Business Processes Improvement – The Year’s Top Priority

In September, Information Week magazine published their annual list of the 500 most innovative companies. Each year they ask the companies – What’s your top innovation priority this year? 54% of the companies said, “make business process more efficient”.

This makes perfect sense – most companies reduced their work force in the recession. As business picks up, they know that they can (1) hire all of the people back and continue doing business the old fashioned way or (2) figure out how to do business more efficiently and only hire some people back. We are seeing many companies go for option 2 – I mentioned in a previous post that this is 1 reason we are seeing unprecedented growth in the use of our construction project management software, e-Builder.

Companies of all sizes can benefit from business process improvement. Here are 5 easy steps to get you started improving a process in your company or department:

1. Take Inventory – Take an inventory of the processes that are in place. Review all of the written policies and procedures, but more important, look for the unwritten processes. These are the ones that everyone follows because, “that’s how it’s always been done.”
2. Pick Low Hanging Fruit – You will find a process or two that will make you scratch your head and wonder – why in the world are we doing that? You will find processes where others feel the same way and that nobody can explain. These are the easiest to eliminate or improve.
3. Document the ‘Old Way’ – Once you identify the processes you want to improve, map the old way in a flow chart. This helps everyone visualize the opportunities for improvement. It will help your team buy in to your changes because they will look at the old way and say, “gosh – I can’t believe we are doing that now.”
4. Develop & Document the ‘New Way’ – Map out a new way to get the same process accomplished. Your team – the people that deal with the process day to day – will almost always have the answer to the question – how can we do this more efficiently. Ask them.
5. Measure – To finish the job, you have to measure results of the improvement. We’ve all heard the saying – “what get’s measured, improves” – that’s one reason to measure. The other is to communicate success to stakeholders. If your team cannot easily see the results of the change, they won’t be able to tweak it and “course correct.” Also, they won’t be so enthusiastic about other process improvements which prevents a culture of continuous improvement..

Facility owners that use our project management software have to want to improve their construction process and change the way they work. But once they decide to do that, the system has many built in measurement tools. We see measurement become part of the operating culture. Individuals monitor the “dials and gauges” like they would a high performance engine and look for ways to squeeze out a little more performance. And as a result, their construction projects outperform the average.