By Amy McKee

“Process Improvement” is critical to organizations as they evolve and environmental changes occur. It allows an organization to constantly focus on becoming more competitive and improving their use of resources with an impact on the bottom line.

However, no change is ever complete without people adopting the change. The people side of Process Improvement is equally critical to step-by-step process of improving a process. As such, this series will follow the “The Process of Process Improvement” to give you tips on positively impacting the people as you work to improve processes.

Last week, we covered the first of the five DMAIC steps: “D- Define”.

From a people perspective, this is the most critical phase. What you do here will greatly impact the flow of the rest of the project. Here are 3 important tips:

1. Assemble a good team. I always encourage people to include key stakeholders. That is standard. There are two other team participants I like to add: a key naysayer and a non-stakeholder. Here’s why:

a. The naysayer will bring up all of the arguments of why something won’t work. Address these concerns and that naysayer will become the biggest advocate. Plus, they will make sure the process is solid.
b. A non-stakeholder brings an outsider’s perspective and often can add some creativity to the solution.

2. Set a Clear and Well-Formed Outcome. So often we think about the end goal as only being some quantifiable number associated with the business case. We disregard other important aspects like:

a. How do we want our team will feel by the end of the engagement? What needs to happen for that to occur?
b. Envision the end of the project. Did you meet your goals? What does that look like? What are people saying? How does everyone feel? What are you telling yourself?

3. Align the Team. A tremendous amount of confusion and arguing can be avoided when the team starts with a common core set of values in regards to the project. Here is a simple question to ask:

a. “What is most important to you about this project?” (impact, time required, prestige, team collaboration, leadership development, etc.)
b. Ask each team member this question and then have the group agree on the top 3-4. It will make a big difference as the project unfolds so you can cater to the agreed upon needs of the group. The top 3-4 values also can be used as criteria for decision making.