Articles in the "Business Process Improvement" Category
In part 1 of this two-part series, we discussed three important reasons why quality management systems (QMS) projects fail. Here are four other reasons:
Author: Steve Flick Published on: April 19th, 2010
Categories: Business Process Improvement, ISO Quality Management, Process Management
Policies are most often rooted in undesired consequences. Something happens that shouldn’t — a door isn’t secure from the outside and someone gets in your building who doesn’t belong — and a policy (i.e., “That door is for exiting the building ONLY in case of emergencies. It is NEVER to be used as an entry.”) is enacted.
A few — such as high-level, or corporation-wide — policies are designed to promote desirable consequences for an organization, as well as prevent undesired ones. In this article, we’re going to stick with the first kind. In any case, the best policies give everyone in the organization a sense of purpose and direction. So…how do you write a good policy?
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Author: Steve Flick Published on: January 18th, 2010
Categories: Business Process Improvement, Writing Policies and Procedures
In part one of this article, you learned the first three steps in the Bizmanualz process of making a policies and procedures manual – research, design and development, and procedure writing. Now, as Paul Harvey liked to say, “Here’s the rest…of the story.”
Author: Steve Flick Published on: December 17th, 2009
Categories: Business Process Improvement, Writing Policies and Procedures
A lot of work goes into developing every Bizmanualz Policies and Procedures manual. We start by conducting…
In the not-too-distant past, we primarily searched the Internet for clues as to what people wanted. We’d find what topics people were interested in by doing the same thing you do: searching by keywords.
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Author: Steve Flick Published on: December 14th, 2009
Categories: Business Process Improvement, Writing Policies and Procedures
Your process is not living up to expectations, so you’ve decided to implement standard operating procedures (SOP) to improve process consistency, compliance, and effectiveness. However, that project is stalled: employees are not buying into your proposed changes, and management is growing impatient.
Author: Chris Anderson Published on: October 12th, 2009
Categories: Business Process Improvement, Process Management, Writing Policies and Procedures
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…
Author: Chris Anderson Published on: October 5th, 2009
Categories: Business Process Improvement, Procedures & Process Training, Writing Policies and Procedures
The process maps we described in recent weeks are tools for you in your role as data collector and analyst: your role is to craft and communicate a story for change and improvement that people understand, accept, support, and will ultimately act on. As you move from gathering data about the current process to improving it, you need tools to help communicate your improvement plan and train participants on the new process,
Author: Dan Davison Published on: August 28th, 2009
Categories: Business Process Improvement, Knowledge Management, Sales and Marketing, Strategic Process Improvement, Value Proposition
In our series on process maps which wraps up next week, the maps we have looked at are descriptive. They help us capture and display information about the current state. Each map depicts the entire process, though from different angles. For example, swim lane maps stress roles, responsibilities, and hand-off points, whereas document maps list documents and records generated throughout a process.
Author: Dan Davison Published on: August 26th, 2009
Categories: Business Process Improvement, Knowledge Management, Strategic Process Improvement
Over the last four weeks, we have focused our discussion on process maps. We’ve tried to answer some of the most common questions about process maps by taking a look at seven different types of process maps and how they’re used to describe processes. A process is a structured set of activities that transforms inputs into outputs, but the way we describe a process may vary dramatically, from a text-based procedure to different forms of process maps.
Author: Editor Published on: August 26th, 2009
Categories: Business Management & Operations, Business Process Improvement
In the previous article, we discussed Document Maps, and Activity or Value Stream Maps. Today, we will review Work Flow Diagrams and Rendered Process Maps.
Work Flow Diagram
Work flow diagrams translate abstract UML, or Unified Modeling Language, symbols of squares and diamonds into graphical images, which are used to tell a more complete story than engineering notation communicates. Engineers are used to thinking conceptually and using symbols, but the workers in the field may need something less abstract and more concrete. Task-level communications require more clarity and work much better when we get closer to reality.
Author: Editor Published on: August 24th, 2009
Categories: Business Management & Operations, Business Process Improvement
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