The Human Factor - Processes and Procedures

Every company has processes and procedures, both formal and informal. Your company works the way it does for a reason. Like every living organism, your team has learned to adapt to constantly changing conditions and perform in a "survival of the fittest" environment. Your staff has done an amazing job of keeping up with these changing business conditions, changes in tools, and even changes in the team itself. They have adapted and continued to be productive under increasing demands. The ways that they work, both independently and as a team, have evolved and will continue to evolve.

 

Nobody sets out to decrease productivity or efficiency. Millions of dollars are spent every year on new software and other tools to improve individual productivity. However, it is the human factor that ultimately determines not only the success or failure of a team, but also its productivity and efficiency as a collective whole. Just when you work to get everything stable, life and business happen, forcing your team to adapt and change yet again. And now … perhaps performance, communication, repeatability, or quality are not quite where you need them. You feel that you are doing a good job at managing your projects - but just aren't completely satisfied with the results.

 

But How Can You Tell If Your Processes Are at the Root of Your Issues?

Here are some symptoms you might recognize:

 

Seemingly simple tasks consistently take longer to complete than you expect.

 

Staff members come to you and ask where to find information they need.

 

You regularly mediate conflicts between team members about how things should be done.

 

You feel you are forced to micromanage in order to have any hope of knowing what is going on in your group.

 

You overhear complaints from your staff that tasks - or even their jobs - are unimportant or unnecessary.

 

The promotion, transfer, or loss of a key team member can keep your team scrambling for weeks to make up for the void of operational knowledge now missing from the team.

 

You find yourself lacking objective data for performance evaluations.

 

One of your staff "dropping the ball" on a key assignment is an all too frequent occurrence.

 

You've tried adding staff and it hasn't helped.

 

New members of your team learn most or all of what they need to know “on the job” via informal or undocumented methods – and it just takes too long!

 

Changes in personnel or business objectives have a serious impact on your team’s productivity.

 

Can Processes and Procedures Really Make your Life Easier and Better?

Instead of feeling like you are in a continual spiral downward trying to keep up with the demands of your business, you can create a new cycle of productivity where your whole team feels empowered and energized. This is accomplished by clarifying the roles of each individual, plainly documenting lines of communications, business processes, and critical success factors for every part of the business. When people can really see how their contribution matters and the part it plays in the bigger picture of the business that positive impact realized is often beyond belief.

 

Successful companies understand the importance of hiring the best people they can find for their creativity and capacity. However, due to hectic schedules and changing environments, this new talent is more often than not simply thrown into the deep end. If these folks don't have the correct context to understand your company, the best they'll do is an awful lot of thrashing before they learn to swim. And even then, they'll never win any swimming competitions.

 

With Provaré as a partner you change that by giving all of your high value employees, both new and long-time team members, the tools and insights they need to do their jobs even better. You will also have the assurance that everyone, regardless of the length of time on the team, is focused on moving your company in the same direction.

 

Go Big or Go Home? Not Necessarily ...

Some companies truly need expensive large-scale enterprise process solutions like Six Sigma or ISO 9001. And if your company has recently embarked on an enterprise-wide quality initiative, Provaré can partner with you to align your current processes with the new structure. But many others, perhaps like your company or your department, simply need help getting your team better aligned and working together more seamlessly. Smaller teams often don’t require major changes to be more productive – but they may need the objectivity of a consultant to see where those gains are to be had.

 

With Provaré there is no need to scrap your whole system and add to your workload the daunting task of learning another “expert’s” system. We enable you to keep the soul of your company intact while making small improvements that will enhance the quality of your products and the productivity of your team, by raising the quality of your processes.

 

Provaré Technology’s Process Team Has Experience Across a Broad Range of Market Spaces.

We can serve as an accurate and honest reflection of what is and is not working in your environment. Additionally, we can apply our broad experience from multiple industries to help you develop and apply creative solutions to your specific situation.