Oops, I said the “P” word ….
The word "Process" is one of those words that people don't seem to get excited about. And when this word is used, it's often when there has been an accident or tragedy and the normal response is to review and update their processes and procedures to stop it happening again.
Don't get me wrong; it's definitely the right response and processes are very good for that purpose.
But what I want to propose is that while processes are essential to prevent and deal with negative things happening, they are just as valuable when it comes to making sure positive things happen, for example, developing new products. For those of you that have built products, you know that it's hard and takes a lot of work to do it well. Unfortunately, it's not always done very well, and history has many examples of failed products and sometimes, as a result, failed companies: https://www.google.com/search?q=failed+products
And it's across the spectrum from scrappy startups right through to global corporations.
So what can we do to improve product development? How about an innovation process!
Innovation Process
My definition of innovation is:
“Changing or creating more effective processes, products and ideas, to increase the likelihood of a business succeeding.”
While there are rare examples of innovation which resulted from lucky accidents, successful companies who continually innovate most often have a disciplined process.
When a company has an effective and validated process for managing innovation, they dramatically increase their likelihood of being able to commercialise a winning idea. It starts with being able to sort through many ideas and putting a structure around validating them. And, an innovative idea is not helpful to an organisation unless it can be executed on.
In order to protect innovative ideas, companies need to create a forum for the innovation process.
I have worked with a number of SME and large New Zealand companies, in such diverse industries as chemicals, telecommunications, medical products, agriculture, and food. It's doesn't really matter how big they are, startup through to established companies, or what industry they're operating in, they all benefit from a process when it comes to commercialising the right new ideas.
In a future blog, I'm going to talk about innovation processes specifically, so in this blog let's focus on when processes are required and what makes a good process, whether it be innovation or any other business process…..
When is a process required?
So, what does Wikipedia have to say? (because Wikipedia is always right):
“A set of interrelated activities that interact to achieve a result.”
Most things humans do follows some sort of process, from making a cup of tea to washing the car. We just normally don't need to write the steps down. With experience, we get to test and refine our processes over time to make them better, building up our individual knowledge.
However, there are some things we don't do regularly and we often forget what we learnt from last time.
Also, if we want to share the knowledge so other people can benefit from our learnings (and more importantly, our failures), we need to sit them down and talk them through it or write it down.
For example, baking a cake for your daughters birthday would probably require a recipe, and you'd likely follow it carefully. This would significantly reduce the likelihood of getting it wrong, and you could also pass this recipe onto others.
Make sense?
Processes which need writing down include:
More complicated ones, with more facets
Activities not done every day, where steps and learnings can be forgotten
Situations which require more than one person (potentially from different areas) to work together to achieve the desired result
Tasks which, if not done right the first time, could have a significant impact on the company, e.g. delivery date missed, rework costs, impact on the customer
'Innovation' needs a process, just like a recipe.
What makes a good process?
Simplicity
If a process isn't simple and easy to follow, then it won't get used.
When writing it down, if it becomes difficult to capture and even harder for other people to follow, then odds are it's too complicated. Ask yourself, what is the purpose of the process, and what can be done to simplify it? Are all the steps necessary, and what value do they add?
Designing processes isn't easy (especially for innovation) and it takes time. I'm reminded of the quote "If I had more time I would have written you a shorter letter", except I replace the words "shorter letter" with "simpler process".
Repeatable
It's essential that the process is repeatable and you get the same or similar results each time. And anyone else should be able to pick up the process and get the same results. If that's not the case, then the process needs to be reviewed and improved.
Continually Improved
Regular retrospectives provide constant opportunities to review and continually improve processes. Retrospectives are one of the backbones of Agile Methodology, and consist of time specifically put aside to reflect how something is performing and what can be done to improve.
Flexible
It's also important that processes are flexible — sometimes the process needs to be more detailed for larger, more complicated projects, and less detailed for the smaller, less complicated projects.
Also, often the situation that the process should be used for isn't identical, so it should be flexible for the different situations.
Easy to find and update
A process isn't very useful if you can't easily find it. And if you find that a process is outdated or needs to be corrected and it's difficult and time-consuming to update, then odds are that it will be left as it is. And if you identify an opportunity to capture a process and it's to difficult to create, then you won't bother.
There are tools we can use that make finding, updating and capturing of processes easy. Many of our customers use a wiki, such as Atlassian's Confluence. This turns what might have been a Word document on a network server (or even worse, a printout gathering dust on a shelf) into a repository of processes that are browsable, searchable, usable, updatable, etc.
So hopefully this has got you thinking about processes and how they can help your business.
As always, feel free to comment or let me know if you'd like to chat.
Cheers, David