A 6 Stage Method for Fast Tracking Your Business Processes

How to FAST track your business processes

Core business processes are the modern ‘chain gangs’ of organisations, responsible for delivering efficient, consistent and fast customer outputs. These can be likened to the old time railway gangs laying new tracks.

Today's vision is of end to end processes driven by technology that can deliver business and customer value.

However, the reality is that humans are always involved. This still creates errors, inconsistent behaviours or slow response which let customer's down or inhibit value creation. If the processes were about laying rail tracks, there would be plenty of derailments and late trains.

Improving process appears to be simple on paper, but the task of bringing about practical and lasting change that delivers better outputs can become a nightmare project in itself. This is because multiple stakeholders are involved, and often do not share the same level of engagement or solution about the best way to improve.

A 6 stage method of process re-design based on collaboration and alignment of stakeholders can drive effective process renewal for more robust and high performing business activities.

Key Issues

Examining why core business processes are slow and clumsy reveals that they often require co-ordinated action across many different functions, teams or divisions.

Ownership

The challenge in improving process is due to lack of ownership, engagement and alignment amongst stakeholders and thus an inabillity to co-ordinate the design and implementation of change efforts.

Human touch

This is exacerbated when the process itself requires creative human input as a key ingredient because this is difficult to ‘systematise’.

For example, selling and client service activities, and customised product development cannot exist as technology based processes alone.

A 6 stage FAST Track methodology.

A six stage method can help to cut through the difficulties facing process improvement to achieve strong alignment and traction across the organisation.

The six stages are;

1. Achieving common understanding of the business case for improvement

2. Positioning a sponsor outside the functional/ unit lines involved in the process

3. Coaching an inclusive, all-stakeholder group in collaborative meeting methods

4. Implementing process change through cross stakeholder forums and workshops

5. Measuring, incentivising and rewarding across the business

6. Making process execution a continuous improvement approach

 

A case study - Customer Engagement and Delivery proceses at Roadwarrior

Consider the case of Roadwarrior, a logistics and fleet management group who manage the data and provide value adding information to clients about their automotive fleets.

In a growth phase, Roadwarrior were steadily acquiring new clients however this was encumbered by their internal process of engaging new clients onto their systems and providing the level of customised reporting that was part of their value proposition.

The process involved functions such as sales, account management, IT, finance and dealer liaison aligned in a fast, error free implementation.

Clients expectations were managed loosely, leading to a wide range of requirements being promised by sales people. The transfer of information from sales to a combined IT & finance team who developed customised reports involved close communication, and that information exchange was not getting the attention required.

Meanwhile, the interface required from car dealers for new fleet additions was problematic, with dealers not adhering to the protocols and templates established for data exchange.

As a result, the targeted turnaround for ‘New Client Engagement’ of 10 days was not being met. New clients would complain that their early reports were not being delivered as initially scoped, and in many cases Time to Error Free reports was extending beyond 2 months. This led to abandon rates by new clients of up to 20% as clients exercised their right to withdraw during a contractual grace period.

Previous efforts to improve the process yielded only marginal benefits. Using a traditional approach, the process architecture was created by a task force. This was then communicated down functional lines, and managers were requested to oversee the implementation of the 'ideal process'. Yet issues persisted.

New Process Alignment

An alternative approach was sought to implement change successfully and the 6 Stage FAST Track principles were implemented.

1. A cross stakeholder group was formed, involving parties at both ends of the process chain including customers and dealers. The group galvanised it’s purpose and commitment to process improvement through an initial workshop which identified the business benefit to each stakeholder group.

2. From this group, a sponsor was selected, with the role residing outside the existing structure of line management responsibility. Criteria for selection were Credibility, Project management and Group facilitation capabilities.

3. Key stakeholders involved in the process were coached in collaborative meeting methods, so that strong commitment was generated at each step. Improving the meeting effectiveness provided a practical but high leverage place to get early wins.

4. Group meetings occurred once fortnightly, and new knowledge sharing practices based on FAST Meetings sped up the ability to identify critical process points for improvement. This energised the group with a clear focus on priorities shared by all. Relationship building across functions was facilitated by leaving ‘board table approaches’ behind. Methods such as Business Café’, Art Gallery, and The Great Wall became regular tools in the conduct of meetings.

5. The design group also implemented lead indicators to track progress of subsections of the process. This feedback was monitored through monthly Process Improvement meetings, enabling faster detection of hot spots that were slow to change, and immediate deployment of further training, communication or tools to needed areas.

6. Over 12 months, the review process scaled back to quarterly, with insights and knowledge sharing still adding value to all stakeholders through ongoing learning and review.

Results

This rigour drove substantive, lasting change.

In 2 months, the process hot spots were smooth flowing, and reduction in cycle time achieved target, with stretch target attained in the following 5 – 12 months. Customer abandon rates were curbed to 1.5%. Lead indicators showed that that no customers whose requirements passed through the FAST Track process were lost due to early errors and waning engagement.

The leadership and commitment of key stakeholders ensured that the short term changes were sustained until they became strongly embedded. And these people were more equipped and able as change agents to facilitate other cross business improvements building on from this success.

Conclusion

Like a fast moving chain gang who work in synch to swing hammers and hold track bolts, modern business processes still require people to turn up and work together.

Better practices are required for sharing knowledge, getting alignment, and producing decisions amongst diverse stakeholders in the design and implementation of improvements.

Simple improvements in the way the change process is managed and facilitated help keep it on track to deliver ultimate improvements for your organisation and avoid the costly 'derailments' of process failure.

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by David Pointon - FAST Meetings Co.

FAST Meetings provides 3 levels of service to support improved effectiveness, and implementation of Process Improvements; ranging from Meeting by Design to transferring skills to your leaders through FAST Facilitation DIY