Mental Models for Process Improvement
Intro
Let's say you'd like to improve the work intake and tracking process in your WalkMe team.
Before starting to improve your work processes, there are a couple of key concepts to establish that will help you think through problems.
1. Continuums
2. Technical vs. Organizational
Continuums
A continuum is usually defined along these lines: "a continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, although the extremes are quite distinct" (dictionary.com)
For each challenge or process problem you run into, it can be helpful to visualize your problem on a continuum:
- They let us envision both extremes of a particular topic.
- They let us identify where we might be against those extremes.
- They let us focus on taking the NEXT LOGICAL STEP to progress towards the ideal.
Let's take the example of work intake / tracking:
Total Chaos
Total Chaos for work tracking: we have no work tracking at all. It's the wild west.
There is no way to tell what anyone in your team is working on.
WalkMe Requests come in verbal, email, multi-channel, they go somewhere, various inboxes, personal notes, who knows where.
People work on things, maybe they get them done, maybe they drop them, who knows. Stakeholders don't know if their request will be worked on or by whom.
I have been there and you probably have as well.
Nirvana
At the other end of the extreme, we can envision a SWIFT, EVEN FLOW of work coming into and out of our team.
There's some sort of request form to streamline intake.
We have metadata on the requests and the work items.
We are not overloading our staff.
We work on the highest value items.
Stakeholders know where their request sits in the queue.
We have some feel for when work will get done. We can see who's doing what, etc.
(Yes, all this sounds like a fantasy)
Now ask yourself these questions:
Do these extremes resonate for you? Your picture may be slightly different.
Where is your organization along this continuum? And finally:
What's the next logical step to take to improve things? You can't jump to your ideal state in one step.
If there's one mistake I see companies make with regard to this, it's failing to make steady incremental progress. We look at the ideal and how far away we are then get stuck in complaining..
Let's say the next logical step for your team is to establish an intake form for customers in your org to request work of your team.
Now we're ready to discuss the next factor...
Technical vs. Organizational
Improving any aspect of how your team gets WalkMe work done will have two aspects: technical and organizational.
Technical
The technical aspect is what every gets excited about. What tool are we using, is it connected with other tools, what reporting will it have, how automated will it be, where do I click, etc. Pick a software category on G2 and look at all the offerings, you can have endless debates about what app to use for what purpose.
Organizational
However, the organizational aspect is what everyone neglects. Who are the stakeholders for this change? How are we communicating this process improvement / update? Will this get used? Why or why not? How will this help us? How will we integrate this new behavior into our processes? What usage do we expect to see after 30 / 60 days? Etc.
The technical aspect is all about software. The organizational aspect is all about PEOPLE.
The key thing to remember with this concept is that the amount of energy you spend on improving a process in your organization needs to be balanced between both.
If there's one mistake I see companies make over and over, it's paying too little attention to the organizational.
We're changing a technical aspect of our process. We want people to do something differently. We've debated the API connection. We know how we're coding it. We have a new Power BI report. The vendor is implementing the new feature.
Then it launches, and... Crickets...
Adoption is low. People just don't do it. Why? Well, we sent an email. Or we talked to the Director of the stakeholders and expected him/her to roll it out for us.
Nope, not going to work. You've got to spend as much energy on the Organizational side as you do on the Technical side.
Wrapping Up
Next time you're faced with a problem in your organization's processes, try thinking through these aspects.
Let me know how it goes...
