All companies have existing business processes – whether documented or not – which have likely evolved over time. As organizations grow and change, processes are modified to meet changes in regulation, competition, technology or business sophistication. There comes a time, however, when a business process has outlived its usefulness in its current incarnation. While there are any number of methodologies which can be used to improve and streamline business processes, the real question is: how do you know when a process is ripe for evaluation for improvement?

There a variety of symptoms which present themselves and serve as indicators that a particular business process should be reviewed for potential improvement. Often, though, these symptoms are subtle – noticeable more often than not to those outside the process. Because processes are normally evolved over time, process participants (especially those who have been involved in executing the same process for longer periods of time) are generally not sensitive to the symptoms indicating that it is time to reevaluate the effectiveness of a particular business practice. Below are some of the symptoms, or warning signs, that it might be time to evaluate a business process (or processes) for improvement opportunities.

Poor communication

Poor communication often begins to occur between process participants when business processes lose their effectiveness or efficiency. In particular, communication between organizational silos (departments) tends to break down resulting in miscommunications, misunderstandings or incomplete communication. These situations are most noticeable (and detrimental) in customer-facing areas such as customer service, sales, or shipping.

Indicators of communication challenges may appear as increased customer complaints, lost sales, poor feedback and/or lack of customer response. While frontline employees are generally closest to the issues, they may miss the indicators which point out this trend. Therefore, managers must be sensitive to detecting these trends, and taking appropriate action to identify the process issues contributing to reduced communications issues.

Rework

Increased levels of rework or scrap are often indicators of a process problem – and not necessarily one of quality assurance. Changes in upstream or downstream processes often introduce problems in processes if the entire end-to-end process is not evaluated holistically. Remember, a business process is often cross-functional, and changes in your department’s portion of a process may impact upstream and downstream processes.

If you find your department having higher levels of rework, consider whether the rework is being caused by an internal process problem, or is one you are “inheriting” from another business process. Once you understand the source, you can take action to correct or improve the process.

Many handoffs

As organizations grow, it is not uncommon for a single business process to involve more and more roles or departments – for approvals, input or other communication. It is natural for processes to become more complex as the number of employees or offices increases. What is not natural, however, is an increasing number of handoffs – situations where a document or other item must pass between an increasing number of hands as it works through the process.

Once again, process participants do not always recognize the increased number of “moving parts” in a process, as they execute their own steps. Supervisors and managers, however, must be sensitive to the number of people or departments “touching” something in a business process. More touches mean more complexity – not a bad thing if each touch results in value to either the business or customer. Beware, however, of touches which provide no value – a sure sign that the process has become too complex, ineffective or inefficient.

Duplicate data entry

Duplicate entry of the same data by multiple people into multiple systems should immediately cause a red flag to wave right in someone’s face. This is probably the most visible indicator that a business process is inefficient and wasteful. Not only could data entry and/or transcription errors be introduced during entry of the data, inconsistencies will inevitably appear in reporting resulting in multiple versions of the “truth”.

Data should, except in rare circumstances, be entered only once into an automated system, and each piece of information being entered anywhere in an organization should have a designated “system of record” – the “official” source of a particular piece of data. Lack of a system of record for any data element, or multiple sources of data are a guarantee of ineffective and inefficient business processes, and usually leads to confusion. These days, who can afford that?

Duplication of effort

While duplicate data entry puts any organization in a difficult situation, duplication of effort (multiple people doing the same task for the same reason) should just be considered a sin. What is most interesting about this situation is that it is often overlooked because the people performing the duplicate tasks are often not in the same department. Therein lies the challenge – identifying those duplicate tasks.

These are not necessarily easy to identify – managers cannot often identify these situations because they either don’t manage the other person performing the task, or because they are managing at too high a level to detect the problem. Often, the only way to identify these issues is to conduct an end-to-end process review of an existing process with all stakeholders (regardless of departmental assignment).

Watching for these simple, yet often elusive, symptoms in your business process execution can highlight improvement opportunities which can lead to enhanced customer service levels, increased revenue or reduced costs. Be alert, and investigate these symptoms when they appear. You might just find an opportunity to make a real difference in your organization.

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