Consulting Perspectives:  "Thinking About Improving Your Business?"

December 5, 2002

Kirk Mousley

Do you take time to think about your job and how to improve it as you go through your workday? There is no question that it is difficult to do given the demands that we face each day. However, taking some time to think about what we are trying to accomplish with our jobs and coming up with ways to improve our processes are imperative if we are to remain competitive in today’s economy.

We at Mousley Consulting believe that documenting human processes is the first step in being able to automate those processes. In other words, a defined manual process can then be rolled into an automatic process. It is essentially impossible to automate an undefined process.

Taking it a step further, the process definition needs check points and specific tests to evaluate how the process is proceeding. Employees need to think about the check points and evaluate their parts of the process. To some extent, the more check points built into the process, the more opportunity for people to stop and say, "How am I doing. Is this the best way to do this?"

These check points can then be automated along with the process itself. Checklists and tests can be built in to provide feedback on the automated process.

One then needs to close the loop. The feedback to improvement step needs to be a defined process in itself. When one can get to that point, then work systems approach a state of self-improving. Nirvana? Probably. But certainly worth striving for.

We at Mousley Consulting believe that it takes more that just technical knowledge to solve business problems. We begin by questioning "What is really needed here?" Only then can we feel confident about moving forward with automating and improving.

If you would like to be on our mailing list or to send me your comments, please email me at kirk@mousleyconsulting.com. 

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