The Value of Process

By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth

   In a comment on yesterday’ post, Mark Oakes (@MarkOOakes) stated “Smart businesses are ’systems dependent’, not people dependent.” Mark’s comment was very astute and led me to think about the value of process. Process…even the word itself has come to hold a negative connotation for many. With the plethora of conflicting information that has been written about process management and process engineering, combined with the nightmares we have all experienced as a result of bad process, many executives fear the pain associated with flawed process less than they value the benefits created by good process. In today’s post I’ll examine the value of process…

One of the ways successful companies gain a competitive advantage in today’s market is through the implementation of sophisticated, efficient and effective process. Business processes serve as the central nervous system for your organization providing a framework for every action, decision, activity or innovation to flow from and through. There are many who would say process stifles creativity and slows production…While I would concur that this statement is usually the case with bad process, nothing could be further from the truth as it relates to good process. Good process serves as a catalyst for innovation, which in turn optimizes and accelerates work-flow, and enhances the productivity of business initiatives. 

Understanding what constitutes bad process is the first step in recognizing how to avoid business process pitfalls that plague many companies. Let’s start by examining the three main misconceptions related to process:

1. Process is not a new software program or application. While toolsets can enhance process or can become a by-product of process, they do not in and of themselves constitute process. Don’t get caught in the trap of perpetual spending or development as a solution, but recognize that if you’re caught in this trap that it is a symptom of bad process not a reflection of good process. 
2. Process is not a “Band-Aid” fix. Good process is not reactionary. A series of bubble gum and bailing wire solutions put in place in haste as a knee-jerk reaction to the latest problem is not good process design. Process by default will never provide the benefits of good process engineering by design. 
3. Process is not a panacea. While good process will help optimize any business it will not make up for shortcomings in other disciplines or functional areas. Process is not the main driver in business, but merely a critical support system built for enablement, delivery, accountability and measurement.

Good process comes as a by-product of clarity of purpose. It is the natural extension of values, vision, mission, strategy, goals, objectives and tactics. It is in fact working down through the aforementioned hierarchy that allows process to be engineered by design to support mission critical initiatives. Recognition of the fact that you don’t start with process design, but that process design should be used as a refining framework to enable better execution is critical to the development of good process. Process is the part of the value chain that holds everything together and brings and ordered, programmatic discipline to your business.

Good process results in a highly usable infrastructure being adopted across the enterprise because it is efficient for staff, and provides visibility and accountability for management…all of which increase the certainty of execution. Good process across all areas of the enterprise will result in elimination of redundancy and inefficiency, shortening of cycle times, better knowledge management and business intelligence, increased customer satisfaction, and increased margins.

I encourage you to not let apathy, negative experience based upon results of bad process or flawed implementations, or the fear of complexity keep you from benefiting from the numerous advantages created by good process engineering. I would also strongly encourage you to evaluate all of your current processes so that you can discard or re-engineer bad process and improve upon good process, striving for excellence in process design. Great companies understand the value of great process…Do you?