Oh I know what you’re probably thinking – “Ruth, who are you kidding? Processes are simply more bureaucracy. I get that they can make things more consistent and reduce errors, but they’re also a real pain.”
Fair enough. Let me rephrase then.
Good Processes Can Set You Free!
Better? Of course better! But why is that better?
One of my pet peeves is the notion that processes simply need to be documented (written down, mapped, whatever the format) in order for an organization to say, “we’ve done process improvement.” This is the very notion of poor process culture, and gives good process culture a bad rep. You can very easily map a bad, inefficient, bureaucratic process, and doing so does not make you a process improvement compliant organization or individual. (Click to Tweet)
Did that sound like a rant? Sorry. What I mean is, please don’t judge your processes at work by the mere fact that they’ve been documented.
How Can You Make Sure You Have Good Processes?
Ask yourself the following questions.
- Are our business processes documented and available for people to look at and refer to?
- Have our business processes been reviewed in the last 12 months?
- Do our business processes show roles & responsibilities (via swimlanes, for instance)?
- Do our business processes reflect reality? Or, if asked, would employees who are doing the work say “we haven’t done it that way for years”?
- Do our employees roll their eyes when they have to follow our business processes? Do they feel the processes are a waste of time and bureaucratic?
- Are there people in our organization who are negatively impacted by our business processes?
If you said “no” to any of these, then you have some work to do. Contact us. We’ll help set you free.
Until next time,
Ruth