Business Process Improvement Worksheet

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Anytime you introduce change in an organization, challenges can arise. Business Process Improvement (BPI) is no different. Whenever a process changes, you can expect push back from someone! So, what are the different challenges you might face and how can you overcome them?

1. Prioritizing the work: When multiple opportunities exist, you may find it hard to identify the biggest opportunity. On NBC's The Biggest Loser, you can easily see who has the biggest problem! You can accomplish the same thing with business processes by building a Process Prioritization Matrix.

Merge your list, or inventory, of processes and prioritization criteria into a single spreadsheet, using the rows to list the business processes and using the columns to list the …show more content…

Avoiding scope creep: Once you begin working on a single business process, you can easily veer away from the original focus of the work. Have you ever started a project at home and then you find that one thing leads to another? This happens all the time in BPI work because new ideas, demands, and needs surface as you get into the work, and the temptation is to continually expand the scope of a BPI effort.

Before you begin working on improving a business process, establish a foundation for your work. Similar to building a house, where the foundation carries the weight of the entire structure, the process "blueprint" will help you to avoid scope creep. While you can do this in various ways, I find it helpful to create a one-page document that includes, at a minimum:

a description of the process that anyone can …show more content…

The problem with this idea though is that many managers got to where they are today because of their ability to deliver results as individual contributors.

All managers should list BPI on their annual performance plan and have part of their year-end review focused on their achievements in this area. They cannot view BPI as an "event" that they can check off though - it is a process, like anything else!

4. Handling difficult people: During any BPI effort you will encounter someone you probably wish would "go away." You may wonder why they resist the change or display a negative behavior.

You should discover the source of your colleague's concern. Forget about BPI for a minute, and try to identify what the person values and then match the benefits of BPI to those values. For example, if a colleague values job security, then you have to show him or her how BPI will enable them to keep their job - perhaps by doing more value added work. Once you match outcomes to values, you can overcome almost any challenge.

5. Changing priorities: As new management enters an organization, priorities can shift. So how can you stay focused on