Continuous improvement programs like Six Sigma insist that processes must be managed. Although this might seem reasonable, it is stakeholders— not managers—who should design and maintain regular routines.

Zack Swinney writes on iSixSigma.com:

Process management involves the concept of defining macro and micro processes, assigning ownership, creating responsibilities for the owners who control the processes, and measuring the performance of each process. What are these processes? They are the processes that control what the customer receives or comes in contact with. (Remember, the customer may be internal as well as external).

As we have covered before on The Methodology Blog, language is powerful. Note the author’s choice of words:

• defining macro and micro processes
• assigning ownership
• creating responsibilities for the owners
• measuring performance
• controlling what the customer receives

Swinney attempts to direct the conversation about the outcomes by asking “What are these processes?” However, stakeholders don’t inherently care about process. They want to know who is going to be defining, assigning, creating, measuring and controlling their workflow. In the parlance of Dilbert, a Six Sigma announcement from Sponsors and Black Belts means “go get your reorg boots.” Management is rearranging everything again.

Ultimately, most change management approaches are about reorganizing the work of other people. Although doing so does not address fundamental issues, the article does correctly note that one key challenge in companies is the tradition of segmentation by function:

[These include] marketing/sales, operations, human resources, finance, legal, business development, and many others. Each function views themselves as an individual silo with individual requirements, inputs and outputs. As a result of this structure, each silo manager is rewarded by the performance of their individual group—not necessarily the performance that leads to customer benefit.

Instead of requiring that a company be cordoned off by areas of expertise, Six Sigma Black Belts insist that it be broken down into departments based on the customer life cycle. An example would be Publicity to gain interest, Conversion to make sales, Processing to fulfill orders and Servicing to maintain customer relationships. Although this might sound superior and might simplify some types of measurement, most employees are still being told where to go and what to do by the same group of bosses.

Furthermore, the supposed drawback of a “silo effect” still exists. Each unit could reward itself for record output, while effectively destroying the ability of the subsequent department to meet the established demand. A new org chart cannot prevent marketing from telling half-truths, nor stop a sales team from ignoring production capacity, nor keep a factory from churning out more units at the expense of quality. Even the author admits that a  “process management focused organization” has only a “slightly different structure.” A reorg, even with statistical controls, still produces a company whose processes are defined by people who are not on the front lines every day.

In an environment where work is highly repetitive, rarely involves value judgments and never requires creative thinking, processes can be managed. Techniques like Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing produce positive results in these areas. But in innovative, professional environments, it is the stakeholders who do the work that have the most potential to positively impact workflow. Only Methodology engineering combines the rigor of system analysis with individual empowerment. Slaughter Development does not redesign companies nor advocate process management: we teach stakeholders how to design and maintain processes themselves. Contact us for more information.

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