Indicado por Leona Charles do TOC Intelligence Group no LinkedIn
Looking for Root Cause in All the Wrong Places
Photo: Salvatore Vuono/freedigitalphotos.net
Across the country on any given day, someone in management is uttering the phrase ‘where did it all go wrong?’ Conventional wisdom says you look at your people and then your process and you work backward to spot dependant variables and points of failure. I sit on the other side of the bench. As a Process Improvement Consultant, certain situations have left me in awe of how little decision makers rely on common sense. If you really want to find the root cause, stick to these guidelines.
Don’t Just Find the Points of Failure, Solve Them.
Finding the points of failure doesn’t mean you know all that you need to and finding them shouldn’t mean someone is getting fired. Points of failure should alert you to parts of your process that are flawed or underperforming. Once the point of failure has been identified, you need to find out what made it a failure point. Is the process too complicated? Does your staff understand the step? How does the failure affect your end product? Once you have answered these questions, you can begin the process analysis of dependant variables and points of failure.
Know Where You Are Going
Many processes fail or underperform because the companies or the people implementing them don’t understand the program objective. If your goal is to produce the best product possible, why focus on cost beyond what is reasonable? By the same token, if your goal is to produce the cheapest version of your product then quality issues are the second runner up. When running your process you have to be sure that your end goal matches your process. Be clear about your process expectations with every activity.
Set Your Standards in the Beginning
Before your process starts, define clearly and succinctly what constitutes quality and failure. With a clear picture, you minimize the guesswork enabling you to work from preventive posture instead of reactionary. The quality of your process is set in the beginning, working towards the quality of your end product. Setting standards also creates working guidelines for you staff and allows them to set reasonable expectations, the clearer your staff the better your process.
Allow Failure
I know this sounds counterproductive, but quality comes from failure. A business culture where it is okay to fail makes your product or service better. When you go back to the drawing board, you go back with lessons learned and that makes your company better in the long run. It’s easier to benchmark when you know that an idea has no practical application, it’s easier to improve when you know where to start.
Improvement is a tricky business and no technique is one size fits all; the trick is to find one that works for your company. Remember continuous improvement is a journey and every step is meaningful. To be better, you have to think better. The best place to start is common sense.
