Establish Process Capability

Having validated that you can collect or at least filter reliable data to measure your process accurately and reliably, you can now record your baseline. You need to record enough data that everyone, including your customers will recognize this data as representative of the macroscopic process. Do not attempt to paint a nice picture for management by deleting embarrassing data. Make sure that there is no blame on particular people or areas of the business. You will need to characterize your processes in terms of variation (P5-P95 span), central tendency (median), probability distribution and process efficiency in terms of cycle time.

Define Your Performance Objective

The fact that you have been given this project is an indication that the process is not performing as the customer expects it be. You have defined process indicators as part of your baselining exercise, but now you must establish how much better your process should be to be judged as a success. Customers should not have to collect an analyze month’s of data to see a difference. The change should be ambitious and visible. If you don’t think you can make a big impact, it may be better to spend your efforts on another project. Not all projects are great.

Identify Multiple Business Processes and Sources of Variation

Transactional business processes are complex and dynamic. You will hear that there is no ‘typical’ customer, service or process. Dig deeper to map the process in its entirety. When people do not agree, it may be because their view of the process is limited by their speciality - they only use part of the bigger process. There are a lot of individual customer needs that your business is trying to handle. Ask how the organization handles these ‘exceptions’, they may be the cause of many of your problems. If you have multiple processes, you must flag the transactions accordingly to maintain their distinct qualities for later analysis.