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Rolling out a process
A premise to keep firmly in mind is that people want to be understood first and then have their problem solved, not be told what problem they don't have or what solution they should use. "Roll-out" should only be done when there is a well-defined problem to solve. First, understand the overall needs of the organization and have a vision of how the organization will look when these needs have been met. Second, understand the problem currently being experienced by the person or project team you are trying to help. If the problem does not match the process you have defined perfectly, then a tailored version, or something other than the process, will be needed. Adopting this approach for all changes, every time, will require patience and thought. The result will be processes that are used by the organization and reduced stress for the process providers. --- Neil Potter |
Compelling improvement
If your organization develops software, you are probably more than aware of its problems. The problem list likely may start with overwhelming commitments and deadlines made to the marketing department and customers. The marketing department has been promised the first shipment by December. The customers have been told everything will be delivered on time. The managers have established year-end bonuses based upon the shipment. The programmers are working longer and longer hours, and the system test group is waiting anxiously for a copy of the software to test during its allotted five-day "make it work" period. The technical writers are lost in 300 pull-down menus and cannot get feedback on their documents from the engineers. The support engineers are still fixing the bugs from the previous release and are not hopeful that their lives will improve after the new release. This would seem to be a normal description of any busy, successful software organization trying to meet the needs of the customer. This question comes to mind: "Is the current situation the best way?","Is it worth making better?", and "How can I get the organization motivated?" Understanding and constructively using the sources of pain and pleasure in an organization can focus and make the improvement program a reality. Pain can be described in terms of existing problems. These could include a recent crisis, business loss, unhappy customers and high development costs. Pleasure can be described in terms of project success, teamwork, customer satisfaction, product quality, profitability, image and productivity. When there is a compelling reason to improve, the improvement will occur. Strategy: Determine the compelling purpose for process improvement in your organization. The lack of a compelling purpose is a common reason that organizations either abandon their process improvement program or just muddle along with an ineffective program. Ask yourself, "How compelling is our procedures manual?" Many organizations start a process improvement program and initially establish a meaningful goal. This goal often gets translated into an activity that is not compelling. For example, the CEO decides that productivity, customer satisfaction and product quality must all improve. After successive meetings of the manager and engineers, an implementation plan is constructed to document the current processes. Over the next 18 months, the goal of process documentation is achieved. By this time, it is difficult to see how this result helps the initial productivity and quality goals. The result is so out of line with what is needed that it is ignored, and the concept of process improvement is abandoned. Strategy: Use your customer needs, project goals and existing problems to help determine the purpose of your process improvement program. If you establish that the purpose of your process improvement program is to achieve a business or project goal and ensure that the result solves a critical problem, then you will have ignited the right size fire to create a compelling future. The goal must be believable and clear. When this has been done, you will see improvement. Strategy: Make sure that the key opinion leaders agree on the purpose of the process improvement program. Any successful improvement program will require the involvement of many people in the organization. Not everyone will be involved immediately, but eventually everyone will play a role. Initially you should involve key opinion leaders - people who are well respected but do not necessarily have authority. To ensure long-term success, these people must believe that the program is helping them or their organization. In the beginning you will have an overall purpose statement aligned with the goals of the project or organization. This purpose statement should be agreed upon by those at that management level. Strategy: Keep the purpose statement in front of the organization when working on process improvement. One key to successful process improvement is to focus on a few key areas at one time. To help maintain this focus, it is useful to keep the purpose of the improvement program firmly in the minds of the people involved. This will prevent the program from straying too far, and allow you to frequently evaluate progress against the goal. If process improvement is not a habit in the organization, it will be easy for people to become unfocused. A goal that is out of sight and uncompelling will stay out of mind. When the purpose of a process improvement program is clear, compelling, believable, aligned with the business goals of an organization and solves critical, root-cause or prevalent problems, it has the essential ingredients for success. If there is a compelling reason to take action, action will be taken. |
Real process improvement-getting what you need
What is real process improvement? Process improvement should help you do your job better and reach the organization's business goals. Wrong turns in process improvement Organizations frequently believe that process improvement means writing and implementing processes, as if creating huge documents will miraculously make people do things better. The problem comes when managers and engineers try to get these processes adopted. Some people see them as unnecessary or inappropriate. Others are overwhelmed by the vast amount of paper and lack the time to read it, much less implement the practices listed inside. This approach to improvement often wastes time and money. Another problem is that people often see external standards or models such as the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model (CMM) or ISO as goals themselves. They become too focused on the activities listed and lose sight of the intent, concentrating on proving they have achieved a standard, rather than ensuring that they are receiving the intended benefits of these practices. A better definition The true value of process improvement is realized when individuals work differently and find benefit in doing so. Not all new practices need to be written as processes. Sometimes teaching new skills and practicing them is enough. Sometimes course materials are all you need. At other times, simple one-page summary sheets are sufficient. The most important reason people write documents is to use them to help do their jobs, but far too often they are written to solely satisfy some other group outside the company (such as ISO). Ultimately, a document should be used as a reminder of what to do. If you are writing documents right now, make sure they are useful. Adoption is the hard part For processes to improve anything, they must be used. To be used, they must be useful. It is best if they are tested using pilot projects, refined, and then put into more widespread use. The people doing the work need the appropriate skills to use the methods, tools and written procedures. Helping them acquire the skills to support new or modified processes is the most challenging and time consuming part of process improvement. Often people expect others to start using new processes, methods, or tools simply because they arrive on their desks. In other cases, an overview course is provided with little or no follow-up to ensure that the practices are put into place. Good implementation requires significant training and guidance or assistance as people try the new skills. Many organizations try to do too much too fast. Once the dust settles, they realize that they cannot sustain what they have created. Improvement priorities should be carefully set and managed so that new practices are introduced at a speed that people can absorb. Some questions to use to determine if your process improvement program is serving your needs:
Summary Good process improvement efforts balance the business needs, the writing of processes and providing help in getting those processes used. The true test of process improvement is to look around and see if something has improved. Something should be better, quicker, easier, more enjoyable, or more profitable. If the effort hasn't helped you run your business, it may have been a futile effort and will evaporate with time. |
Getting to Yes
Getting to Yes is a short and simple book. It is about negotiating to reach agreement without feeling as if you have given in. This book should be required reading for all project managers and process improvement champions. I've read several books on negotiation and this one is by far the best. The book contains several important and useful ideas, but perhaps the most important premise is to change the focus of the discussions away from positions that separate people and, instead, to focus on their interests. By placing most attention on the interests, both parties can explore each other's needs without becoming polarized on specific solutions or positions. Then they can work together to find solutions that can help meet the needs of both parties. Throughout the book they illustrate their points using concrete yet easily understood examples. One such example was a case where two men were quarreling in a library over whether or not to leave the window open. The librarian discovered that one man was bothered by the draft, while the other man wanted fresh air. She solved the dilemma by opening a window in an adjacent room, bringing in fresh air without the annoying draft. The book should help you with your software projects, process improvement efforts and in your daily life. After all, if you are like The Process Group, you are continually negotiating with someone about something. --- Mary Sakry |
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© 1998 The Process Group |