The term process is defined as “a series of actions directed toward a specific goal:. In an organization (such as a church), a process may be described by the process owner/users (staff, volunteers, etc.) as something very different. It may be to be “too complex”, “chaotic”, “informal”, “broken”, or even “non-existent”. They may very well be right. Identifying and documenting a process takes time (to do it properly), but it’s not a difficult exercise to perform.
If you want to improve the way you run your church, your job, or even your personal life, (which is something I think we all really want to happen – given the right guidance) you will need to look at this ugly word called process. We all have a process for getting something done, and in that process there is always room for improvement. But where do you start? If you recall from a previous article, Lean strives to eliminate anything that is not absolutely required to deliver a service on time to our congregation, crowd, and community. The goal is to eliminate the waste or non valued added activities, in that process.
If you already have a good idea of the steps involved in completing a task/service/process, you then need to apply some Lean principles to improve it. Document the process on paper. Gather input from a group of people involved in that process. This will allow you to think about what’s involved in each step and why you need to do it (or why you don’t – which is the goal). It will also allow you to identify the root cause of the waste. For example, perhaps the excess motion is due to the layout of church office, or the excess processing is due to poor work methods. Eliminating the root cause will allow you to eliminate the waste and improve the process.
In the next issue of TLC Lean Lessons, I’ll cover the steps of process mapping in more detail.
Finish Strong.
