Except you’ve got a problem. Here. Now.
Processes. They’re the last thing to receive attention in your business. Strange, because they’re often the first reason your business fails to deliver. Customers notice when your processes go wrong. Sometimes they’ll tell you. More often, they won’t; instead they’ll tell your other customers, or prospects, or competitors.
Processes are the lifeblood of your organisation. And when they work well, you hardly notice they are there, unless you deliberately review them. You’ll notice when you start to lose customers, or spend too much time sorting things out, after they’ve gone wrong. Later than you should have done, too – I used to be the same!
It is kind of instructive, though, to reflect on many of the things which hit your pile of problems…and how many of them are caused by inadequate or outdated or ill-conceived processes. Or people without the authority to resolve the process issues.
So we’ve compiled a list of ten questions you could ask in an idle moment, when wondering if you need to go through the pain of reviewing your processes. Before the problems they cause hit your desk; your profits; your reputation; and your client list. Partly to draw them to your attention; partly because in our view, people rarely think of them. Until too late…
1. Am I spending too much time fixing problems and fighting fires?
The most frequent complaint of all business owners or leaders and managers. Too much time spent doing the stuff that someone else should be doing. If they knew how; or if they had the authority.
So an insurance claims department had amassed a huge (and growing) backlog of incomplete claims authorisations, resulting in customer complaints – which under FSA regulations meant a large amount of management time spent in resolving issues. It transpired that the manager liked to sign everything off herself, despite having highly qualified and very competent staff. Simply delegating responsibility, and sample checking approvals, led to the backlog being cleared within three weeks.
2. Are your processes aligned to your business strategy and objectives?
Easy to say; tough to even consider. Most times, organisations don’t immediately link the two, beyond their immediate service or product. Yet when they are out of kilter, processes will hinder your strategy. Witness an insurance broker I worked with, where they had decided to enter the ecommerce market, but the processes they put behind their whizzy new product… were the same as the offline process. And so sales were sluggish, because customers were expecting something more akin to buying a commodity on the net rather than an advisory based service where the quality of advice was critical.
3. Have you considered the impact of organisation business structure changes?
There are periods in the life of every business where the structure changes. That could be the result of an acquisition, or the hire of a new management team – or even the amalgamation of two departments into one, to save costs or to improve quality. So, one business I worked with decided to merge the administration departments of their branches into the main office. However, for political reasons, one part of that merger was postponed. So processes were not handed off between departments working together for the first time, and as a result customers were passed between departments, and the lack of cohesion between the sales and technical teams caused real dissatisfaction. So the original objectives of improved quality and reduced cost were missed. Completely…
4. Is there any duplicated effort in your process?
Where a number of people within an organisation or even a team, carry out the same processes / tasks – and consolidation or removal can save time and reduce error. So, one client ran the same process twelve times, because no-one had considered a way to reduce that effort. One hour explaining the merge function within Word, and a couple of hours training people in the process, meant that the process could be run once. Overnight. Saving one man-day a month in wasted effort.
5. Do you have manual processes which could actually be automated?
Very many processes haven’t been reviewed for so long that staff (and managers) haven’t considered whether there is software that can do the job. So, one client of mine implemented a new CRM system which incorporated a series of workflow steps – effectively passing on the tedious and time-consuming process of calendar entries, diary reminders, or effective customer communications.
Another client had several manual processes to manage their induction process for new members of staff. Half a day spent automating their HR system workflow led to several hours savings, and much reduced room for embarrassment when things were incomplete when someone turned up for their first day.
6. How often do your people have to do the job again?
A common theme caused by a number of factors, often primarily a result of poor training, and poor management practice. Staff are often asked to perform a task without having received any training. I have seen organisations use the last person in to train the next person in…imagine the difference in procedures between those who designed them, and those most recently joining. One business ended up with roughly the same process being completed in different orders, meaning duplication or omission of steps in a process.
Similarly, staff who haven’t been given an awareness of the whole process, sometimes don’t realise the impact of short-cuts or mistakes they make, further down the line.
I’m constantly amazed that people don’t have the time to do the job right, but can always find the time to do the job again!
7. Is everything in your process necessary?
I’ve borrowed this from LEAN, a process used by manufacturing businesses to make sure that they eliminate waste – there is potential for eight different types of waste in processes. I won’t list them all…suffice to say that often processes involve unnecessary approvals, or documents, or steps.
So, a law firm I worked with had their finance manager spend Friday afternoon compiling a cash summary for the Executive Committee to review. Except that they didn’t because the report didn’t give them the information needed. A short conversation with both parties led to a simpler form being designed, and then produced automatically using a report-writing programme – sent directly to the Inbox of the individuals concerned. Everyone won.
8. Are you doing things which actually fall outside your area of expertise?
A pretty standard complaint of many business owners or executives is that they are spending time doing the things they either know little about, or don’t do well. Or both. So why do I see these same people getting involved in marketing or HR or design or IT.
Often, I’m told, this is to save costs. Except it doesn’t really save the opportunity cost. Is the owner/leader spending his evenings working instead of getting downtime, or making costly decisions… I’ve seen this mostly where HR decisions are made, resulting in unfair dismissals – and much more cost than could ever be saved…
9. Do you even have a Procedures Manual?
A lack of standard processes. How do you even know whether people are doing the job right for the customer, or the business – or are they doing it for their own convenience… Makes training and supervision – and critically, quality control, much easier if there are standard procedures.
When I put in ISO, most businesses see an immediate benefit from everyone doing the same processes, in the same order. An immediate reduction in complaints is often an immediate benefit.
10. Are my process costs high…or not?
When did you last benchmark your processes, and speed to deliver. When did you last review your processes with the information necessary to know whether they were a problem, or not – cost effective, or not.
There are so many ways to review processes that not doing so is inexcusable. With the current climate, cost management has to be important. Quality services or products have to be delivered. Cashflow has to be managed. Owners and leaders have to focus on the big things.
But don’t categorise ‘process’ as annoying hindrances or necessary evils. Act. Before it’s too late…
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