| Many of you will recognise this quote from the 1960s | | | | organisation as a machine that needs to be |
| TV show, "The Prisoner". Patrick McGoohan used the | | | | "re-engineered". The problems created by this |
| phrase to describe his frustration at not being treated | | | | approach are then treated as "people issues". |
| as an individual, and being kept in the dark about what | | | | Processes and people cannot be separated like this. |
| his superiors were up to in a very confusing | | | | Even in this age of technology, the vast majority of |
| environment. This experience is not dissimilar to what | | | | business processes are carried out by people - usually |
| employees face in most change projects. | | | | informally. |
| A cog in the machine | | | | It is what employees do on a day-to-day basis that |
| Traditional approaches to business change and | | | | makes a business work. A large percentage of the |
| process improvement have at their heart, the idea that | | | | processes are not documented and are so complex |
| a business is, essentially, a machine that can be | | | | that it would be almost impossible to do so. |
| engineered to be efficient. In fact the term "Business | | | | Procedures manuals are a very conceptualised view |
| Process Re-engineering" (BPR) makes this assumption | | | | of business processes - if they could capture |
| quite explicit. | | | | everything, no-one would pay for experience. |
| This "mechanical" approach to change can leave | | | | Once you acknowledge this, it becomes quite clear |
| employees feeling alienated and devalued (much like | | | | why most change projects are unsuccessful. A |
| Patrick McGoohan). | | | | business process is not an inanimate object that can |
| As these traditional approaches have developed, more | | | | be "re-engineered" but a collection of human |
| emphasis has been placed on the "human" aspects. It | | | | behaviours. The only people capable of changing the |
| is acknowledged that a change programme cannot | | | | business processes are those carrying them out. |
| work without "employee buy-in". The issue is usually | | | | Process Improvement for Strategic Objectives |
| tackled by running numerous workshops where | | | | (PISO®) |
| consultants try to make the employees feel part of | | | | PISO®, developed at the University of Sunderland, |
| the exercise, while continuing to apply the same old | | | | is a unique approach to business process |
| techniques to the business processes themselves. | | | | improvement that provides a structured step-by-step |
| From the employee's point of view, an external | | | | approach for the employees themselves to re-design |
| consultant has interviewed him for thirty minutes to | | | | their own processes. |
| understand the job that he has been doing for thirty | | | | At Feechan Consulting Ltd, we work with organisations |
| years, gone away and come back with a new way of | | | | large and small throughout the UK, from public sector |
| doing it. This comes across as patronising at best. The | | | | bodies such as the BBC and North Tyneside Council |
| consultant then rubs salt into the wounds by running | | | | to private sector companies across all sectors. |
| workshops to try to win the employee over so that he | | | | Many of our clients learn the technique on one of our |
| does not obstruct the changes! | | | | training courses and then apply it themselves, whereas |
| In this environment, addressing the "people issues" is all | | | | others require our facilitation. Either way, it is the |
| about ensuring that the level of disillusionment is not so | | | | employees that carry out the processes that redesign |
| great that the change project fails. | | | | them, removing the separation of people and |
| Processes vs People | | | | processes and significantly improving the success of |
| These problems are created because the underlying | | | | any change. |
| approach to the business processes is still to treat the | | | | |