Many people confuse “procedures” with “work instructions”.  In fact, most people write work instructions and call them procedures. Knowing the difference can help you understand the documentation process much better and, therefore, develop great procedure documentation.

Procedures describe a process, while a work instruction describes how to perform the conversion itself.  Process descriptions include details about the inputs, what conversion takes place (of inputs into outputs), the outputs, and the feedback necessary to ensure consistent results. The PDCA process approach (Plan, Do, Check, Act) is used to capture the relevant information.

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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…

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You have probably heard of the term “Process Map” or a process flow chart (the terms process map and process flow chart are used interchangeably) to describe a process. But what exactly is a process map anyway? Are there different types of process maps? Are all process maps created equal? We’ll try to answer some of these questions by taking a look at seven different types of process maps and how they are used to describe a process. After all, the foundation of all businesses is a common set of core processes.

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Last week we identified the most common process maturity level in many organizations, phase one — Reactive.  Few organizations are able to advance much farther up in management system maturity.  This week we will look at the next two levels in our process maturity model that describe the phases in which an effective management system comes to life.  The Documentation and Stability Phases.

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Question of the month: How are SMART objectives important in achieving your goals?

The first month of this year’s last quarter is almost over. So, if you haven’t already started, it’s time to think and plan about the upcoming year. The best way to put forward a plan is to start at the top – at the mission, vision and strategy level. That is what our articles in October focused on.

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Question of the month: What is the difference between projection goals and position goals?

The highlight of this month was the release of yet another procedures manual – the AS9100 Aerospace Policies & Procedures Manual. Our articles this month also talked about setting goals and understanding process relationships to achieve improvement.

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Part 3 of a four-Part Series

Our topic of discussion in the previous article was Information Deployment. This week we will discuss Business Process Management. Corporate strategy changes over time but always requires

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Our previous article on leadership discussed leadership metrics associated with the speed and flow of your business. This week let’s explore leadership in teams and the design of your measurement system for team success.

Being a leader means getting things done through others, which implies a team of some kind. The most critical ingredient to leading teams is trust and

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