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HOW TO KNOW IF YOUR PROCESSES ARE WORKING

Reading time: about 8 min

When you think about it, just about everything you do is a process. A process is
simply a series of steps or actions that will give you some kind of outcome. The
steps you take every morning to get ready for your day—your morning routine—is a
process.

And while your morning routine might work well, that doesn’t mean it’s the most
efficient process. There is always room for improvement. For example, maybe
selecting the clothes you want to wear the night before might help to trim a
minute or two from the “get dressed” step of your process.

In this article we’ll discuss some of the things to look for when determining
how well your processes are working. And we’ll give you some steps that will
help you design effective processes.


THE PROCESS OF PROCESS IMPROVEMENT   

There are several different improvement methodologies that can help you to make
your processes more efficient and effective. You’ll need to choose a methodology
that works for you. No matter which methodology you use, the steps below will
help you to develop your process for process improvement.


STEP 1: MAP OUT YOUR CURRENT PROCESS

To begin, you’ll want to choose a process to analyze. It doesn’t have to be a
big process. In fact, the process might be one step of a much larger process.
Starting with a smaller process can help you to gain confidence as you work
toward improving bigger or multi-step processes.

Choose something that bugs you, like a task that you think could be done faster,
or an area where mistakes often occur. 

After you’ve chosen a process to analyze, you need a full understanding of how
the process works. The best way to do this is to create a process map. A process
map is a visual representation of what the process does. The map gives you a
detailed overview of the process and lets everybody understand the flow, who
does what, how it gets done, and when it gets done.

To make the process mapping job easier, try using a Lucidchart template to draw
a BPMN diagram, flowchart, value stream map, or any diagram that helps you
understand the process you want to analyze. These documents can be accessed from
anywhere at any time for real-time collaboration no matter where the members of
your team are located.

Business process map (click on image to modify online)

Being able to visualize the process gives you clarity and lets everybody
involved look at the process objectively from many different perspectives.
Looking at the process from different perspectives helps all stakeholders to
understand how everything fits together. This helps everybody to think through
the workflow so you can see what’s important and needs to stay, what works, and
what needs to be fixed.  


STEP 2: GET FEEDBACK FROM THE PEOPLE INVOLVED

Getting feedback is a great way to determine how well your processes are
working. And it’s a great way for team members to determine how well they are
performing their assigned tasks within the processes. 

Feedback is important because even if they don’t like it, people need to know
how they are doing. Otherwise, they might wander around blindly hoping that the
goal will be reached. And getting feedback from a variety of team members,
managers, and other stakeholders is helpful because they can look at the process
and performance objectively from different perspectives. 

Getting feedback from employees who work with the process every day is important
because it gets them involved and lets them know that their opinions matter.
These are the people who understand the process the best. If they feel like they
are not included, it can lead to pushback and frustration when you try to
implement changes. On the other hand, if you show that you value their input,
they are more likely to execute your changes. 

To get their feedback, you’ll want to ask the people involved questions like:

 * Is the current process efficient for those who perform it?
 * Does the process produce the expected outcome?
   * If not, what needs to change to get the expected outcome?
 * Does the current process have a positive or negative impact on customers? 
   * If the impact is negative, what ideas do you have to fix it? 
   * If the impact is positive, can the task or procedure be applied to other
     processes you plan to analyze?  
 * What is the goal of this process?
 * Is the process aligned with a specific goal?
   * If not, is it necessary? Can it be eliminated?
 * What are the pain points?

As you collect feedback and evaluate current processes, you might want to use a
start, stop, continue template to help you to determine which steps or tasks are
working well and which could use some improvement.

Start, stop, continue example (click on image to modify online)


STEP 3: IDENTIFY HOW LONG EACH STEP TAKES

The idea behind process improvement is to increase efficiency. So you’re going
to need to understand how many tasks, subtasks, and steps there are in the
current process. How long does it take to complete the tasks in each step? 

This information gives you a baseline so you can set goals that will help you to
find and eliminate redundancies, get rid of unnecessary steps and tasks, and
streamline necessary steps. As you develop new processes, this information will
also help you to determine if what you’ve done is actually an improvement. 

If your new process ends up taking a longer amount of time than the original
process, you’re not really improving anything, and you’ll need to do some
further analysis.


STEP 4: DECIDE HOW YOU’RE MEASURING PROCESS IMPROVEMENT SUCCESS

Again, if your goal is to reduce time or eliminate steps, a good measurement
might be the amount of time it takes to complete the process compared to your
current baseline. If the goal is to increase the amount of products manufactured
or the number of customers serviced, your success might be measured against the
output of the current process.

Other measurements could include:

 * How effectively the process meets customer requirements.
 * How reliable the process is in functionality and its capacity to meet supply
   and demand.
 * Does the process reduce or increase the cost of the product or service?
 * Does the process adhere to industry standards and compliance?
 * How well the process uses resources compared to assets consumed.

Whatever you decide to use to measure, success metrics will probably be based on
your reasons for wanting to improve the process in the first place.


STEP 5: DESIGN YOUR IMPROVED PROCESS

Based on your process map, brainstorming sessions, and feedback from everybody
involved, you should have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t. If
you mapped your current process using Lucidchart tools, your team can
collaborate on the changes and get immediate feedback with the in-editor
commenting feature. 

The improvements could include reassigning people to different tasks, adding new
software, acquiring new equipment, hiring new employees, and so on.


STEP 6: TEST THE NEW PROCESS   

You’ll need to test your process before implementing it to make sure it works.
You might want to consider creating a process simulation to see what works and
what doesn’t before the process is put into a real-world situation.

Testing will give you valuable feedback and help you to fix problems before
implementation so that process improvements do not have a negative impact on
current productivity. If the test does not perform as expected or does not
improve on any of the current processes, you’ll need to revise and find what
works best.


STEP 7: COMMUNICATE THE CHANGES AND IMPLEMENT THE NEW PROCESS

When testing is successful in real-world situations, and the process performs as
expected, it’s time to implement the changes. Communication is key in
implementation. You need to let your team know that a change is coming and that
you have a plan for putting the change in place. Nobody likes to be caught off
guard. So if employees understand the plan and know when the change will happen,
everything should run smoothly.

Also, be sure that you have documented everything to ensure that everybody
follows the standard procedure. This ensures consistency and quality of products
and services. And thoroughly documented processes are great for training new
hires and ensuring that everybody understands their roles as they are reassigned
to different areas or given different tasks.


STEP 8: MONITOR AND REVISE AS NECESSARY

After you’ve improved a process, you’re done, right?

Not exactly. Process improvement is an ongoing process. You’ll need to closely
monitor and manage the process to ensure that it works. When you find areas that
can be streamlined or improved, you’ll need to start the process over again.
Don’t worry, it will be easier the second time around because most of the work
is already done for you. You will likely only need to revise current flow charts
and maps as you determine where changes should be made.

Not sure where to start with process mapping?



Learn more here


ALEC SHARP, SENIOR CONSULTANT AT CLARITEQ, OFFERS ADVICE FOR PROCESS
IMPROVEMENT.

Read more


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