By Dick Lee, High-Yield Methods
[This is the second in a series of posts I’ll be making using edited excerpts from my new book: “Process to the People: delivering process wellness outside of manufacturing.” My goal is to complete writing by mid-2008.]
Several years ago, I was contacted by division of a Fortune 100 global manufacturer and asked to roll out Visual Workflow to solve some nasty variable (non-manufacturing) process problems. The company, which crawled with black belts and green belts, had been applying six sigma for several years to find and fix these process defects, but to no avail. Regardless, we still had to pass muster with this division’s representative on the global six sigma council before we could bring a relatively new and unknown (to them) process technique  into their six sigma environment.

So I met with this stern looking woman who took me aback by asking me directly, without any preceding pleasantries, “Why should we let you in here with this Visual Workflow stuff we’ve never heard of, when we’re the poster company for six sigma?” I had to scramble for words, but I recovered and said: “Because Visual Workflow is like an MRI, while six sigma is like surgery, and you don’t go looking for broken bones with surgery.” 

After the words spilled out of my mouth, I almost swallowed my tongue in fear of having crossed the line. Until she burst out laughing and said, “Okay, I get it.” From there we had an excellent conversation about our experience finding most variable process defects embedded in how work and information flow from person to person, function to function, and between the company and customers, suppliers and the like. Most variable process defects are in the handoffs of work and information, or as we call it “the seams.” That’s a 180° apart from six sigma looking for manufacturing defects in the way individuals perform their own work.

Driving almost all these differences is the nature of variable work—which is almost all information-based, making information management as significant a process element as work design. Plus, while manufacturing works on a “do it, pass it along” system, accomplishing most variable work requires cross-functional cooperation and collaboration. You can’t design variable work one function at a time. And you can’t measure it one function at a time.

Still, we haven’t yet touched on the most fundamental difference between manufacturing process and variable process. The need for alignment.

Manufacturing process operates quite independently of the rest of the company. When business strategy changes, manufacturing doesn’t have to change in response—unless it has to make new products or better products or cheaper products. But these adjustments don’t affect core manufacturing process. And if manufacturing process does change, the changes rarely affect strategy. Manufacturing-specific technology may have to change to compensate—but enterprise technology driving the company? Not a problem. So alignment with other functions is almost a moot point.

In contrast, variable process is highly interdependent. When business strategy changes, as so often happens today in the scramble by companies to stay competitive by becoming more customer-centric, process must change accordingly. Otherwise, companies wind up acting out Freud’s definition of insanity:

Doing the same things over and over again but expecting different outcomes.
Variable process should work like a corporate transmission to convert business strategy into work—the right work to produce the desired strategic outcomes. That ties variable process effectiveness to alignment with business strategies. And when strategy changes trigger process changes, the process changes in turn trigger the need to change technology support. This ties technology effectiveness to alignment with process —both for systems architecture, which controls information flow, information accessibility and data integration, and for application software.

How can companies achieve alignment using manufacturing approaches that treat technology as an afterthought? Beats me. And beats them, too, because they don’t get to alignment. Aligning the “moving parts” that make up the variable components of companies is a fundamental variable process design requirement. And trying to accomplish variable environment alignment with manufacturing process tools is like looking for broken bones with a hammer.

Would you do that to a company?

Many companies make a fundamental error at the start of redesigning business process to support customer-alignment. They call over to manufacturing. Or they may call a six sigma or Lean process consultant. Or, they may even call IT. Regardless, the results are the same. Manufacturing (or systems) process denizens wind up applying inappropriate process design approaches in customer-facing areas—which often does more harm than good, and at best produces mediocre results.

How do you know if this scenario is about to do a tap dance on your head? Look for these ten key elements the process design approach you’re about to apply to customer-facing functions—in fact, to all variable (non-manufacturing) work environments.

1. Start with customer-aligned strategies.  “Customer-aligned process” means business process fully supports customer-aligned business strategies. If you don’t align strategies with process, by default you’ll wind up designing for efficiency, which almost always means taking value away from customers rather than adding value. Ironically, because taking the customer-aligned approach creates the freedom to restructure rather than just trim around the edges, it almost always produces more efficiency than designing for efficiency.
   
2. You need a workflow scanning tool.  Workflow describes the movement of work and information from work station to work station, function to function, and between functions and external stakeholders—like customers. Compared to variable work environments, including front office functions, manufacturing has relatively few key workflows—so few that there’s no need for a scanning tool. But assessing variable work environments often including hundreds of workflows requires a powerful and fast workflow assessment tool.
   
3. Workflow redesign must be coupled with information flow redesign.  In variable environments such as sales, marketing and customer care, work means managing and communicating information. Work and information are tied at the umbilical cord. So if you optimize workflow, it only makes sense that you have to change information flow with it. Manufacturing process methods don’t need to factor in information flow because work is performed on physical objects, not information.
   
4. Workflow must be uncoupled from individual work process.  In variable environments, the vast majority of work impediments, time loss, work errors and other defects—especially failure to deliver value to customers—occur at the workflow level, not at the individual work process level (which describes how individuals do their own work). So why start off looking at very detailed work process, as Six Sigma does? You’ll only lose the forest for the trees. Further, you’ll proceed at a snail’s pace, which you can’t afford because variable environments include so many flows.
   
5. The drill-down to work process occurs after workflow is redesigned.  Individual work process is a dependent variable in variable environments. It has to support the workflow above. In manufacturing, work process is more independent. And by the way, Lean has no mechanism to reengineer and document individual work process, which is essential for the front office and most other variable settings.
   
6. The process approach has to “specify” systems architecture changes.  Please don’t get thrown by the fancy “systems architecture” term. Systems architecture describes how the various technology components are arrayed and connected—which is vital to getting the right information to the right place at the right time. Of course, you don’t hand IT a piece of paper and say: “Do this.” IT should be involved in workflow redesign so they’re already up to speed on what’s happening. But information flow must follow workflow, not the other way around, making your redesigned workflow a blueprint for IT to follow.
   
7. The work process reengineering must lead to application software requirements.  Variable workers need application software tools for managing and communicating information. And if the work process design doesn’t produce software requirements, you’ll inevitably wind up with software that’s misaligned with work. Manufacturing process folks aren’t concerned with application software.
   
8. Business process redesign, including both workflow and work process, has to be participative.  On the shop floor, people are cogs in a wheel. They have little choice but to conform. Think about sales. Does sales “have to conform” to process changes? Not in our lifetime. And that’s true of almost all variable settings. Variable workers must be involved in designing their own changes. Otherwise, you’ll raise a brick wall of resistance.
   
9. Process design must include change management strategies.  While manufacturing workstations are “work islands,” variable functions have great interdependency. A change in one may rebound all over the company. Plus, because of the complexity of variable environments, process change inevitably triggers unintended consequences that must be carefully managed. Companies have to carefully plan and stage change—and the planning has to emanate from the process work.
   
10. The process methodology has to be accessible to all.  Because variable process change is a participative endeavor involving mostly “non-process” people, process symbology is out. So is specialized process vocabulary. And training a special cadre of non-process people in a process approach only creates “process police,” who try to take away variable worker empowerment—often with disastrous outcomes.

Making sure your process methodology observes these nine basic rules will prevent you from trying to drive square process pegs into round process environments.