Chapter 11. OVERCOMING THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

Mistakes are always paid for in casualties and troops are quick to see any blunder made by their commanders.

—Dwight David Eisenhower

Just as productivity was the buzzword in the '70s and quality was the hot topic in the '80s, process is the word on everybody's lips so far in the '90s.

In the past five years, companies of all sizes and industries have become aware that they need to improve business processes such as product development, order fulfillment, planning, distribution, billing, hiring, and customer service. Everybody is doing—or at least talking about doing—"Process Improvement," "process redesign," or "process reengineering."

As with other performance improvement efforts (for example, Total Quality Management, self-directed teams, Just-In-Time inventory), most organizations can point to the results of their efforts: cost savings, quality improvements, and cycle time reductions. However, there has been more sizzle than steak, more activity than results.

In our experience, most failures to realize the potential return on process-improvement investment arise from committing one or more of what we call the seven deadly sins.