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Process View, Learning and Thinking Summary The "process orientation" in business has been a subject of discussion for decades, and is widely recognized as providing significant benefits. Yet its overall use is surprisingly low. One reason that the process-orientation in business is not being adopted more quickly is that most business managers and staff do not have a strong "process view". This is because they are not typically exposed to training or experience that allows them to develop particularly strong process modeling, learning and thinking capabilities. At the same time, most business managers and employees are incented first and foremost to maintain (or only incrementally improve) process performance, within a "functional view" organization. So the entire process orientation is unfamiliar, runs counter to people's basic directives, and is out of sync with their organizational culture. Process-oriented methods, tools and structures can be "force fit", but this does little to speed up their adoption and use, and frequently entails other costs. At the same time, the broad distribution of a strong, general process view can pave the way for the use of process-oriented methods, tools and structures. The basis of the process view is the human activity of mental process modeling, learning and thinking. This activity, like any other thinking activity, is best supported by a language. The key to increasing the process view is therefore the introduction of an effective, easy to learn, widely applicable process language for process modeling, learning and thinking. The ActionMap Toolkit serves as such a language.
Business Manager's Checklist for Project Quality Assurance Business/technology innovation projects promise a great deal reward, and accordingly carry a great deal of risk. Successful project delivery requires specialized project management skills. The business manager who is responsible for the project results may not have these skills, but still needs a way to influence project quality. A checklist of key project management activities and methods can help the business and development managers for the project communicate and work together toward project success.
How a Citizens Task Force Overcame a City Budget Shortfall After several years of reducing services and development initiatives due to Proposition 13, the City of San Leandro was hit with seismic retrofit requirements and sales tax revenue losses due to a recession. This is how the City formed a Citizens Task Force and gained community support for $4.3 million in additional budget cuts.
Team Work, Process Innovation, and Team Building To maintain competitiveness and productivity growth, companies must continuously increase their ability to improve processes and build high performance teams. While these two functions are often approached from conflicting points of view, they are most effective when combined. Well-designed processes combined with closely coordinated teams will produce the best results in operations performance. Process development combined with strong team building will produce the best results in new operations set-up, and paves the way for the best operational results.
Key Elements in Repeatable Customer Solutions "Customer solution" is a valuable term, but due to overuse it has lost meaning, causing problems with customer credibility, product development goals, and offering consistency. Companies can counter these problems by developing and applying standards for using the term "customer solution" appropriately within offering lines. These standards can be approached in terms of the designs, innovation activities and values involved in building and delivering customer solutions.
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