Author: (Coach) Mike Urgo
This week’s newsletter is going to be short and simple, because that’s what the title says. What that means is, this is a MACRO (see Episode 23) view of Process Improvement, meant to give you a temperature check to see if you and your team are on the right path for success. If you haven’t started your process improvement initiative, you’re in a good place. If you have already started, then the first step will determine if you are off to a good start or not.
The first step in any initiative, project, enhancement or whatever word you want to use to describe the CHANGE you are making is to document and begin your Change Management Plan. Improving a process means that changes are coming. We all understand that change can be difficult. Which is why it is so bizarre to me how often the change management plan is saved for the end of initiatives and why so many initiatives are met with pushback. So, before you begin your process improvement initiative, make sure you are communicating to all stakeholders and any groups that could be impacted downstream. This will help you and your team get a temperature check and ensure the change management plan that is developed will be effective.
Now that you have communicated effectively and have a plan of attack to manage the future change, the next step is to document the current state of the process. If you already have it, great! But you should still review the current state documentation for accuracy with the people who participate in it. Current state documentation should not be verified in a vacuum of executives who are removed from the day to day. If you don’t have good current state documentation, the next step is to complete that with the correct subject matter experts (SMEs). This will be significantly easier if you have completed step one and the SMEs understand the initiative and the benefits.
Once you have the current state documented the next step is to determine the data that is going to drive the change and allow you and your team to measure success. The success metrics should be able to show a baseline reading with the current process. This way you have something to compare with future data with the new process, which should improve as adoption increases over time. It is important to make sure these metrics are defined with a governance expectation as well to avoid any biases and avoid situations where data points can be manually altered to fit a narrative.
Considering any feedback received through the change management plan and the conversations around metrics, your team can now DRAFT a model for future state. It’s important that the team understand that the documentation for future state is a draft and not set in stone, as the data may support tweaks throughout the process. This also will align with the change management plan that will include continuous improvement cycles following the go live.
As the team is completing the tactical changes to the process, it’s important to document and communicate any governance expectations. This way all SMEs, stakeholders, customers, etc. all understand any new expectations in the process and repercussions of not following the new process. It doesn’t matter if you are changing a couple steps in an onboarding process or redoing your entire FP&A process and system, governance expectations are key. Change is hard for people and usually you will find one or two bad actors that refuse to change. It’s far easier to hold those parties accountable if you and your team have been proactive with the change management plan and a comprehensive document detailing governance expectations.
Finally, you have your new process, it’s now time to walk away and not have to worry about it again, right?
Wrong!
To best support your business and avoid large changes to your business and people’s work rhythms, it’s best to set up a continuous improvement model for your process. Much like managing a SaaS platform that receives a quarterly patch or release, the process owner should be reviewing the process on a recurring basis. This will ensure the process isn’t stale and continues to drive the success metrics that were put in place. It will also help your team stay in tune with the SMEs and stakeholders and ensure the process enables optimum productivity.
At a high level, by following these steps, you will find that your process improvement initiatives are more successful, no matter how big or small. If you have any questions on how to apply this to a change your organization is going through, please schedule some time with me to see if I can help. I am going to put up a poll on our social accounts to see if people would like to read a case study applying this methodology.
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