Operating the Process and Continuing to Improve

The purpose of Nurture and Continuously Improve phase is to continue to find opportunities for improvement based on experience, new enablers, and enhanced knowledge. In this phase, you strive to ensure that the new process is operated and enhanced as a whole process regardless of organizational structure.

Results

In the Nurture and Continuously Improve phase, an organization obtains feedback regarding the implemented process solution by continuing to measure the process performance according to the KPIs defined in the project. The organization also searches for opportunities to do better based on experience, changing conditions, and knowledge sharing.

Concepts Handled

Figure 5.12 depicts the concepts dealt with in the Nurture and Continuously Improve phase.

Concept Knowledge Reused

The Nurture and Continuously Improve phase is unlike the other framework phases in that it isn’t usually time-bound. It’s an ongoing activity until the need for a major renewal is apparent, at which time the whole Process Management Framework cycle starts up again. This phase is the ongoing execution of the process and its day-to-day management as a process by the process owner. As such, it uses all the capability that the renewal project will have delivered. The implemented solution, process, facilities, technologies, and human enablers are the baseline on which the business will run and the subject of continuing assessment for improvement.

What you learned about the business in the framework phases to date will be very relevant and must always be kept in mind. You must be sure that the participants in the day-to-day don’t lose sight of why the solution was implemented. You must continue to manage the required relationships and keep them healthy. You also should follow up the project’s business case to be sure that the anticipated benefits are being realized. Publicize your successes to help in later efforts.

Concept Knowledge Created

The business and process requirements that drove the renewal project must be fresh in your mind during the Nurture and Continuously Improve phase. You must also pay attention to the actual results as reported by the newly instituted measurement system. The chain of contributing measurements against the defined KPI scorecard will become a key component of your management dashboard and for assessing the process’s health as well as its need for enhancement. These actuals-mapped-against-expectations are invaluable tools, but they assume that nothing has changed in the business and process stakeholders’ criteria. This assumption can be dangerous. Clearly, then, you must continue to reassess the relationship criteria of the business and process stakeholders, as well as the company’s evolving strategies and plans, to understand if any gaps are starting to emerge in processes and capabilities. In short, keep the work that you did in the Business Context, Architect and Align, and Vision phases current.

Based on this, you need to continue to improve the whole process, not just isolated parts of it. As mentioned, use the results of observed measurements to find areas to be enhanced. You should also continue to benchmark your processes against other organizations’ processes, especially if they are outperforming you. Also examine the opportunity that new and emerging technologies might bring as they mature.

The participants in the process also gain a great deal of knowledge as they do their work. You can gather a lot of this knowledge and share it with the other participants in a knowledge-managed environment. You can also use it to find improvements in your process as you go forward.

Especially in a process-managed environment, never forget that people need to know what’s going on. Communication that emphasizes process, stakeholder, and traceability to the business mission is needed to gradually change the organization’s culture.

Steps

The following steps are recommended to populate the concepts of the Nurture and Continuously Improve phase. They describe the essential aspects of the process manager’s job:

1.	Stabilize the solution.
2.	Measure performance.
3.	Conduct a post-implementation review.
4.	Make adjustments.
5.	Find opportunities for improvement.
6.	Adopt the solution.