“The longest march starts with the first step” ~ Mao Tse-Tung

What is a business process?

According to Dan Madison’s 2005 practical guide, “Process Mapping, Process Improvement, and Process Management”, a process is “a group of activities that lead to some output or result.” If we look at it narrowly from a business perspective, these are the steps that inputs traverse and get converted to become some value-added product or service.

It means that we encounter processes every day. Processes are so pervasive that we do not notice them until something goes wrong. So when the utility bill is incorrect and the customer screams, the managers at the utility company realise that something has gone wrong with the process. Typically though, what they do is find someone to blame!

Why are processes important?

Based on the definition of the process, you will realise that, according to Madison, processes are “major components of organisations”. Another important point to note is that “most organisational problems have their root cause in a process”. These are two critical pieces of information for every manager and MBA student to appreciate. If processes are really the main part of what organisations do, and broken processes cause most organisational problems, then it stands to reason that quite a lot of the manager’s time should be used to consider processes. So instead of finding someone to blame for the last error, find the process that needs fixing.

Symptoms of a broken process

Do you need a process improvement guru to start identifying processes that need to be fixed? Of course not! Broken processes practically scream at you, but you still need to train your process ears. Here is a subset of the list of symptoms presented by Madison. Learn these symptoms and you notice how pervasive they are in organisations.

i) Customers are unhappy. Unhappy external customers present the ultimate signal, and that becomes a matter of survival for the organisation. After all, no customers — no company! Issues causing internal customers to be unhappy should be quickly reviewed, since they do show their unhappiness to the external customers.

ii) Some things take too long. Probably documents are getting shuffled around in circles, following the path of a broken process. Process Improvement does not just look at the activity that gets done, but also considers logistics and usage of space. If you are on a ten-story building and a document needs to be processed on the tenth floor, then on the first, then on the tenth, then on the third, then on the tenth… a process review might prevent the document bouncing to the tenth floor so many times.

Sometimes, a transaction should take only a day, “so why on earth does it take three months?!” When you factor in the number of transactions and the number of people assigned to the task, it still just does not compute. Process! There is an interesting case which you can Google and look at (alicia-arnold.com/2012/01/20/creativity-how-right-turns-saved-one-company-3-million/).

UPS, the package delivery company, reviewed their delivery processes and had their drivers make a right turn 90 per cent of the time when traversing their routes (remember, Americans drive on the right). Well, this simple change by itself saved UPS over US$3 million in one year alone! Do not be afraid to save three minutes from a five-minute transaction. Two minutes may seem small, but with 200 transactions that is 400 minutes or nearly one work day saved.

iii) Management throws people and/or money at the problem, but there is no improvement. The supervisor complains that he needs more people to fix the problems. He gets more employees, but the problems do not go away. He gets more money to help the situation, and matters get worse. When a process is really horrible, the more people you add, the worse it will get.

iv) Employees report high frustration levels. This will happen when the workers know that the way they are doing the work is stupid, and they are wasting time doing it the way the manager says it must be done! Most of the time, workers actually doing the work are smart, and know what should be done, if the manager would only listen. Managers who have status and class issues will not benefit from this fact. As a matter of fact, if you read Madison’s textbook, you will notice that one of the methods of sorting out a broken process is to ask the workers who are actually articulating their frustrations. Many times it is their insight that will fix the process!

v) Too many reviews and signoffs. Layering instead of fixing the process and establishing accountabilities is a clear indicator. As I pointed out in last week’s article, the irony is that, based on the realities of human nature, at the end of the day, the results are worse! This gets done a lot, and is even institutionalised in some circles. It seems so ridiculous sometimes. You visit a hardware store and get the receipt. The supervisor stands just beside you near the cashier and has to check your goods and sign the receipt. The security, an arm’s length away, has to repeat the same process. Will that prevent theft and corruption? I maintain that some of these silly processes are implemented just to harass the innocent, while the perpetrators find a simpler way of achieving their own goals.

vi) Complexity, exceptions and special cases are common. Complex processes cause problems. The mantra should be simplify, simplify! Also, when you see increasing occurrences of exceptions to the process rules, these are clear signals that the process needs adjustment.

vii) Managers spend a great deal of time ‘putting out fires.’ This actually is a symptom of many ailments! Time management issues, planning issues… but let us stick to the subject at hand — process issues.

Dr. Kenroy Wedderburn, JP, is a part-time lecturer on the MBA programme at the University of Technology, Jamaica. Send your e-mails to drkwedderburn@gmail.com.

CAPTION

The MBA Forum logo with photo of Kenroy Wedderburn

Putting out fires is a symptom of a broken process.