Existing processes in an organization are often established informally, almost impromptu (ad-hoc) by the people closest to the work in order to get the immediate need fulfilled for the customer. Operational work is often broken down into functional silos (into their most simple tasks).  Hand-offs occur between the functional departments to get work done but to ensure quality delivery of the service, care must be taken in monitoring and reassembling the tasks upon delivery to the customer.  Incremental improvement to these existing processes is like “paving cow paths” (Michael Hammer - Reengineering the Corporation).  Incremental improvement is not a bad thing if the desired improvement is only 5-10%. 

But if real change is desired to, for example, set up the company for exponential growth, a wholesale review of all processes with a “starting over” attitude is required.  New standard core processes are needed which are scalable for operational growth.  A highly effective organization aligns its objectives to those of the established core processes.  Developing core processes requires input from a few key subject matter experts who know the products, the customer, and the current processes.  Aligning objectives to core processes gets everyone “pulling on the same oars”.  Lack of process alignment is the largest cause of unnecessary conflict and waste within an operation. 

I recently proposed to a healthcare technology company, just the 1st phase of a reengineering process effort which touches only the beginnings of the journey towards creating a highly effective organization.  It was to provide the company with a foundation for change in processes by completing the first phase.  It also provided an opportunity for the company to get to know me, my work ethic, communication and management style,.  Admitedly, it also gave me an opportunity to assess the company's personnel and their openness to change, their willingness to work hard to make their customers more satisfied, and for me to have an opportunity to meet some of the company's customers. 

The proposal was accepted and a limit on the number of hours per week was established to help the company stay within budget.  At the end of the project the customer received detailed process documentation on one particular area of their software implementation processes and they also received my help in establishing a better tool for managing and tracking their implemenation projects.  This set the stage for more effective implementation project review meetings which were taking over 2 hours each week and now took under an hour.  It also provided the foundation for measuring key steps of the software implementation and training process. 

Next, I'll write more about the findings.