12 Dec Common process improvement mistake #2: Too quick on the draw
Rushing to visualize a process is a great way to ensure you won’t visualize the correct process or the process correctly.
Talking about a process is the best way to understand it. Considering a process from as many perspectives as possible is the best way to transform it. Visualizations are useful supplements, but they should not be the dominant focus of your improvement efforts.
Putting process visualizations first is an all too common common mistake that can be easily rectified so you can avoid continuous rework and information gaps.
Process Practice Suggestion
➤ LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN
… so you have to sit in the conversation and take in what people are sharing about the process and how it moves in their own words. If you cannot write or speak the process accurately, you will not be able to visualize it accurately nor explain it accurately.
SO YOU CAN: Repeat back what has been shared and arrive at a common understanding of what’s happening, what’s working, and what’s not working.
➤RESIST
… rushing to a pre-conceived solution or to a visual tool before isolating and agreeing on the problem to be solved within or by the process.
SO YOU CAN: Engage with the entire process ecosystem and build a dynamic process view and understanding.
➤PIVOT
… to fully understanding the process by writing its narrative first. Put into your own words what others have been showing and telling you and share it back.
SO YOU CAN: Produce a clear and assumption-less artifact that is right-sized to the individual improvement, the governing methodology, the process framework, and the organization for longevity.
If you are someone who fires up Visio or puts visualization first when completing process work, you are doing a great disservice to the process, to the people who enable it, and to the organization.
The wrong starting point can (and does) compound existing process issues creating an extended process mess dumped back on users to resolve. No one wants this.
It can also erode organizational commitment to process work along with incurring incorrect or inaccurate business outcomes.
But a conversation about processes, couched within organizational context with the right resources, can stop this situations from happening and that’s where you need to begin not end – with people not tools.
