In last week’s column, I discussed the importance of processes in how firms compete in their markets. As a quick review, a process is a series of steps or actions to achieve a specific result, typically a transformation or major change. Therefore, processes are required for a firm to produce its goods and deliver its services in such a way that they are attractive to potential customers. To enable my students to grasp this fundamental lesson and lay the foundation for the remainder of the course, their first assignment is to identify the value proposition of a firm or its product and then consider the processes necessary to deliver on that value proposition. I shared this assignment with those of you who read last week’s column and encouraged you to first complete the assignment for any company other than yours and then repeat the assignment for your current organization. If you read last week’s column, I hope you did your “homework”, but if not, you can still find last week’s column here: https://augustabusinessdaily.com/summer-school-focusing-on-processes/
My students this summer term did an excellent job with that first assignment. They looked at companies/products such as Starbucks, Peleton, Disneyland, Nike, Amazon Prime, and Imperfect Foods to perform their analyses. While they probably did a better job on identifying each firm’s value proposition than they did on identifying the processes necessary to deliver on that value proposition, that is to be expected given their limited exposure to processes to date. However, our mission was accomplished on this assignment. It allowed the students to better understand the role of processes in a firm’s competitiveness. In each of their examples, the student was able to identify what the firm was promising, so it became clear to them that to attract and retain customers, the firm would have to deliver on that promise. Now, they have a better appreciation that a firm delivers on its promises through processes. Hopefully, if you completed your homework, you came to the same conclusion.
Now that I have hopefully convinced both my students and readers that effective processes are important, our next step is to understand processes well enough to be able to design and improve them to ensure they deliver on a value proposition. I have been teaching processes and process improvement for over twenty years. In that time, I have learned that it is best to introduce students to processes by discussing processes in our everyday lives rather than jumping right into business processes. I start off by providing the students a personal example that I have been using in my classes and executive education seminars for many years: bathing my daughters when they were very young children. Since my daughters have recently turned 27 and 25 years of age, you probably realize that thousands of students began learning about processes in the following example.
To best introduce processes to students, I cover the following aspects of the bathing process for them to understand and emulate as they consider processes from their everyday lives:
- Inputs: We always need to consider what things go into the process for the transformation to take place. In our discussion of my example, we consider inputs such as “dirty” children (they will be “transformed”), water, soap, shampoo, tub, labor, bath toys, and towels. There are other potential inputs that I will discuss below in “Process Boundaries.”
- Outputs: We also need to consider what the final output(s) of the process are, including not only the primary output, but any collateral outputs (discussed further below in “Measures of Merit”). In this case, the primary output is “clean” children, but other collateral outputs might include the cleanliness of the bathing area and associated items used in bathing.
- Measures of Merit or “Voice of the Customer”: In this section, we examine how we determine if the process was effective/successful or not. This is typically driven by the “customer” of the process, which in my example case was primarily my wife. While students focus on the cleanliness of the children’s aspect first, I often have to remind them of the importance of safety in the bath. A clean child is important, but the child’s lack of injury or worse during the bath is vital. Other aspects determining the success of the bathing process could include the cleanliness of the bathroom and the mood of the children (see “Interactions with Other Processes”).
- Process Boundaries: Understanding where the process begins or ends is also important and, in some cases, may be determined by the customer. In this example, my “customer” (wife) expected that this “bathing” process included the application of lotion and powder, brushing of hair, and dressing the girls in their bed clothes. Therefore, clearly additional inputs are required to accomplish the process beyond the boundaries I initially anticipated.
- Interactions with Other Processes: We also need to be concerned with how the process we are dealing with impacts other processes. For example, if bathing takes too long or upsets the children, this could delay or impede the adjacent process of putting the girls to bed.
As you can see from the above, there is much to cover to first understand processes before we can actually concern ourselves with the process steps. By reviewing the above aspects of processes, the students have a better sense of what processes are supposed to accomplish, which precedes addressing the process steps. So that students can practice this process in their own lives, they were assigned the following:
- Identify a process in your life that requires improvement (note: the only requirement for something to be a process is that a transformation takes place).
- Justify why the process requires improvement (i.e., how is it not meeting your needs or priorities).
- Identify the Inputs of the Process.
- Identify the Outputs and “Measures of Merit” of the Process.
- Highlight the key steps required to complete the process.
- Propose potential recommendations to improve the process.
In addition to addressing the big picture items, I had them address the key process steps and recommendations to improve the process, as they are dealing with a familiar process. This now prepares them to consider similar issues with business processes. I recommend that you also complete this “assignment” to help make you more comfortable with processes, and later this summer, I will provide some important tips to improve both your everyday and business processes!
