Julie Beedon insightfully wrote
> I am beginning thus to wonder if we
>should ever do process improvement of one process - rather we
>should focus on the whole and do sets of inter-related process
>improvements which we set up and constantly review as a whole system
>of improvements???
There is no sense in putting a new saddle on an old horse and expecting it
to win races. I suggest you focus on whole value streams - from what a
customer needs to delivery of more than the customer expected. This is
a stream of processes. Then do several steps and iterate; (1) improve a
process, (2) improve the interface of that process with its neighboring
processes, (3) choose the next process and do it again.
Note, this is not taking on the whole organization. There are many
value streams (we hope) in any organization and these have to be
coordinated. But it is very complicated to try to do it all at once and I
wouldn't recommend that anyone try it.
>
>I have already said in a previous posting that I think we need
>underlying principles to inform our work - perhaps these are
>values (somehow they seem different to me - but that is another
>posting - anyone want to try the difference between a principle
>and a value??)
Let's try: Value, something the society believes affects its behavior.
A value can be positive, cleanliness or negative, crime. We value
truth. I think value is nominative in nature.
Principle, a rule for guiding behavior. We will be honest with everyone
we meet. A principle implies action and its verbs are important.
>I think we need system of things happening
>
>* people being clear about the purpose of their
>roles/jobs/processes and how it fits into the whole and the purpose
>of the whole
I think that bringing clarity to the purpose of role/jobs/processes is getting
more and more difficult as the business environment changes. The rapidity
of this change is making roles and processes obsolete almost daily. I think
the focus must be on who the customers are, what value we add and what
principles we are to follow in adding that value.
I think Julie has exposed a basic issue in that she suggests that we have to
provide some firm ground from which people in a community can operate
with confidence. Finding the firm ground and gaining acceptance of it is a
large problem for leaders.
--bhobler@worldnet.att.net Bill Hobler
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>