Process optimization for advanced users? Here's how to do it right!

What is actually the ultimate goal of process management? While there would certainly be many possible answers to this question, one of these options always stands out from the crowd:  

The goal of any process management is to optimize all of your own workflows based on a potential analysis of the current workflows towards an idealized target concept of a completely efficient version of these processes.

Or, for those for whom this (possibly intentionally complicated by the author) explanation was too long: the ultimate goal of process management is traditionally process optimization.

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The rationale behind this is quickly explained: What is one of the most essential virtues in today's economic landscape? That's right, efficiency - be it in terms of costs, time, consumption of resources or other determinants. How do I achieve an efficient (or at least more efficient) state? By uncovering gaps (and thus potentials) in my processes and trying to close them. Incidentally, this also explains the increasing interest in process management systems in general: nowhere is there a better alternative to reveal your own optimization potentials and then systematically implement them.  Process optimization is therefore based on the possibility provided by process management itself to understand and analyze your own business processes. Who would have thought that the presentation of your own business processes in a clear system that is accessible to everyone (and of course every woman) could be so useful?

Okay, you might be asking yourself "When is he going to get to the point? How do I implement this as a professional???" Patience, young Padawan, I'm getting there...

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Process optimization for winners

Sounds sensationalist, but it's not that bad. Because there are also differences in the approach and implementation when it comes to "process management" and "process optimization". In process management, it is not uncommon for the processes currently stored in the system to be more of an idea of the responsible manager than a representation of the reality of the process. I think it's clear why this can lead to problems: what good does it do you in practice to optimize a purely theoretical construct of the process? No, in order to really be successful in optimizing your processes (and thus also with your entire process management!), you have to constantly improve the REAL process. At first glance, this may seem almost antithetical to the catchy definition of "development towards an idealized target concept of the process", but it is also important to consider the current conditions and, above all, the path to optimization when developing this ideal concept (or the process to the process, if you will!). The biggest mistake in process optimization is therefore to disregard the real conditions of the existing processes and thus improve not the company, but only the ideal of the company. So what do we do about it?

Process optimization as part of the corporate culture

Let's put it this way: it helps if your process management system is not only DATA-driven, but also FEEDBACK-driven. The combination of genuine employee feedback, coupled with the power of the data stored in the system, turns your system into an absolute optimization machine! In summary, these are the most important attributes you can use to start your process optimization:

• A process management system that records your company's processes, including all associated information, and presents them clearly for you and your employees.
• The implementation of this system as a feedback-driven tool for optimizing the company, in order to always document the actual status for all processes.

Such a system, which certainly requires a certain process-related corporate culture of continuous improvement, ultimately helps you and your company exactly with what you purchased it for: improving your processes. Data and feedback-driven.  

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