We are all aware that the most powerful source of knowledge is in people’s heads and is rarely ever written down.
From my experience leading continuous process improvement projects in various industries, here are some tried and tested techniques:
Storytelling:
Knowledge within an organization is contextual. Two similar sized companies within the same industry are likely to be operating in totally dissimilar working environments. In attempting to understand an existing business process, in particular the interdependencies and risks, one of the most effective techniques is often informal storytelling.
Key process factors emerge almost unconsciously during a conversation in natural flow, compared to a carefully scripted Q&A session, for three reasons:
How do you know you are asking the right questions? If you have been brought in to assess and help a company improve and transform its existing business processes, it is impossible to know if you are covering all bases since, as an outsider, you approach the situation from a context-free perspective.
Unintentional reticence on the part of the interviewee. Human nature is to answer the question that is asked, in whichever frame it is set. No more, no less. Yes, it’s true that further detail may be uncovered through probing, however conventional Q&A sessions may result in questions posed in a way that may subconsciously direct interviewee responses down a certain path. Peripheral (an in many instances the most useful!) information is permanently lost.
Cultural Behaviours. Storytelling reveals much more about the way an organization behaves, which is critical piece of knowledge to draw on should you become involved in the business process redesign and transformation steps.
Great, you have now uncovered this knowledge - what next? Depending on the urgency and nature of the business requirement, it may be necessary to redesign and re-engineer some aspects of the business and how it operates, in order to minimize financial
Building a Knowledge Database:
On completing the process redesign phase, this technique works best where there is top-down buy-in within the organization. A carefully structured and maintained database of this type represents bottom line savings that can run into millions of dollars for an organization.
Case Study: Market Leading Transport Company
Following completion of the business process redesign phase for Customer Billing and Invoice Settlement, a database created in Microsoft Outlook significantly reduced the
Here’s how it worked:
During the month-end processing cycle, email dialogue and information exchange between Finance and the business in relation to each customer was recorded. These emails covered everything related to correctly and efficiently billing each customer, e.g. new formatting requirements, changes in supporting documentation, how certain charges were to be shown / categorized on the invoice, amounts to be split between more than one service vehicle.
What was the business benefit of doing this?
Not all customers were being handled by the same Finance person every month. Ahead of the next period end the knowledge database could be accessed (say the week before) and the issues or changes raised by customer from previous periods read and understood. This accelerated the learning and orientation phase, increased process efficiencies coupled with a significant shortening of the customer billing cycle and a dramatic increase in customer invoice accuracy. High levels of invoice accuracy led to a significant improvement in the company’s cash-flow due to faster invoice settlement.
Implementing and Embedding new Knowledge processes
Through a series of repeatable behaviours and actions, knowledge becomes embedded and shared within the organization.
The Next Step?
More storytelling!