The document introduces a process called "Who Decides?" for developing and improving work systems. It describes how the author developed this process while leading various change initiatives aimed at increasing employee involvement and moving organizations toward high performance work systems. The process helps organizations decide how decisions are made within key work processes by analyzing factors like who participates, how the decision is made, what data is used, and the outcome of each step.

1. Process Step 1________ Step 2________ Step 3________ Step 4________ Step 5________ Manager Decides Manager Decides with Team Input Consensus Team Decides with Manager Input Team Decides X X X X X Who Decides? Step 3 Who participates? Decision step? How decided? What data? When? Outcome of step? Next step? Step 2 Who participates? Decision step? How decided? What data? When? Outcome of step? Next step? Step1 Who participates? Decision step? How decided? What data? When? Outcome of step? Next step? Who Decides? Tools for Developing and Improving Work Systems Barry Hebert Consulting c

2. Who Decides? Tools for Developing and Improving Work Systems Introduction Change in how we work is an inevitable and desirable necessity for survival in this quickly shifting organizational climate. As a senior human resource director at both business and corporate level in a large Fortune 500 manufacturing company I had the opportunity to participate in, champion, commission, and approve funding for a variety of work system change initiatives. Each initiative was designed to increase the involvement of employees in achieving the goals of the organization. Some were focused on increasing product quality, some on increasing process reliability, some on inventory reduction, some on self-managed teams, and some on problem solving. There were Quality Circles, Quality Stories, High Performance Work Systems, ISO 9000, Six Sigma, the Baldrige Award competition. While each program was based on a valid "case for change" and had defensible, if not noble, objectives, each program also brought with it its own change process. As these initiatives came and went it became clear to me that what was needed was a reliable method to focus change; some common, simple, repetitive process that could be used to accommodate whatever changes in technology or workforce direction might be needed. It also became clear to me that many of the dysfunctional problems so common in work groups could be attributed to lack of clarity of how decisions within the work group were made and carried out. So much time seemed to be spent on "changing workplace culture" and no time spent on designing work systems that leveraged the power of the great diversity of culture in place. In a recent consulting assignment I was asked to lead an effort to redefine employee and managerial roles in a large organization to align the work systems with a vision of broader employee participation - a move toward a "high performance work system". This was a sophisticated, and somewhat jaded, group of people who were not impressed with the complexity of previous change initiatives. They wanted simple, direct and adaptable. They wanted to be involved. They wanted a set of clear outcomes. They wanted something that would last. And they did not want to be tied to a consultant for life. As we worked together to devise a change process that would accomplish their goals it became apparent that, while a broad, long-term objective was a noble thing to have, what really mattered was the day-to-day change process. How could we effect a transition from where we were to where we wanted to go in a way that was simple, effective, and measurable. The key seemed to be to focus on each process as an independent sub-system with its own unique participative formula rather than focusing on the overall participative character of the team . We found that for work groups to aspire to overall "self management" was confusing and unrealistic. We had to look at the decision-making processes within the work group one by one. So we began to isolate individual work processes and grapple with how decisions were made within those processes. As we considered the alternative ways of structuring the decision-making processes one of the key participants in the change process asked the question, "So Who decides who decides?" Despite the imperfect English, as my spell-checker continuously reminds me, this jumped out to me as a critical question in the redesign of work processes. How do we decide how decisions are made and carried out? This led to the design of the Process that I have called " Who Decides?", the details of which you will find on the following pages. This process has been proven to be useful in the design and implementation of work system change initiatives and also in the resolution of intra-group work system problems. It provides guidance on both the transitional objectives of work system change initiatives and the transitional activities needed to carry them out.  Barry Hebert Consulting

3.  Barry Hebert Consulting

5.  Barry Hebert Consulting

6.  Barry Hebert Consulting

7.  Barry Hebert Consulting

8.  Barry Hebert Consulting

9. List key work processes (budgeting, order fulfillment, hiring, etc.) Come to a consensus regarding the overall decision-making profile. X X X X X  Barry Hebert Consulting

10.  Barry Hebert Consulting

11. Process Analysis and Improvement Worksheet  Barry Hebert Consulting Process Step Notes Process Step Notes Decision Step Notes Decision Step Notes start end Process decision process decision

12.  Barry Hebert Consulting

13. Who Decides? P rocess Improvement Tracking Form