A Cheat Sheet on Process Improvement

​As your business evolves and becomes more complex, you will need to change how you work so resources are more efficiently used, automation is applied effectively, and processes are scalable. 

​Follow these key steps, and you will make effective improvements to your business processes.

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assess the curent process

• Understand how your process currently works. Interview key employees, observe their work and review the documents they produce
• Document what you learn in pictures and words. We prefer using a SIPOC (Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, Customers) diagram for this activity
• Review the SIPOC with your key stakeholders and collectively identify bottlenecks, duplicative steps, and gaps
  
• With stakeholders and process owners, brainstorm areas for improvement, ways to increase efficiencies, and opportunities for automation
  

Build the new process

• With the knowledge gained, modify your SIPOC with the changes identified
• Perform a Pilot Test of your new process by selecting an area of the business where the test can be run reasonably quickly, with minimal impact to ongoing operations
• Based on your pilot effort, update your process and define/fine-tune Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure success
• Develop an implementation plan to deploy the process across the entire organization
• Communicate the change, train employees and begin deployment of the new business process. Click here to see our Organizational Change Management offering

Operate the new process

• Develop tools to increase the efficiency of the process. Tools can be in the form of formal automation, paper templates, spreadsheets or checklists etc.
• Observe employees as they use the new process and continue to educate the team on best practices
• Collect data against the KPIs you defined and based on those results, make continuous changes to the process so it gets better and better
• Remember to reward your team and those employees who adopt and champion the new process

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​Making process improvements part of your work cadence will pay dividends in training new employees, communicating with executives, and in preparing for future transformations.

​What other steps have improved your process improvement efforts?