How to Pop a Process Bubble

This morning, as I drove into the street where I park my car, I was faced with a large garbage truck blocking the street (and of course, as garbage trucks are magically immune to the rules of the road, he was driving the wrong way down a one-way street). So I found myself having to sit stationary with my left indicator on in a very busy Sydney CBD street, waiting for the truck to leave the street.

Behind me, cars slowly started to back up with their indicators on. Then cars coming round the corner who wanted to go straight on got stuck in the queue. The first car behind me could see the garbage truck blocking the street, but the other cars behind me could not. It was only a matter of time before the horns started honking. Who was this idiot sitting in a busy street with his indicator on for no reason? Why was he blocking the road!!!?

Thankfully, across the road from me, a van full of electricians were watching from a distance – they could see the whole line of cars and the garbage truck blocking the road. So when the cars further down the line started honking their horns they started to shout and gesticulate towards the cars indicating that there was a blockage in the street. The horns stopped honking, the bin truck eventually emerged and everyone was happy again.

The same thing happens with business processes – often those performing the work are living in process bubbles – they see immediately what is in front of them, but they don’t see what is happening before or after them in the process. So if something goes wrong they don’t have the visibility of what has gone wrong and they have no idea how to fix it. But, like our friend the electrician who can see the whole process unfolding, if we take a holistic view of the process we can not only see where the pain points are occurring, but we can communicate our message across all those working different parts of the process.

Standing back and looking at process in its entirety is not some self-indulgent, navel gazing exercise. By the nature of work, workers are primarily interested in getting their own piece of work done. But doing work and doing it well doesn’t necessarily equate to good process – it’s not about doing things right, it’s about doing the right things (and then doing those right!)

This is why looking at the process in its entirety from a customer experience viewpoint is so essential and why it needs to be the focus of an organisation’s senior management. Otherwise we all end up honking our horns for no good reason at all.

SOURCE: ProcessImprovementGroup