Top 21 ways organisations avoid fixing processes

Some things that get in the way of getting things done!

From the last 30 or so years working throughout government and private sector organisations I have seen all manner of ways that organisations wriggle out of doing what they really ought to, and it’s costing millions of dollars for minimal benefit.

So I thought I’d compile a list for you to check if your organisation is making these same mistakes -

1. Outsource your way out of it — problems still exist but you’ve just given control of fixing them to someone else who has no familiarity and no influence over other parts of the organisation to solve them. They usually come back in-house after a period of even worse performance. Just fix the bloody process.
2. Org restructure your way out of it — usually removes the messenger but not the problem. Generates uncertainty and productivity dropoff at first, then a huge jump as the excitement of the new bites, slowly decreasing until it is the same if not worse than it was before! 90% of the time staff complaints are because something is not working, even if not expressed that well, don’t dismiss it. Just fix the bloody process.
3. Delegate your way out of it — push it down for others to solve (usually without any additional resource). Often ends in doctored performance metrics and high staff turnover due to fear. Just fix the bloody process.
4. Technology your way out of it — solving process issues becomes a hidden cost in the analysis and/or testing phase of a project. This causes staff to be exposed as the cause of problems as budgets blow out, projects are delayed and minimal value is delivered. Just fix the bloody process.
5. Policy your way out of it — make some rules for other people to follow but in exactly which situations is still unclear. Policies must be translated into actions and decisions, this can only happen in conjunction with process. Just fix the bloody process.
6. Micromanage your way out of it — similar to delegate except managers stare over someone’s shoulder making sure staff damn well get it right! Still, no one has the big picture view to know what ‘right’ is. Just fix the bloody process.
7. QA your way out of it — QA usually detects quality problems and raises the alarm which attracts congratulation and more funding until QA is the best process in town. Meanwhile, ‘a little customer waits’. Just fix the bloody process.
8. Finance your way out of it — It becomes so painful the executive is prepared to just throw money at it to stop the haemorrhaging. This is unsustainable. Just fix the bloody process.
9. Market &/or communicate your way out of it — tell customers that there isn’t a problem and everything is OK. People aren’t stupid. They may not argue but they will avoid dealing with you given the option. Just fix the bloody process.
10. Manufacture your way out of it — similar to Finance. Increase production to generate more units in the hope the problem goes away by simply replacing faulty products/services. Unsustainable. Just fix the bloody process.
11. Report your way out of it — get more and more and more information on the problem in the hope that a solution will appear out of the gloom… you don’t need it, you just need to fix the bloody process.
12. Survey your way out of it — As above, both come with a minimising response ‘it’s only xyz that complains,’ followed by African River Syndrome…. De-Nile! Just fix the bloody process.
13. Big data your way out of it — the belief is that this will increase accuracy. Instead, it creates acquisition, processing, error correction, retention and disposal headaches. Big data can be a good thing to do but doesn’t solve your process problems. Just fix the bloody process!
14. Process Map your way out of it — Create process maps for everything… A process map never returned value without several other activities taking place first i.e. change of some sort. We’ve seen many examples of efforts to map a whole organisation’s current state. But often, in low maturity organisations, the biggest problem is that there is no current state. It’s just a bunch of people making it up as they go, so you could map the same process 15 separate times and not be wrong, but also not be right. Each is out of date within a week or two. Eventually, the organisation will stop funding it, as no value can be demonstrated. Just fix the bloody process.
15. Copy someone else’s framework/homework your way out of it — If you are prepared to just copy the ways other organisations operate and retrain all of your staff and customers to accept that then go for it. But no one does. Useful as a completion checklist and can be good where processes are generic across whole industries. e.g. the only prize for an accountant that habitually invents an innovative way to do the books is some paid accommodation courtesy of the justice system. Just fix the bloody process.
16. Assemble a crack squad of problem solvers to jump on the symptoms as they arise — This will undoubtedly resolve some symptoms but without regard to the underlying causes will quickly become a game of whack-a-mole. Just fix the bloody process.
17. Customer Service your way out of it — add more resources to customer service to handle complaints and smooth over process failures. Here’s an idea, why not put the resources into not failing in the first place! Just fix the bloody process.
18. Train your way out of it — Put everyone through a customer service course or some other course to explain the process. Here’s the thing… your process is broken, even if someone cobbles together some sort of training, you are training people to get better at broken processes it simply does not help. It’s more likely to result in unmanaged change which generates further issues. Just fix the bloody process!
19. Establish service design business unit — Service design focuses on customer-facing processes and the customers experience through it. That’s great if you only ever deal in individual instances. If you prepare the product or service in batches, then customer journey mapping & service design often fails to deliver the expected benefits. Just fix the bloody process!
20. Establish an innovation dept. — Innovation is an attribute of activity, not a business unit. Just think of the nonsense that would come from calling an innovation unit into a specialised area to help fix a problem e.g. an engineering plant! Instead, all groups that solve problems need to be encouraged to think beyond the ordinary and to recommend the most appropriate response for the situation i.e. whether that be innovative or incremental in nature. If an organisation truly wants to be innovative then they need to be prepared to develop an innovation culture that includes scope to fail and learn from it often. Just fix the bloody process!
21. Commission a big consultancy to tell you what’s wrong — You don’t have to have much experience in business to have witnessed a tribe of young, fresh-faced consultants with expensive suits arrive on-site with a bunch of templates. They will interview everyone, fill out the templates and tell you that you need to do one or more of the other 20 actions in this list. You don’t need them. People you already pay know what’s wrong with the process, that’s not the hard part. Just fix the bloody process!

Epilogue:

These 21 points don’t fix process problems on their own. They can be part of a solution once you have a decent understanding of what the problem is, but not before.

Fixing the process is the only way to fix process problems! If you do, you will be thanked. If you don’t, sorry but you’re probably just adding to the noise!