This document discusses common pitfalls that process improvement initiatives often face. It begins by noting that while process improvements initially generate excitement and progress, they frequently fail to create lasting change as motivation wanes over time. The document then outlines three key drivers of process improvement initiatives - purpose, process, and people - and examines common pitfalls within each area. These include a lack of leadership support, unrealistic expectations, not involving the right stakeholders, and poor change management. The document stresses that understanding potential pitfalls can help recovery efforts and recommends preventative strategies like clear communication, addressing employee concerns, and linking goals to business strategies to help ensure process improvement initiatives succeed.

1. Where process improvements go wrong:
Avoid common pitfalls of process
improvement initiatives
Danie du Toit
Business Improvement Specialist
Telkom SA LTD

2. Agenda
 Why understand process
improvement pitfalls
 Continuous improvement drivers
 Characteristics of pitfalls
 Impact of pitfalls
 Recommendations to mitigate
pitfalls
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3. The truth or not?
What do weight-loss plans and process improvement programs have in common?
They typically start off well, generating excitement and great progress, but all too
often fail to have a lasting impact as participants gradually lose motivation and
fall back into old habits
Process improvement programs typically show early progress, and then things return to the
way they were
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4. Questions to ask yourself
1. Has your organisation achieved lasting gains from process improvement
programs?
2. Do you pay much attention to these programs once they move past the initial
stage?
3. Are you involved enough in them to judge for yourself whether they are worth
continuing?
4. Have you tied employee performance appraisals to process improvements?
5. Do you plan on keeping an improvement expert on your staff long term?
If you answer “no” to any of these questions, you should understand how and why so many
process improvement programs fail.
Source: Wall Street Journal 25 January 2010 “Satya S. Chakravorty”
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5. A Definition
pit·fall noun pit-fȯl
1. An unapparent sources of trouble or danger; a hidden hazard:
“potential pitfalls stemming from their optimistic inflation assumptions”
New York Times
2. A concealed hole in the ground that serves as a trap
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
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6. Why understand Process improvement Pitfalls?
• Abundance of information on the ideal state for an organization, but minimal
information of what not to do in getting there
• Process improvements have high rewards, but also high risks when
implementing
• Not everyone knows what you know about process improvements
• Process improvements is commonly viewed as a Technical and not a
Management topic
• You want to be successful in delivering process improvement and value
added change
• Recent studies suggest that nearly 60 % of all corporate process
improvement initiatives fail to yield the desired results (Wall street Journal 25
January 2010)
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7. Process improvement intiatives drivers
Purpose
• Why
• When
Process
• What
• How
People
• Who
• Where
• Now onto the Pitfalls…. In no specific order of importance or grading
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8. Pitfalls within driver 1
Lack of interest or drive by Top Management
Key stakeholders are not actively involved
Purpose Failure to link process improvement objectives to strategic goals
Process improvement teams have dual functions
Weak process improvement Leadership and or Sponsorship
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9. Common characteristics of pitfalls
 Impose unrealistic expectations
Characteristics  Hidden agendas
 Looking for short cuts – Just do something
 Lack of performance measures
Purpose
 Process improvement goals not aligned to company
Impact strategy
 Looking for silver bullets
 Lack of end-to-end representation
How to
mitigate
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10. Impact of pitfalls
 Process improvement deliverables not impacting on
strategic goals
Characteristics
 Resources tied up in never ending projects
 Process improvement models / methodologies and
project teams blamed for failures
Purpose
 Employees become despondent towards process
Impact improvement initiatives
 “Silocitis” as an organisational disease prevails
 Low return on investment on process improvement
initiatives
How to
mitigate
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11. How to mitigate these pitfalls
 Clarify Roles and Responsibilities
Characteristics Talk the language of management “Money, Bottom Line”
 Encourage Top Management to become trained and run projects
 Map stakeholders and do effective stakeholder management
Purpose
 Involve stakeholders in decision making
Impact
 Educate Top Management by scheduling orientation sessions on
proper process improvements
 Ensure complete scoping of improvement initiatives
 Include process improvements deliverables key performance
How to areas
mitigate
 Ensure project goals and objectives are aligned with
strategic/corporate goals
If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself. “Henry Ford”
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12. Pitfalls within driver 2
Failure to stabilise the process prior to embarking on process
improvements
Process Staff process improvement teams with wrong people
Not walking the process and involving employees upfront
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13. Common characteristics of pitfalls
 Huge amount of variation in process
Characteristics  Process outputs are unpredictable
 Project teams suffer from “Analysis Paralysis”
 Inexperienced employees assigned to process improvement
teams
Process
Impact  Lack of commitment from team members
Team is heavily staffed with external consultants
 No clear understanding on end-to-end process
How to  No end-to-end representation on team
mitigate
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14. Impact of pitfalls
 Extended timeline to implement improvements
Characteristics  Improvements implemented do not have an impact on
organisational goals
 Employees resistant towards process improvement initiatives
 “Silocitis” as an organisational disease prevails
Process
Impact  Lost investment when external consultants leave
 Pockets of excellence created in value stream
 Process improvement effort does not deliver value
How to
mitigate
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15. How to mitigate these pitfalls
 Spend time early in the improvement process to
review the process performance
Characteristics
 Standardise the process through implementation of Standard
Operating Procedures (SOP), best in class practices
 Focus on making right things easy to do and wrong things hard to
do
Process
Impact  Ensure people in the process improvement team are
knowledgeable on the processes in practice
 Leverage external consultants to help launch and enable your
process improvement team
How to  Ensure all functions affected by the envisaged process
improvement are represented on the team
mitigate
 Every project should start with a process walkthrough to
understand the process to be improved
Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch painter (1853-1890)
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16. Pitfalls within driver 3
Inadequate training and development of teams and employees,
and communication to employees
No performance measures and awards to motivate employees
People
Ignoring the people factor / Poor change management
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17. Common characteristics of pitfalls
 Lowered productivity
Characteristics  Ineffective communication mediums used to communicate
 Lack of Top Management visibility at the cold face where
improvements take place (Walk the Talk)
 No communication and training plans available for project
People
Impact  Process improvement efforts not included in project team
members performance and appraisal system.
 No organisational change management visible
 Resistance to improvement adoption and change
How to
 Employees questioning the change are seen as rebels or
mitigate
trouble makers
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18. Impact of pitfalls
 High emotional stress levels visible in staff
Characteristics  Conflict increases
 Past patterns of behaviour become highly valued
 Increased timelines to implement change
 Employees become despondent
People
Impact
 Lack of trust between workforce and management
 Lost in productivity
 Resistance to change
How to
 Organised labour rejection of improvement
mitigate
initiatives
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19. How to mitigate these pitfalls
 Communicate, communicate, communicate
Characteristics  Understand forces of change within the process to be improved
 Develop proper change management strategy upfront
 Include organised labour as a stakeholder upfront
 Allow employees to question changes and give detail answers
People
Impact
 Assist employees through the change transition
 Provide appropriate training in new skills and coaching in new
values and behaviours
How to  Give more feedback than usual
mitigate
 Recognise and reward efforts
A person’s life is an accumulation of time just one hour is equivalent to a persons life.
Employees provide their precious hours of life to the company so we have to use it
effectively otherwise we are wasting their life. “Eiji Toyoda”
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20. In summary
 If you hit a pitfall, the situation can be recovered
 Knowledge, anticipation and awareness are the best
defenses against pitfalls
 Preventing pitfalls will dramatically increase the
chances of a successful process improvement effort
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21. Acknowledgements
 Slalom Consulting, “Avoiding Process Improvement Pitfalls”
 Chakravorty, S – Wall Street Journal January 2010
 Breyfogle, F.W., “C Suite: The need to rethink our Business System's
strategic planning, Scorecard Creation, and Process Improvement
Efforts”
 Dr Danie Vermaak., “Sustaining initiatives from a management
perspective”
 Henk Lourens., “Leading people through change”
 Paula Riley, Riley Process Excellence
 Jacques Snyders – Training Leadership Consulting
 Paul Obiero – Kenya Airways
 Telkom Business Improvement Office Variability
B I O
 Miranda Ferreira – Dimension Data Inflexibility Waste
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22. In closing
New age thinking of working “smarter”
not “harder” is a myth
Everyday you may make progress. Every
step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch
out before you an ever-lengthening,
ever-ascending, ever-improving path.
You know you will never get to the end
of the journey. “Winston Churchill”
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