May 2010
In the last couple of years we have visited a lot of companies to take a glance at their processes. What strikes us was the fact that organizations think that they now their processes. However, which process are they familiar with and is this the right process? Often is referred to the Quality Handbook in which you can find the primary and sometimes secondary processes nicely captured, i.e. as flowcharts. But, is this the real process? From our experience we answer this question with “No!”
In the meantime I’ve led more than 80 workshops with process employees, which we call ‘process inhabitants’. Most of these workshops started with mapping the AS IS of the process. Why? Only then a common understanding of the process by all people involved is reached with all her shortcomings and problems which form the starting-point to think of the TO BE process.
What I noticed was that the process map often looked different and more complex than the process map in the Quality Handbook. This can be the result of the following causes:
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The process map in the handbook is outdated;
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At that time the process was mapped without the involvement of the process inhabitants;
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Only the ‘clean case’ is described; the flow of the process when everything goes as expected;
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No or too little attention was paid describing the exceptions.
In practice, the last two are the most common ones. They also have the most effect on the organization. I will try to explain this with an example.
Imagine that a process consists out of six steps and each of these steps are executed in 80% of the time in the normal (described) way. The other 20% are going slightly different, because it’s a special customer or an order bigger than 100,000 euro. This means that 26% of all customer requests are performed as described (0.80 x 0.80 x 0.80 x 0.80 x 0.80 x 0.80 = 0.26). This means that this organization is busy dealing with exceptions almost 75% of the time. This we call a ‘hidden process’. The collection of all these hidden processes, we call the ‘hidden factory’.
I don’t need to explain that it is very important to get notion of your hidden factory. Only this way a company can produce predictably and can put her time and energy in the real unforeseen exceptions.
During the process workshops I participated, we always focused on the exceptions too: the hidden processes. Mapping the process is therefore best done together with the process inhabitants. Because the process inhabitants know the exceptions in practice, mapping the process is therefore best done together. A useful tool which can support such a workshop is absolutely necessary to make the workshop successful.
ing. Pascal van der Waa
product consultant at ENGAGE
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