Improving how you do things is a necessary focus of any organization. When you look at improving your processes you are looking primarily at HOW you do things. This also forces you to consider WHAT you are trying to accomplish (hopefully first) and then, of course, WHO will accomplish it. The catalyst however, is ideally HOW you achieve the WHAT. Let's consider some of the reasons you should have a set of formal processes and milestones to assure this is happening effectively...
- Drives which and how many resources we need (costs)
- Drives effectiveness and efficiency both
- You've been told you have to do it
- Speed
- Cost reductions demanded by customers
- You have been inflicted by bouts of chaos
- You need to be able to learn from your past activities
- Past disasters and the need to avoid those in the future
- The need and desire to get better
- Late deliveries or lead times too long to be competitive
- Difficulty in identifying underlying issues/problems
- Take the guess work out of the business
- Not seeing the results from improvement efforts
- Creates competitive advantage
- Reduced errors and mistakes
- Customer (or other stakeholder) unhappiness
- More effective use of technology
- To automate repetitive tasks and streamline those that don't directly add value
- More predictability
- Quicker recognition and addressing of problems
- To develop new capabilities
- To free-up resources
- Enables growth opportunities
- Improve responsiveness to both customers and change
