not be missed. The key to ensuring this, is gaining ownership of the model within the senior executive and functional departmental management and demonstrating immediate benefit.

Gaining ownership will only be achieved by proving the benefit of the approach to those asked to own both processes and outcomes. For process owners to effectively use the business process model on a day-to-day basis, they will need demonstrable benefits of its effectiveness. By designing processes within the model business managers can apply time and cost so that the cost of delivery can be assessed; this might be related to rework loops and the benefit of avoiding them or skill of the person undertaking the activity. If the model is aligned to business KPI’s realistic targets can be set to drive improvements and the removal of ‘waste’; providing the source for ‘lean’ initiatives. Managers must be trained in how to use the model to successfully facilitate process review and internal organisational redesign, i.e. such as moving jobs between incumbents and removing jobs through the application of technology.

Making the model central to training and induction is much easier; by using the model as a ‘how to’ guide for each business role, enabling access through the companies intranet leading to more in depth materials such as written work instructions or SOP’s, or videos of the same. Rapid analysis of roles and job scope is aided by the ‘where used’ report applied to the business role.

Rod Horrocks

CEO and Founder

H3 Partners Ltd

Tel: +44 (0) 777 211 4896

Tel: +44 (0) 845 118 0072

rod@h3partners.co.uk

www.h3partners.co.uk