The end of the Business-IT schism…
This partnership has the capacity to improve processes, eliminate waste, increase productivity and make your organisation worth working for.
So why is it so neglected?
The COO-CIO Partnership
June 14th, 2009Disaster! Rectified…
June 14th, 2009My sincerest apologies…!
I found out today that this blog has been seriously messed up since early April. It’s now fixed.
Stephen
A Qualitative Difference…
June 14th, 2009There is a qualitative difference between:
Check – Plan – Do
and
Understand – Assess – Improve
Check – Plan – Do is an arm’s length approach. It is an outsider looking in and ideal as a model for a consultant. It falls into the same category as DMAIC and PDCA. All treat your organisation as an entity separate from yourselves.
Understand – Assess – Improve describes inner work. It is the standpoint of someone within the organisation and is better suited to organisations improving their processes.
Both models involve the same type of work.
The qualitative difference is in the way the work is described, the words you use to engage your colleagues in the work to be done.
Systems, Processes, Productivity and Waste
June 14th, 2009One of the big problems we face in this whole business of process improvement and organizational change is a lack of sound definitions. Here are our working definitions.
Everyone is talking about “systems thinking”. So a system is an interdependent collection of processes, activities and entities. The crucial aspect is that all the components have interdependent relationships.
We’ve all managed to get systems and processes mixed up, so a process is the means by which a system delivers value to its clients. It is, in essence, a repeatable project.
Productivity is a hot topic. So we are productive when our processes deliver something of value to a client, when the client wants it, at a price the client agrees.
And everyone wants to eliminate waste. So let’s just say that every activity performed in your organisation that is not productive, is waste.
Finally, projects. The only project worth running is one that increases a process’ productivity.
Your organisation is a system that delivers value through its processes. Your processes are productive if they deliver value and contain waste if there is work done that does not create value for your client. You use a project to remove the waste and create an atmosphere of ongoing process improvement…
What do you think?
The Difference between Frameworks and Tools
June 14th, 2009Too often a framework is used as a tool.
And all that does is confuse the issue. A framework is tool-neutral. A tool can (usually) be used within any framework.
So why the confusion?
Why RIGHT NOW is the best time for improvement!
April 3rd, 2009The single biggest issue suffered by process improvement and change management projects is access to your people. They are…
- too busy
- too stressed
- in meetings
- out of town
- on leave
Any of which mean that you cannot get the expertise you need when you need it. And that creates delays.
What happens during an economic downturn?
Your people
- are less busy
- are probably less stressed
- have fewer meetings
- are in town
- are perhaps working fewer hours, so don’t need to take leave.
All these mean just one thing. Your experts are available to work ON your business rather than running around working IN your business.
Process improvement and change management mean working ON your business. And right now is the ideal time to be doing so.
If you have a process improvement project you’ve been putting off, start it today!
Detached from reality?
March 10th, 2009After more than a decade in this process modelling / change management field, I’m becoming more and more convinced that process modelling is increasingly detached from reality.
Business processes, activities and so forth are abstractions. Necessary but not sufficient, to coin a phrase. And they form the launching pad for IM process modelling.
But all these models ultimately relate to the work done by people!
Procedures and operations are describing real work done by real people and it is in this area that the greatest benefit can be found. If you take the waste out of the procedures, organisational processes, then you can make real “bottom-line” improvements without spending any capital. You can then “pull” the necessary IT support to the work, rather than adapting the work to the application.
And if you have an in-house development team, application development time is dramatically reduced because you’re starting with clean processes that have been derived by the people who do the work. So the changes to the processes are sustainable.
Maybe it’s just the circles in which I move but this approach is rare. What do you see?
Is your Change Initiative in synch with your Value Proposition?
February 28th, 2009If you made cheese, would you try to improve your processes using techniques from the forestry industry?
According to Treacy and Wiersema, The Discipline of Market Leaders, every organisation offers value in one of three ways:
- Operational excellence – best price
- Product Leadership – best product
- Customer Intimacy – best solution
each of which has its own rules or operating model.
But it strikes me that most, if not all, process improvement or organisational change initiatives are based on transactional improvement, or value chains. Appropriate for only organisations that create value through operational excellence.
How can change be safe if it’s based on the wrong value discipline?
Can Change be Managed?
February 7th, 2009We say not!
The idea of managing change comes from a mechanical / IT perspective. That is, you make a plan that involves changing something, adding to it or removing part of it, and then you “manage the change”.
It depends on how you “model” your organisation. And we think that your organisation is best modelled as a system to help identify the value adding flows.
But it is not a system in the sense of a technical or IT system. So the management of it must be different…
Managing a technical system relies on deterministic thinking, cause and effect. This leads to change management.
Managing a system that contains people must allow for development, human development. Leave that out and you will model your people as mere resources, packets of competence, to be moved around as you would a piece of machinery.
When it comes to organisational change, the “things” are people. And people don’t particularly enjoying being added to or having bits removed – or being removed themselves from the organisation…
People need development, otherwise they stagnate.
Further, it seems to me that much change is undertaken simply to give the impression of progress.
You know, “if we’re seen to be doing something then we must be taking action”.
Trouble is, the action taken disrupts people’s lives: jobs are lost, instability is introduced into the organisation, people start looking out for themselves, customer service suffers. And another restructuring takes place…
It reminds me of the quote attributed to Petronius.
“We trained hard … but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.”
And that means that any change needs to be brokered.