Process improvement is a practice used to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of a business process. DMAIC is an acronym for the five-step cycle used to improve processes. The first step is to meet with key process stakeholders and conduct “AS IS” process mapping sessions. This helps create process maps that highlight current efficiencies or inefficiencies.
Incorporate any comments from key stakeholders and finalize the process maps. The second step is to evaluate the effectiveness of the process and determine what improvements would be the most optimal. Business process improvement (BPI) is a practice used to assess problem areas and make recommendations for improvement. This helps allocate resources and achieve significant performance improvement. The third step is to document the process.
This helps avoid errors and makes it easy to track and compare data between different versions of a process, so that you can accurately determine if the changes are actually improvements or not. Once you've established that process improvements are functional, you can start collecting data to assess the success of any change. The fourth step is to work with all stakeholder groups to identify recommendations that meet the identified process improvement performance objectives. Then, meet with the project manager and project sponsor to share current project results and align remaining direction and likely actions with process improvement objectives. The fifth step is to improve business processes by automating many repetitive steps within a process. This helps make it easier to achieve continuous improvement.
As the process is repeated over and over again throughout the season, the best teams “develop a chemistry that is something that cannot be seen or quantified, but that gives the team an advantage over the competition that leads them to success. Chris has more than 10 years of experience working in private sector consulting, local government and in internal consulting roles. He specializes in the evaluation of organizational performance and its various areas of focus. It has helped many organizations to assess problem areas and to make recommendations for improvement so that they can allocate resources and achieve significant performance improvement. Process improvement is an essential practice for any organization looking to increase efficiency, effectiveness, and overall performance. By following the five-step DMAIC cycle, organizations can identify areas for improvement, document processes, evaluate effectiveness, identify recommendations, and automate repetitive steps in order to achieve continuous improvement.
With the help of an experienced consultant, organizations can ensure they are taking all necessary steps towards achieving their desired outcomes.
