Schlagwort-Archive: Process

Abandonment improves the process

Even if we can look back on over twenty years of Business Process Engineering, the business processes are still loaded with activities that waste the scarce means, lead to delays and demotivate the employees. For this reason, there is regularly the need to purge the processes by improving procedures through abandonment.

Prozessoptimierung

In order to facilitate them, the procedures should be available in a documented form. If the appropriate descriptions are missing, one cannot help but to determine the flows with the required details. Already on the highest layer, the process map, possible candidates can be found, e.g. entire areas that can be outsourced. Then, the actual business processes can be scanned for unnecessary process steps by looking at the following aspects.

  • Put the emphasis on core tasks
    Originally, enterprises handled the entire value creation internally, from the steel production, to the finished vehicle. Meanwhile, service providers offer almost all functions as services – from the food supply, to the facility and the vehicle fleet management, to the services of IT and product development.
    In order to align the processes to the core tasks, the strategic core is specified and other functions are outsourced. Only the coordination of external partners remains internally.
  • Simplify activities
    Frequently the procedures are contaminated with old activities that are no longer necessary, e.g. administrating documents or distributing minutes. Since the information is stored electronically, with the appropriate access, the required information is available to the employees at any time.
    The activities can be simplified by constantly using the current IT in various places.
  • Eliminate control tasks
    Depending on the existing culture the processes are filled with controls and rework loops. With the Four Eyes Principle the participants are deprived and the flow is slowed down.
    By dissolving the control tasks, the processes will be faster and the quality of the results increases with the authorized self-control of the participants.
  • Shorten Processes
    The tendency to keep the number of processes small leads to overloaded monsters. Quickly different activities are integrated into one process, e.g. the sales process, the HR process, the development process.
    By looking at the natural breaking points, these monsters can be divided and/or shortened.
  • Delete senseless wasting
    Actually, there are no senseless activities, since there are always unquestionable explanations that show the benefit for the one or the other.
    For this reason all activities should be questioned whether they provide a value-add to the results. If this justification is not comprehensible on an objective basis, the activity should be eliminated without replacement.

Bottom line: Business processes can be designed with less friction loss by abandoning activities. They become faster, obtain better results and give the employees enough time to fulfill the core tasks intently.

Make room for the collaboration

Meetings are considered large time wasters. The more participants, the more difficult it is to obtain a perceptible benefit for the individuals. The attendees escape into the study of documents, the editing of emails or get busy with other things than the actual topic. In order to regain their attention, make room for the collaboration.

Kooperation

For this purpose, the meetings that require practical cooperation can be prepared as workshops. A fruitful session includes the following aspects.

  • Topics
    The subject of the meeting should be clearly described. This includes a meaningful title of the meeting, the description of the purpose and the goals as well as sufficient information, so that the involved ones know what is at issue.
  • Participants
    The selection of the participants should follow the topic and the contribution of the individuals. The clear tasks, authority and responsibility ensure that the attendees can deliver a decisive contribution to the purpose of the meeting.
  • Process
    The procedure shows in advance, which steps, how long and with what results are intended. With an appropriate planning, the activities and an adequate timeframe are determined, in order to ensure that useful results will be obtained.
  • Prerequisites
    The list of conditions should prevent surprises. If individual conditions are not fulfilled, it is reasonable to delay the workshop, until the ability to work is prepared. That way the number of meetings without results is minimized.
  • Workshop organization
    The preparation of the rooms, the materials and the catering as well as the logistics, the overnight accommodations and the supporting program is an important condition for a frictionless meeting. Depending upon the size of the meeting, it is recommended to form a team that takes care of the event. A checklist ensures that nothing is forgotten.

The effort for the preparation increases exponentially with the duration of the meeting. This ensures that the attention remains high throughout the entire period. Short workshops require relatively little effort for the preparation.

P.S.: In the interest of a better use of time, meetings that do not need the personal appearance should be replaced by other communication channels. Indispensable encounters should be transformed into turbo-workshops that deliver concrete results in one hour.

Further leadership tasks are the self-management, the conception, the coordination and the communication.