Particularly in this economy, the need to reduce costs is more important than ever.  There are several questions that help address the decisions about where to make changes:

• If you are experiencing reductions in your workforce, aren't you still trying to maintain the level of service to your customers and clients? 
• If your processes aren't optimized, have you seen rework and delays that frustrate not only the customers but also your employees?
• Are your processes producing excessive and costly waste?

You can impact each of these areas of your organization by taking a process perspective.  Consider the definition of a process that focuses on completing a series of steps, one after the other, to create an end result, such as a product or service.  Taken from this view, a process can include, for example, conducting a meeting, manufacturing a product, offering a service to a customer or patient care in a healthcare setting, producing a report, or many other examples.  Examples of waste, rework, and delays are easy to think of: How many times have you been part of a meeting with no end result, one that had numerous people talking at once, no focused purpose, and left you and others feeling frustrated and unsatisfied or confused about what course of action to take at the conclusion of the meeting?  The measures of hours and cost of such meetings has been documented at astonishing levels.
Process improvement follows some general and specific steps:

• Choose a process to focus on. 
• Articulate the steps of the process in their logical order.
• Look at the steps and assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the process.  In other words, examine to what extent the steps of the process are impacted by rework and other delays.  Taken as a portion of the process cost, these efficiency and effectiveness measures can help you determine the significance of the impact on the process.
• Use the assessments of process efficiency and effectiveness to point you in the direction of where to develop and implement solutions to the problems.  For example, suppose you find that an ineffective meeting is impacting the time, energy, and productivity of 10 people and ultimately wasting 10 - 20 hours that could be far better spent.  This is not an uncommon example. 

What are you waiting for?  Why not take some steps to improve your processes? 

In many ways, the 1970’s work of W. Edwards Deming in the American auto industry is still ahead of our best thinking today.  At one consulting visit that I was fortunate enough to accompany him on, we sat in a meeting with union leaders at the headquarters of General Motors.  Deming and I were seated at a Boardroom table large enough to seat more than twenty.  The chairs against the walls of the room were filled with numbers of UAW leaders.  Deming said to them, “You have a job that no one else can do.  You have to hold management responsible for making improvements.” 

He was saying many things in those words about quality improvement, process improvement, organizational development, and other concepts essential to improving the competitive position of organizations.  He was speaking these things in 1986, and they ring equally as true in 2009.

• Management must lead the way in desire and opportunity for improvement. 
• Management must have the courage to look at rework, delays, and other sources of inefficiency and ineffectiveness. 
• Management must have the boldness to do something to improve what is found lacking. 
• Management must attend to the issues of people and communication, relationships, and leadership behaviors. 
• Management must make the opportunity to facilitate group and individual sessions that uncover the barriers to improvement. 

Deming used words that were a bit different, but his meaning was the same.  

The consulting arena has cultivated vast expertise in helping organizations with all of these challenges.  There is no lack of qualified and superb experts who are extraordinary resources in the ways of process improvement, facilitation, relationship and communication management, and leadership development.  They can significantly save an organization from failure and can help to bring the bright light of process and quality improvement into the organization as a guide.  You need only search to find the right help!