How Often Does Your Team Have A Process Check?

If you want to create a great company, conduct "What's broken?" meetings often. 

Twice a month, gather your team (company, project, group) to discuss the sanity and solvency of 'the processes' that you pour yourself and your customers into to.  It could be the process by which orders are placed, processed, delivered and/or accounted for.  It could the process by which you ask for, receive, spend and/or account for your budget.  

You know, those damn TPS reports from Office Space! 

There are other processes: How do we communicate?  What do we do when things go wrong or someone complains? These are less linear, but, just the same, can be broken or poorly designed. 

Think about it this way: A real leaders-manager-owner realizes that whenever a person or a group fails, it's always the result of an ineffective process.  Yes, sometimes people screw it up on-purpose or through a lack of focus - but in the end they got on the team through your hiring process!  

And, nothing is more demoralizing than to be a high-function person working inside a broken process.  I can't tell you how many times I've seen great engineers at Yahoo dial-out in frustration after trying to work through our various Byzentine Project Labayrinths back in they day.  This is likely what the Google Engineer Rant was all about.  

So have a bi-monthy meeting just to discuss the processes that impact a project or a group's efforts. Focus on less-than-expected results, and to take a page from The Lean Startup, ask "Why?" five times, digging deeper into the REAL reason the goal couldn't be achieved.  As a leader, don't let your people convert this Five-Why drill into the Five-Blames drama (Eric Ries in this blog post warns this will happen a lot and it's never productive).  Culture is a conversation, led by leaders, about the-way-things-are-done-around-here.  And meetings count. 

Remember, we criticize the outcome and process, not the people.  We treat the process as a thing, and all of us as people with motivations, limitations...and emotions.  We realize that 'the way we do it' is completely arbitrary, usually hatched out of anecdotal experience and rarely crafted on real data.  

Don't worry, you aren't creating a free for all bitch session, unless your process needs a serious overhaul.  Just focus on making the changes as far upstream as possible - starting at HQ.  You'll be surprised how easy it makes regular meetings, and how empowering this innovation-centric approach is for your people.  Besides, to be a great company, you've got to iterate often.  And that relies not just on flexibility in business model, but a limber approach to the myriad processes that run it. 

 

Comments

[Job Agencies Sydney]

These processes check should be done frequently to ensure that everything is in order.

[house design]

If you have a question concerning daylight basement house plans, or just a general question about home design.

[lacoste uk]

Labayrinths back in they day. This is likely what the Google Engineer Rant was all about.

[steve Werner]

Processes and accountability are two great recipes for success in any business.

The trick seems to be in keeping the meetings you speak of constant. Not getting to busy or sidetracked to COMMIT to being EXCELLENT.

Thanks for the wisdom

sw

[Speaking Agent]

Hi Tim,

"Culture is a conversation, led by leaders, about the-way-things-are-done-around-here" ... and "Don't worry, you aren't creating a free for all bitch session, unless your process needs a serious overhaul." are two thoughts that popped out for me.

I'm a big believer in what you are saying here. Processes need frequent attention and iterations to sculpt efficient internal and external experiences. Great post!

Cheers!
Saul