Data-driven tips: reducing process deviations

In today's labor market, staff shortages are forcing many companies to do more with fewer working hours. But how do you achieve this? Reducing process deviations is one of the most impactful ways to make your business more efficient. Data Strategy Leader Louis de Roo explains why in the second blog on the data-driven tips for 2023.

Operational processes

Your operational processes are the lifeblood of your business. This is where you make your product, sell your goods or manage your inventory. Chances are you have thought carefully about how to run these processes as efficiently and profitably as possible, with the best result for your customer and your company. During onboarding of new employees, you explain how you expect them to work according to these processes, and perhaps you even carry out checks and audits to make sure they are followed. So far, so good…. Or not?

For every rule there is an exception, and for every process there is a workaround. In many operational processes, workarounds arise because the process does not cater to certain needs of the people carrying it out. Too much administrative burden, cumbersome rules or a poor fit with the practical situation create so-called "desire paths" that offer the user a faster route to the desired result, skipping one or more process steps. In other cases, the exceptions to your process are created as a complication, because your process does not cater to certain needs or does not allow your user to achieve the desired result. We call this a detour.

New route

Of course, you would ideally like your original process to be followed, because that was the most efficient route after all. But before you go all out to fight these workarounds, it is good to remember that reality is stubborn, and that most of your employees are generally not waiting for solutions that make their work harder. There may well be a reason for your workarounds!

Before you call your employees out on their lax behavior, it is therefore worth checking whether they may have found a smarter solution. Anyone who is confronted with certain problems daily in practice eventually develops their own way of dealing with them, and perhaps, with what you know now, that new route is actually more efficient than the original process. In that case, it is wise to embrace the new route as the new standard as soon as possible and to applaud this innovation. By promoting the new process, you have become more efficient in an organic way.

Not every deviation is an improvement

Unfortunately, not every deviation is actually an improvement. In many cases, workarounds actually make the process less efficient or less profitable. It is important to realize that you are probably the cause of this yourself. After all, which KPIs do you steer your employees on? On the basis of which figures are they assessed and rewarded? Chances are that somewhere in your management, one of the targets your employees have to meet is causing a detour in your process. Because if the optimal process does not contribute to raising that one important score for your employees, they will look for a way that does.

Another important cause of deviations in your process can lie in the perceived meaningfulness of certain steps. Nobody likes doing pointless work, and process steps that do not represent clear value to the user are often the first to be skipped. Do you still consider those steps important? Then consider automating them with a simple low-code application. By adding a small piece of functionality you easily take away a lot of frustration, and you still get the desired result without having to constantly chase it.

A clear picture

So it is important not only to look closely at your processes, but also to have a clear picture of the steering mechanisms you use to give your organization direction. In an ideal situation, you not only have the right KPIs in use, but you also know how and where they connect to your process, and how your system landscape supports this. By regularly checking whether your process still fits the needs of your organization, you ensure constant optimization and, even more importantly, you make use of your employees' practical experience to improve your processes.

Having a clear picture of your actual processes is therefore essential to steer and optimize your organization. But depending on the size of your organization, that can become a rather complex task. Especially when you consider that you want to have not only your processes in view, but also the exceptions to them. We will be happy to tell you more soon about using smart software to help you with this.

Getting started with KPIs?

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