Episode 1: Introduction

Thank you for finding the Process Improvement Practitioners Show!  If you lead, champion, or drive change in your professional life, this is the podcast for you.  In this episode I will cover:

1.    What is process improvement?

2.    Who am I and who are you?

3.    What kinds of problems will we be solving?

4.    Why “Process” should be your unit of measure for your change initiatives

5.    What kinds of subjects will we be covering in the future?

Transcript

Thank you for finding the Process Improvement Practitioners Show!  If you lead, champion, or drive change in your professional life, this is the podcast for you.  In this episode I will cover:

1.    What is process improvement?

2.    Who am I and who are you?

3.    What kinds of problems will we be solving?

4.    Why “Process” should be your unit of measure for your change initiatives

5.    What kinds of subjects will we be covering in the future?

Fundamentally, we are here to discuss how to solve business problems through change.  This work comes with many names.  Business Process Improvement.  Business Process Management.  Operational Excellence,  Process Excellence, Continuous Improvement, Continuous Quality Improvement, Continuous Process Improvement, Performance Improvement, Quality Management System, Process Optimization, Quality Control.  Then we have methodologies: Toyota Production System, Lean, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, TQM, ISO 9001, CMM.  Japanese terms like Kaizen sound cool too.  Companies can even come up with their own names, like Quality and Productivity and Mousetrap.  And of course now everything is Agile Agile Agile.

Any business function that comes with this level of Word Salad cannot be clear to anyone!  It feels like we’re just moving words around on a vision board at this point, so you could understand why people would be skeptical about this world, which no doubt leads to rebranding which leads to another mixture of the same words on top of the pile.  

The purpose of this podcast is to not only help us all make sense of what this all means, but more importantly, help you make tangible improvements in your organization - satisfy more internal and external customers, improve delivery, and reduce time, cost, and risk. For now we will use the term Process Improvement but be aware it is largely synonymous with the word salad i just shared.  I also will occasionally use the terms change management and change leadership.

Who am I?  I have spent my career leading change in many different types of organizations, with over 15 years as a full-time internal consultant, trained in multiple methodologies.  I’ve coached everyone from the boardroom to the breakroom and have helped teams make meaningful improvements in their work. My career has spanned across many disciplines and that has made me really notice the common threads that exist no matter what industry, function, or organizational size. I look forward to sharing those insights with you.  Let me note that although this information is applicable to all, my bias is towards Lean Six Sigma for transactional, digital, and distribution environments versus manufacturing just based on my experience.  But I promise all this content will be valuable to all and will not require any previous training.

Who are you?  You are a change leader, either practicing or aspirational.  You either are in a full-time project or change leadership role, or you have Process Improvement leadership responsibilities.  You are in a role where you are trying to drive change in any capacity.  Maybe you are a doer or you are a process owner.  Maybe you belong to one of the organizations I rattled off earlier.  You may be a leader who is struggling with encouraging your team to improve processes.

What kinds of problems will we be able to solve?  Perhaps some of these might resonate with you.

●     The billing department is a disaster, reliant on tribal institutional knowledge, with no measurement and no resiliency or scalability

●     Customer are waiting too long for their online checking account applications to be fulfilled so they are going into branches or to competitors

●     You have been given a goal to remove $400k in type 1 cost for this year so you can achieve the plan.  You have a few ideas but the fiscal year started 2 months ago so now you have 10 months left…

●     Workers are leaving - we can’t retain talent, and while all the investment in process improvement goes out the door with them, their replacements bring in all the inefficient practices we just eliminated…

●     The warehouse loading dock is filled with weeks of unreceived inventory.  (Remember the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark?)   Unhappy sales executives are picking through hundreds of pallets looking for the rush items intended for now very angry customers

You may be able to tell from the specifics that these are actual situations I’ve been in.  These challenges and 1000 more like them are in our discussion domain.

[BREAK]

So why focus on “process?”  Of all the business buzzwords, “process” isn’t flashy, but it’s the noun that says it all.  “Process” will be the primary focus on our journey.  Why?  Processes satisfy the customer’s needs - internal and external.  Value is always delivered via a process!  Buying a car is a process.  Grocery shopping is a process.  Stocking cars and groceries are definitely processes!

In your career you may have heard in the past Process discussed alongside People and Technology.  People, Process, and Technology make up our value delivery system.  (In the context of change or project management, we talk a lot about these 3 domains.)  But People alone cannot deliver value.  Neither can Technology.  Without the guiding hand of a process, people and technology are idled.  But a process can deliver value without people and without technology, whether it’s Google Travel helping me pick a vacation destination, or a boy scout car wash getting my car clean.  So Process must be our focus.

In terms of organization of the podcast going forward, instead of following a linear approach I will try interspersing topics.  I’ll make sure you can easily search for categories.  My goal is to keep it interesting while essentially jumping around in the book a bit.  Right now, I see discussions on the following topics:

●     Process Improvement - what is it and why does it matter today even in a world of rapid technological change.

●     Process Improvement Models - there are many models, and most don’t matter.  These get sold to companies and executives and later discredited unfairly.  We will talk about what really matters.

●     The Process Improvement Leader’s State of Mind - What are the traits of a successful change leader?  What is the mindset of success for this job?  And what are the derailers?

●     Stakeholders:  We have to talk about the players before we teach the game.  Your success is dependent on these people.

●     Project Champion.  Every project you work on needs a champion or sponsor and their support will enable the project to succeed.  His or her lack of support will guarantee failure.

●     Process Improvement Buzzwords.  If you learn nothing else, you can at least impress people with these.  There are some tools here though too.

●     The Certification Game.  Specific to the Lean Six Sigma World because that’s what I know, let’s talk honestly about certification.  What is it, do you need it, how do you get it, and what does it do for you?

●     All About the Tools.  Let’s take a high-level flight over some of the most important tools.  The right tools add a lot of value fast!  The wrong tools waste time and lose precious support.  

●     Tool deep dive.  Some tools are so key we will really get into the details here.  Who loves control charts and the FMEA here?  I promise to spend less time on how to do the tools and more on why to do the tools and what value they give you.

●     A Day in the Life.  We will talk about some of the topics that will come up in your day-to-day life.  Now that you know enough to be dangerous, I want you to get out there and make a difference!

●     Process Improvement as a Career.  Are you having fun doing this?  Do you want to do it full-time?  Here are some pros and cons to consider.

●     Key Concepts.  Let’s dig into some key concepts - not buzzwords, not tools,  A second course of light indoctrination.  Some examples are poke yoke and 5S.

●     Process Excellence.  I like to focus on process as our unit of measure, and this will be a mini-series on the Process Excellence methodology, along with some key tools from Lean Six Sigma. 

●     Digital Transformation.  Many of you are leading these types of efforts.  What are the overlaps between Digital Transformation and Process Improvement?  After all, change is change!

●     Product management and process improvement.  Lots of overlaps here to discuss as well!  Products and processes have so much in common. For example: both deliver value to a customer.  Prepare to have your mind blown.

●     Case Studies.  Let’s put these tools and techniques into practice with some real-world examples.

So to be a process improvement change leader is to be a bit of a wizard.  In fact maybe you’re young Harry Potter getting on a mystical train, off to Hogwarts.  You’re going to drink the Kool-Aid and cross over into a new world where you will begin to see the world differently.  As part of this journey you will meet others in this tribe, people who are like you.  You will learn our shared values.  You will learn our enemy, but instead of something straightforward like Voldemort it will be the myriad barriers you will encounter.  You will learn your craft and deploy your craft.  Just like a book of spells, I hope to arm you with a bag of tools and techniques!  I hope you join me.

Onward and Upward!