Are You On a Business Process/Procedure Journey?

Business and organizational development is about business process change: not as in “process change – the event”, but “process change – the journey“.  Your business processes change in response to market forces, competition, regulations, customer demand, the economy, culture, personal beliefs, and many other factors.  The question isn’t about what is causing the business process changes — we know your business processes are going to change — the question is…

How Well Are You Planning For and Implementing Business Process Change?

Your business process procedures journey is driven by your business needs: need to survive, need for effective process change management, need for process consistency, need for process compliance, and need for process control.  Your entire business model is in jeopardy if you fail to:

• Adapt to change;
• Build repeatable business processes;
• Adhere to process standards and guidelines;
• Observe regulations; and
• Manage your business processes — and process change — effectively.

You can achieve effective business process change management, process consistency, process compliance, and process control by focusing on your business process procedures journey (Figure 1), a six-step process comprised of the business process management topics we talk about on the Bizmanualz.com website.

Business Process Procedures Flowchart

Figure 1 – Business Process Procedures Journey Flowchart

Notice how we talk about processes and procedures together.  Your business model is a system of processes.  Business processes need to be identified, communicated, and reviewed for there to be an effective change management process, with effective opportunities for business growth in place.

In Figure 1, the procedure writing steps are colored in red, to signify their optional status.  Not all processes require procedure writing; there’s a lot of overhead tied to every business procedure you write so that the more business procedures you write, the more procedures you have to edit, implement, train people on, audit, and review.  Only company procedures required by standards, regulations, or company strategy must be developed.

Michael Gerber’s book, the E-Myth, explains how important it is for entrepreneurs to think about working “on” their business instead of “in” their business.  Working too closely inside of your business processes is sometimes referred to as “business myopia” — being too close to your processes can keep you from advancing on the business process procedures journey.

Once you start working on your business — not in it — you can identify key business processes, practice communicating critical business process metrics and information, and review those business process metrics against the changing marketplace.  Now you are in control of your business process improvement.

This month we’ll be showing you how to advance — how to implement — each of the six steps of the Business Process Procedures Journey:

1. Process Procedures Project Management
2. Process Mapping and Process Design
3. Required Procedures (optional steps)
   • Policies and Procedures Template Design
   • Policies and Procedures Writing
4. Process Procedures Implementation and Training
5. Process Procedures Audit
6. Process Procedures Review and Change Management

In our next article, we’ll explain how you can use the individual steps to focus your organization on adapting your core business processes to business process change, build repeatable business processes, adhere to process standards or regulations, and manage your business processes more effectively.

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Originally published in 2009 by Bizmanualz, Inc. under the title Are You On a Business Process/Procedure Journey?. All rights reserved. Reproduction permitted with attribution only. www.bizmanualz.com