Organisations that struggle to understand the basics of effective process measurement are doomed to stay at a relatively immature level of process capability with slow rates of performance improvement.
When helping clients implement Process Management we often introduce a simple “Process Capability and Maturity Model”. This is used by Process Owners to plan how to improve organisational process capability, but it can also be applied to individual processes.
The Model describes 5 levels of capability:

It's easy to get to the “Managed” level by clear process definition, process mapping and identification of customers and their requirements.
Moving to “Defined” is where many people start to struggle. They document the “systems standards” required, but often don't know how to develop a balanced set of measurements.
That's the focus of this article, with a brief mention of what's needed to achieve the highest maturity levels.

Every process should have a balanced set of measurements against which its performance can be tracked, communicated and improved.
Three types of measurement are required:

Internal measures assess the basic performance of the process. Output measures assess the quality of its intermediate or final outputs. Both (Internal and Output) can be measured without involving the customer(s) of the process. Satisfaction measures are direct assessments of the customer's view of the process.

The measurements you select should be based on the purpose of the process. For example, a process to recruit staff exists to provide the right people, in the right place, with the right skills, at the right time. You will need to know how many people (Volume) are being recruited. Timeliness is also important – is the person available, when needed? Quality of recruit is essential – do they meet agreed criteria? Finally, you will want to measure Line Managers' perceptions of the process and the employees it supplies.

As a Process Owner, you may only need 4-7 measures to manage and continuously improve any process. If you have too many, you probably don't understand what is really important about your process.

Three activities help you achieve the “Quantitatively Managed” level:

One of the distinguishing criteria at the “Quantitatively Managed” level is the ability to identify and eliminate Special Causes of process variation. Special Causes arise from time to time, with an unpredictable pattern. They are, however, often within the control of staff, for example in setting up and following procedures, and using the correct paperwork or information.

Three activities help you achieve the “Optimising” level:

These are activities you would expect to see happening systematically in any “mature” process-managed organisation. As the focus of this article is on Measurement we'll just mention SPC here.
SPC is used to improve performance by reducing process variation. We've described “Special Cause” variation above. The second type is “Common Cause” variation.

Common causes are numerous and always present. Cumulatively, they produce a stable, repeatable and predictable pattern of variation in the output of a process. The level of common causes can usually only be reduced by making major changes to the process itself; i.e. they are within the control of management. They include factors such as the capability of equipment, the level of training given to staff, and the choice and specification of paperwork/materials used in the process.

A Control Chart is the main SPC tool used to give a visual representation of performance based on data collected from the process and to identify statistically significant variation so that improvement action can be taken.

Clearly, you won't be able to use Control Charts if you've not been able to identify the right set of process measurements.
The good news is that none of this is difficult and you don't even have to be a “Maths Whiz” to be able to apply these tools. We have numerous examples of clients who have quickly learned to “make numbers work” for them to drive continuous performance improvement.
There's more information on how to use the Maturity Model in our “Process Manager's Handbook”.

The full version of this article can be downloaded here from our website www.improvement-skills.co.uk

Good luck with your improvement efforts.

 

Ian Seath
Director, Improvement Skills Consulting Ltd.