Top 5 symptoms of a process problem

Sometimes, businesses have symptoms they mis-diagnose, or don’t diagnose at all – they just try to make the symptoms go away. Some symptoms are pretty bad, so any business would like to make them just disappear or get magically fixed.

But treatment without diagnosis is malpractice -- even when you do it to yourself.

And you can often tell if you’re treating symptoms – because they linger, come back, or get worse.  

So, what are some symptoms that might tell you to look for a business process that’s causing problems?  Here are the top 5 I've seen in consulting on process this year.

Crises and emergencies happen - routinely.  If more than a few times a year, the business has to resort to “heroic efforts” to make a customer satisfied, meet a delivery date, fill a large order, handle a very complex job – you might have a process problem.

“Do-Overs” and waste.  If it sometimes takes two or more tries to get something done right – with the resulting disasters in cost and customer relations – you might have a process problem.

Burn-out.  If you lose valued associates because they just get fed up fighting the system, "re-inventing the wheel," having to do it all themselves, dealing with chaos – you might have a process problem.

“Only Marie can to that.”  When only one person knows how some critical part of your business works, and that knowledge stays between her / his ears, the business depends on that person’s availability.  So if they get the flu, you’ve at high risk for an emergency – and you might have a process problem. 

MSU as SOP.  MSU (Make Stuff Up) is the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) when organizations are first created, usually.  But if your organization has been in business for over a year and has 3 or more employees, and you’re STILL in MSU mode – you DO have a process problem (no “might” about it!).

These are just a few of the symptoms.  There are many others - like persistent low profits, inability to handle increasing workload, long "on-boarding" of new associates, fulfillment and scheduling bottlenecks, inconsistent service delivery, unreliable forecasts & sales, customer attrition, and so on...

If you might have a process problem, there are some questions that will let you know, for sure, and steer you toward doing something about them.  That’s in the next process blog.

In the meantime, ask yourself about the symptoms above – Have you seen these?  Have you lived with them?  How did they get a durable fix - if they did?  

If you’d like to respond with an example you've seen, or a question or a comment, please do.