In the past years, I have been learning the hard way how important processes are as a basis for a company to grow. As an entrepreneur or manager, you set out to establish something, to work towards that point on the horizon that you dream of. For most, it means the company has to grow (and of course be profitable). But how do you grow? And how do you grow your IT company or department specifically?
At Bridge, our primary reason for being is helping our customers achieve growth and profitability. Right now, we do this for a specific market: web/software companies & medium and big sized organizations with an IT department. Now of course I love our customers and want to help them achieve that desired growth. In many cases the struggle is to build the solid foundation needed for their growth: processes.
What I hear so frequently is ‘yes of course we have processes, let me explain you’. And my next question is ‘can you show it to me on paper’? Uuuhhh…not really…
In a normal setting, where all people are working in one location to get ‘the job’ done, processes are already a condition for growth. In a setting where a part of the team is located in another building (or country), having clear processes is not only a condition for growth, but a condition to make anything work at all.
The question is: what is a process? Is it a ‘normal way of working’ that is inside the heads of the people? Or is it a well thought through document describing what we do?
In my experience, most companies believe it is the first one. But how do you transfer the way you work to a new employee? Or to a colleague in India? How long will it take to make sure that all your colleagues are 100% aligned with each other on ‘how do we do it’?
I believe it’s a clear and precise step by step documented description that is always in evolution. You write it down, but you always keep on improving it. When a new colleague joins, you hand it over, so he knows how he needs to get the job done. When you have a misunderstanding, you take the document and you can clearly see what has gone wrong.
A written process is the concrete foundation for anything a human team wants to get done. It’s the step by step approach that ensures the team delivers an expected result. It’s the paper roadmap that informs everyone involved in an undertaking what to do next.
I wonder how other growth companies, especially in the IT (outsourcing) world think about this…
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I couldn’t agree more. Processes are the very base of a company or a department or so. In my line of work (marketing & communication) and the companies i have worked for i always started with writing down processes. By writing down and thinking about a process i gained insights in the company and my departement. From there i started building and creating structure/ overview. So from my point of view i see a process as a necessity.
Bedrijfsgroei, processen en vermogen
Om een bedrijf te leiden en te laten groeien is het verstandig om het bedrijf te benaderen als een proces. Een proces is erop gericht om via een gestructureerde set van activiteiten te komen tot een specifiek doel. Een procesbenadering geeft de mogelijkheid het bedrijf bij te sturen onder veranderende omstandigheden. De procesbenadering wordt door alle moderne managementmethoden gevolgd
Effectief procesmanagement wordt bereikt met sturing en zelforganisatie. In essentie komt het erop neer dat het topmanagement de visie ontwikkelt voor de hele organisatie en dat de lijnorganisatie, conform de visie, stuurt naar zichtbare verbeteringen. Op ieder niveau in de organisatie wordt de visie vervolgens uitgewerkt in concrete plannen.
Communicatie, terugkoppeling en het functioneren van de teams vormen op ieder niveau de belangrijke aspecten. De lijnorganisatie is hierbij, gedurende het gehele proces de ruggengraat waarlangs de processen moeten worden doorgevoerd.
John Roos
06 81430098
everybody has a process..some people described it but do not fllow it, some people only have it in their minds but follow it rigidly, some hide behind it, some refuse improved versions…but what is the value of having a process if you don’t have a business goal (or don’t know the goal)? Having a process is like owning a map..if your destination is not on it or the roads get changed your map might bring you close enough to smell the coffee
In a lot of companies processen are documented, but do not reflect the way it really goes. The real oppertunity is to work with a defined “way of working” and to have this documented and implemented. This also means (for big organisations) having the process department working with operations.
So yes, it is the ‘normal way working’ and it is the process description. For software you can look at the Capability Maturity Model (CMM).
I agree so much, I also belive process should add value and should not be there just for the need of having one. One of my organisations had this process of documenting everything about code in documents which were lost after a while, we changed it so that lot of documentation was done as part of coding and documents genrated from them.
Keep posting these intresting articles its fun to read them.