Process Focus is an organizational culture that focuses on the processes that create value for customers. In other words, it’s when an organization makes the process their primary focus of importance.
Process Focus also means that more attention must be paid to processes, instead of focusing on functions or departments as most organizations do. This creates a demand for people who understand and can implement process thinking in any department of an organization.
What is Process Thinking?
Process Thinking is a specific way of looking at and understanding activities in organizations. In other words, it’s a holistic approach to managing work that is organized around the flow of activities that create value for customers. At its core, process thinking is a tool to break down barriers between functions and create a focus on overall organizational effectiveness.
It is the idea that everything in an organization contributes to creating value for customers, and any problem within the organization can be traced back to an inefficient or ineffective process. Process thinking is an organizational mindset that makes process improvement an ongoing, continuous endeavor. It is focused not just on efficiency, but on value creation.
Importance of Process Focus
When an organization focuses on a specific process, it can gain better insight into the process. With this insight, it can then make adjustments to optimize the flow and create more value for customers. The better an organization understands processes, the less duplication of effort will exist and the more synergies will be achieved. The end result is better quality, increased customer satisfaction, and increased productivity.
The bottom line is that when organizations focus on processes, they become more efficient and effective. The organization becomes less focused on functions or departments as a result of process thinking. This creates a demand for people who understand and can implement process thinking in any department of an organization. Process experts can then help other departments identify and correct process problems that might not have been discovered without an emphasis on processes.
Create a Shared Understanding of Customers’ Needs
Process thinkers understand that the first responsibility of any department is to create value for customers. Therefore, every department should clearly understand what customers’ needs are and how the department can most effectively create value for them. If this is not the case, the organization is not focused on creating value for customers.
For example, if a sales department is attempting to sell services and products that customers don’t need, it’s not meeting the customers’ needs. Therefore, the sales department is not creating value for customers. If the sales department does not understand the customers’ needs, it cannot create value for them. Without a shared understanding of customers’ needs, process thinkers know that an organization’s focus will be on the wrong things.
Develop Organizational Expertise
Another responsibility of any department is to become an expert at what it does. Each department should therefore become an expert at its specific process. This means that each department should be able to clearly define the process it uses to create value for customers.
If you want to create expertise, you need to break down the process into specific activities. You then need to identify the sequence of those activities, and find out how long each activity takes. Once you have this information, you can look for ways to reduce the time for each activity, or for ways to eliminate unnecessary activities.
Reduce Duplication of Effort and Gain Synergies Across Activities
Process thinkers understand that if a process is manual, a person will perform it. And since all activities are someone’s responsibility, an apparent duplication of effort will exist. Therefore, if you have an existing process, but you do not have the resources at the moment to automate it, you can create a task force to reduce duplication of effort.
Even more important, process thinkers know that there are synergies across all activities. They also know that some activities can be used to reduce the time and cost of other activities. They know that if two or more activities can be integrated into one, they will create synergies. Therefore, they look for opportunities to combine or integrate activities.
Develop a Productivity Culture Through Processes
When organizations become process focused, they also begin to create a culture of productivity. It is a productivity culture that is created by focusing on processes and making continuous improvement an everyday event. It is not something that is done only once or twice a year. When organizations create a culture of continuous improvement, they create a culture of productivity.
A culture of productivity is based on the premise that when something can be done more efficiently or effectively, it should be done in a way that is consistent with the mission of the organization. Therefore, when organizations make the process their primary focus of importance, they also begin to create a culture of continuous improvement.
Conclusion
Process Focus is an organizational culture that focuses on the processes that create value for customers. It is when an organization makes the process their primary focus of importance. Process thinkers understand that the first responsibility of any department is to create value for customers.
Therefore, every department should clearly understand what customers’ needs are and how the department can most effectively create value for them. When organizations become process focused, they also begin to create a culture of productivity. It is a productivity culture that is created by focusing on processes and making continuous improvement an everyday event.
