Process Improvement

Experience has shown that a well-tailored facilitation process is the key to any successful business process improvement project or program.  Therefore we have created and we maintain a comprehensive and up-to-date inventory of process improvement facilitation modules.

Each facilitation module includes: an (optional) education element that can run from three hours to two days depending on the desired depth of instruction; and a deployment element designed to be delivered either in an event forum over a few days or in a phased approach over several weeks depending on the scope, complexity and sensitivity of the process improvement challenge.

In the deployment element, we design and facilitate working sessions that guide work teams or task groups through the analysis and improvement of targeted business processes.  We use collaborative techniques to elicit and capture team knowledge about business processes and translate that knowledge into project and design deliverables.  Our facilitated working sessions involve both stakeholders and subject matter experts in scoping the improvement effort, defining the measurable targets, analyzing the business processes, building process models and requirements models, identifying desired improvements and developing an implementation plan to make them happen.

Our role in each facilitated working session is to: help the team to solve the difficult problems and make the necessary decisions; monitor the clarity and quality of the team’s thinking; manage the group dynamics; and ensure that the results of each working session are documented in usable formats that are of practical value to the team.

Typically, we guide process improvement teams through the following problem solving steps and decision making activities required for a comprehensive and systematic approach:

• Development of a clear process improvement problem statement
• Analysis of each process problem to verify its nature and identify its key causes
• Generation and clarification of potential solutions through focused brainstorming
• Use of criteria rating tools to reach agreement on solutions and implementation plans
• Monitoring implementation of the selected solution(s)
• Evaluation of the results or impacts of the selected solution(s)
• Execution of necessary adjustments in implementation or evaluation approaches

As the process improvement team’s facilitator, we ensure that team members are not: jumping to a conclusion without analyzing all aspects of the problem; failing to gather critical data, either about the problem or about proposed solutions; tackling problems that are beyond the team’s influence; working on problems that are too general, too large or not well defined; failing to develop an adequate rationale for a solution; failing to involve key stakeholders or potential contributors outside the team when looking for solutions; or failing to plan adequately how to implement and evaluate the selected solution.

In our facilitator role we are always balancing the following interdependent elements:

• Task accomplishment
• Team dynamics
• Ground rules
  

Task Accomplishment. When focusing on the task element of the team’s process, we: ask for facts, opinions, suggestions or any other information that will promote productive discussion and thoughtful dialogue; allow time for silence to provide a comfortable environment for reflection; direct the team’s attention to what needs to be done; summarize major points and restate related themes or ideas; encourage discussion of difficulties that the team may be experiencing while working toward its goals; establish relationships among different ideas; and compare team decisions and accomplishments with team goals and standards.

Team Dynamics. When concentrating on the interactive element of the team’s process, we: suggest breaks, provide humor and propose energizing approaches to group work to ease tensions and increase participation; encourage participants to be open and individualistic and to take risks; use our observations of the process followed in the group to evaluate team effectiveness; share personal feelings about the way the team is working; and ask participants to share their ideas about how the team is working. 

Ground Rules. When attending to the standards governing the team’s process, we attempt to ensure that: there are no evaluations during brainstorming; all participants are involved in the discussion; appropriate process improvement problem solving tools and decision making techniques are used correctly; participants strive for genuine consensus at each of the key decision points; participants do not inadvertently move on to the next step before achieving the goal of the step they are working on; and off-the-subject discussions and side conversations are limited in order to keep the team focused on the appropriate step or activity.

All of the problem solving and decision making tools and techniques that we share with the process improvement team are designed to accelerate the team’s progress while building ownership of the results.  As the team gets better at (and more comfortable) using process improvement problem solving and decision making methods, we reduce the amount of time we spend with them until it is clear that they have learned to facilitate and support themselves effectively, at which time we regard our facilitation role with them as having been completed.

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