When it is a sequence……….
Much has been made over many years of the importance of process and adherence to it. Sometimes a process gives certainty, comfort, consistency, reliability and other desirable outcomes, sometimes it becomes obstruction, delay or failure – ‘I was following process’.
Then we find process has become ‘checklist’, adherence to the checklist has become the dominant performance characteristic rather than commitment to desired outcome; everybody has an apparently defensible excuse for failure. Sometimes, we describe this pejoratively as ‘bureaucracy’ and, in extreme response, ‘bureaucracy gone mad’.
Why am I writing this?
I recently had the unlucky moment of a stone pinged up by another car causing a chip in my drivers side window, a chip that rapidly became a crack necessitating replacement glass. On arrival home I contacted the repairers authorised by my insurer who, after negotiation (I needed the car back in use promptly) offered me a convenient appointment. During the wait (it was a weekend) they informed me of the progress of the replacement glass, reaffirmed the appointment time and its likely duration. On arrival, greeted by the technician, I was informed how long the task would take and, most importantly, where I could get coffee and respite from the heat. Cheerily despatched with ‘I will call you as soon as it is done’. Within the specified time the call came, work completed along with ‘I replaced the gel pad on the camera too as I noticed it had slipped’.
Compare and contrast…..
A company has been seeking to relocate its offices and, having identified a suitable property, agreed lease terms on a handshake with the owner and both parties instructed solicitors. Given the payback benefit of the relocation the company is keen to move reasonably quickly. A month after the handshake the lease (simple terms, already agreed in draft) has not yet arrived at the Company’s solicitors despite regular progress chasing. The delay? The lessor’s Solicitor handling the case had not got round to it………….
Cue frustration for several parties.
What is the difference?
Autoglass (it is fair to name them since I am being complimentary) have a robust process with embedded task timings and a customer communication approach.
The solicitors have a sequence of activities, which they call a process, but it lacks three essential qualities that would help it work as a process. While I am sure that each task within the sequence has a duration (otherwise how could they estimate the fees) I suspect what it lacks is any meaningful measure of the necessary elapsed time between start and finish, any meaningful measure or management of the time delay between steps in the process, any feedback mechanism that acts to regulate or govern the process – in particular, adherence to an overall elapsed time.
I am very happy to concede that the duly diligent legal process is subject to much greater variability and appropriate deliberation than the replacement window process and cannot be regulated as precisely. However, for the due sequence of activities to become a process it needs those additional characteristics.
A process has two elements – ‘working’ (the productive work done including necessary transitions) and ‘waiting’ (the dwell times between steps in the process). ‘Waiting’ time is waste, it reduces productivity, increases cost, it cannot always be eliminated, it can and should be minimised.
There are many, many examples in service environments in which sequences of activities masquerade as processes. I imagine, much of our (well, mine anyway!) collective frustration with them in planning, in healthcare, in dealing with ‘bureaucracy’ generally, rests in that passing off.
Like comedy, the essence of process is timing.