The art of dismantling the “unfortunate process”

Procurement/supply chain work is comprised of a series of steps or processes needed to complete the project. As a public procurement leader for more than a few years, I have had experiences and exposure with the phenomenon that I term “unfortunate process.” Instead allowing my “inner Deming” the immediate impulse to blurt out “bad process! bad system!” when I experience numerous repetitive hurdles to jump over in completing a simple organizational outcome or task, I have mellowed in my age of wisdom to simply identify such as “unfortunate process.” I am certain that you have experienced this concept in the modern work environment.

Do good processes matter? I would suggest that they do.

According to IDC research, inefficient processes can cost organizations up to 20-30 percent of their annual revenue. For example, with Apple’s 2023 reported annual revenue of $383.29 billion, that would equate to a potential loss of $115 billion.

So, what is unfortunate process? Simply defined, unfortunate process is a list of actions or steps required for a specific outcome, objective or work product that are either/all unnecessary, out of order, redundant or ritualistically performed due to history, culture, system or poor process design.

In my career, this idea goes back to my days working in a factory for a large multi-national corporation in a high-tech business, where I was first exposed to the ideas of total quality and learned about the theory of constraints, Deming’s Chain Reaction and bottlenecks within production. If you have ever worked in a 24/7 factory, you’ve likely had similar experiences with such concepts discussed daily within production meetings.

In my first factory role, I set up the production line with several inputs (specifications) to ensure a quality output with technical instructions needed by the personnel in the clean room to manufacture the product. I created a document called a “traveler” that provided the unique specifications of the product to be built as well as instructions and technical requirements for each process step for the successful manufacture of our product. In our work, microns determined whether the product passed inspection and could be shipped out or failed as a reject, which had to be reworked, starting the process over.

The idea of unfortunate process was revealed to me in the factory work experiences, where steps within work processes that were unexplained and not questioned for value or benefit became of keen interest. I noted that there were both types and origins of unfortunate process, which I have endeavored to document here in no particular order. Please know that this is not an exhaustive list, as you may have your own pet list.

1. “This is how we do it” process:
   “We’ve always done it this way. We’ve tried other ways and they don’t work.” This one is likely the best known of unfortunate process.
2. “Lead department” process:
   One department decides to create a new process and they take time to ensure that the process benefits them in some manner (additional cycle time to complete work, gives them cover from mistakes and long cycle times, makes process problems appear to be created by other parties), and then they roll it out for everyone, not taking into consideration how the new process will impact their partners within the quality/value chain.
3. Precambrian process:
   Process that was devised and implemented a long time ago that is ingrained in the workplace culture and never questioned by workers. The process, even though it may be inefficient and ineffective, is just performed like ritual with no ownership and no one willing to say, “Why do we do this?!” The most common of these types of process are those being done by the wrong department due to how the process was originally set up. I have learned it takes some tact, excellent communication and a bit of tenacity to get the work pushed into the right department’s basket.
4. “Too complex” or “too long” process:
   Additional non-value steps that take energy and time that ultimately costs the organization in terms of real output and money. While highly paid professions are engaged in unfortunate process, they are missing out on doing high level/high value work that could significantly assist operations, save money or support the mission of the organization.
5. “Do it when you want to” process:
   Process that is not data or metric driven and therefore we do it just to do it. There is an output, and that output is important to some degree, but we don’t care how or when the process is completed. One day or 10 days…no problem. I suppose this would be deemed the “laissez-faire” process of unfortunate process.
6. Missed target process:
   The process that misses a real opportunity to solve a problem or bring innovation that produces consistent and real results. Perhaps the old output needs to change into something else, and a work re-design is in order. The best way that I can describe this type is to consider a team that goes out to play a game with an understood game plan, and they always lose. The goal of the process is never reached.
7. Top-down process:
   Process handed down by the CEO, chancellor’s office, higher power or c-suite authority, whereby no one is willing to address the issues with the process for fear of looking bad, hurting their opportunities for advancement or just plain losing their jobs. This unfortunate process is filed under battles not worth fighting, or the politics of poor autocratic management.
8. Hardcoded (rigid) process:
   This is cemented process that takes a huge amount of thought work and multiple functional areas to change. For example, the updating or replacement of the monolithic ERP system. In this case we are talking about a system that dictates process and since that system is difficult to change, processes remain stagnant due to an affixed system in place.
9. Disconnected/disjointed or dark process:
   Those actions or steps that do not properly connect with other departments’ work or they are not managed and are known to few people. No formal training is provided. Workers learn about the process through the grapevine and other longer tenured workers. Who is managing this process? Who knows? “Just do what I am telling you to do.”

Leaders who care about and lead process improvement understand there is an art to leading improvement projects for the betterment of the organization. No two unfortunate processes are improved in the same way, and we should take away an idea from Dr. Edwards Deming that we should want to “improve (quality, processes, yourself, your department, your staff, your organization, your products) constantly and forever,” which neatly ties into his idea of transformation and how great organizations are constantly transforming, innovating and improving work product and processes as part of their operational work. Such improvement ideas must be built into the everyday processes of our work.

So how can you and I make a difference in process improvement within our organizations? How can we avoid becoming one of those process wallflowers that we may know from our organizations, who can continuously and constantly complain about how bad things are, but they never invest the time or the energy in process improvement with ideas, energy and grit?

• Build strong relationships with the people in the “value chain” within your organization. The value chain is simply the work groups that depend upon each other for some input that is passed on through additional process steps ending in some important organizational output. Such relationships enable one to speak frankly about processes that hinder production, or which cause snags, delays, defects and provide non-value steps within the organization. One small change in process benefiting one department may completely alter quality outputs/work product in another department, thus creating more work for the other department. Work silos must be removed and replaced with cross-functional work teams.
• Remove barriers of communication, and work to share ideas and survey data with business partners within the organization to get an idea about which processes are “unfortunate” and build process improvement/quality teams to address. Schedule weekly, monthly, quarterly work team meetings to discuss issues that hinder desired outcomes or results.
• Reward people/teams for fixing unfortunate process. If you can create unique staff positions that focus on continuous improvement, then you should jump on that opportunity. The rest of us need to bring in a mindset of continuous improvement when we encounter unfortunate process and carve out some small part of our work day on imagining good processes that are not too complex, do not include redundant steps and that are developed in inclusive cross-functional teams, while meeting the product requirement 100 percent of the time (or as close to that as possible). A reward does not have to be monetary, but that is a good incentive. Success is something we all can celebrate.
• Re-create/re-design with the end in mind. Start by thinking about the end product or output, and work backwards to discuss steps that may be necessary from each value chain partner. Talk through the reasons why the current process needs a re-vamp and seek root causes for the issues, snags or problems found within the current process. Develop and maintain metrics as a key aspect of your new process to ensure that you can manage, review, report, tweak and improve the new process.
• Be passionate about and open to change. Half of any job is just showing up and caring. Work to subdue the hidden human condition that seeks status quo, or the idea that current processes are “good enough for government work.” Read up on Deming, Philip Crosby and Joseph Juran. Get nerdy about process improvement to the point that you do not fear it, and you embrace it and the positive outcomes it brings within the organization and the people working within it.
• Bring positive energy, thought and speech to your process improvement work. This is your secret weapon. Talk in terms of shared, mutual benefits and improved operational and stakeholder outcomes.
• Get executive leadership involved, vested and sponsored in improvement work. Improvement is everyone’s job—from senior leaders of organizations down to our line staff. Create a culture that knows and can communicate the value proposition and benefit of investment in process improvement activities. Where senior leaders go, most of the organization will follow.
• Build the culture of improvement with training and investment in people. Create mandatory training modules regarding the organizational rewards of a focus on continuous improvement. Allow the people who do the work the benefit and dignity to solve their problems with cross-functional work teams vs. top-down solutions. Hire and promote innovative people who show an understanding and inclination of wanting to improve processes and systems.
• Consider the idea of Kaizen from Japanese manufacturing. The idea that small, incremental improvements (to a process) will, in the long run, provide a larger positive impact in aggregate. We don’t have to solve all the big problems at once. We can place our improvement focus on the low hanging fruit projects of process improvement, which can added up and can make a huge difference in throughput, quality output and work satisfaction. Those are winning combinations that ignite the fire of a total quality focused organization.

To conclude, consider the leadership path that acts, and is empowered to address and ultimately dismantle unfortunate process and to be able to fully articulate the value proposition of including such activities within the daily work that we produce within our supply chain, purchasing, contract administration and procurement operations departments. With the emergence of smart machine learning, we will likely have new tools in the not-too-distant future to help with process improvement. But we will still need people to ask the right questions, set the right goals and create the appropriate tools to measure the process improvement and tracked outcomes.

This enlightened path is “the gift” of doing the good work.

Christopher E. Burton MBA, CPPO, CTPM worked as the director, procurement operations at Houston Community College System for more than 10 years. Educated in the Holy Cross tradition at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, he earned a BA in business and MBA in management and marketing while working full-time in global supply chain management for DuPont. After a 10-year career with DuPont within leadership positions in operations, marketing, contracts and supply chain, Burton focused his career towards the public sector and has worked in contracts and procurement leadership roles supporting state government and higher education for more than 18 years. He taught Quality Systems in the University of Houston, College of Technology–Supply Chain and Logistics program for more than eight years.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the March 2024 issue of Government Procurement.