12/27/2008
Step 4: Think flow To summarize the arguments of the first three steps: The major disease of modern organizations is in their design and management. If we want to achieve a quantum leap in performance, we have to be prepared to change the way we think. In Step 1, Be prepared to change the way you think, I exposed the problems associated with designing and managing organizations as top-down functional hierarchies. In Step 2, Think outside-in, we began to look at the organization in a better way, from the outside-in. In Step 3, Think capabilities, we looked at the idea of organizational capability – what is predictable about what is happening between you and your customers? If you conducted the exercises as suggested you will have a diagram of the transactions with your customers and at each point of transaction, reliable data about what is currently happening. We will take this further, as we now move from the ‘what’ to the ‘why’.
Figure 1 Flow tells you why Capability tells you the ‘what’ of performance; flow tells you the ‘why’. Many organizations claim to be working on their processes or flows, but the question I always find myself asking is how have they decided their focus? In many cases I find people simply re-defining their functions as processes, resulting in improvement work that doesn’t improve very much, if anything. If you have completed the previous exercises you will be in the most effective starting place for defining your processes. Your core processes are defined by the transactions with your customers – how the work flows end-to-end to deliver your current capability. Any other process is a support process – it should be supporting what is done in the core processes. In most organizations there are a plethora of functions – Human Resources, Finance, Information Technology and so on whose only purpose should be to help the core processes work better. Their contribution should be measured that way – a challenge to some. Often the policies adopted by these functions (for they are seen as functions rather than processes), interfere with the flow of work. We return to this issue in system conditions, Step 5 – Think System. Define your core processes The next activity is to define your core processes. In order to help you avoid the pitfall of taking internal, functional perspective, remember: · The focal point for a systems view is always the customer – outside-in. · The process must be viewed from end to end – from the point that the customer makes the demand to the point where the customer’s need is fully met. |