Whether or not we are in a classic recession as defined by economists, or it’s all in our heads as a retired U.S. Senator recently stated, every business needs to assure that it can remain competitive in these trying economic times. MicroCraft has worked with many clients improving their business processes to increase productivity, improve quality and develop new business models to bring products to market.

Now, in this time of limited resources, shrinking markets, the weak dollar and many other challenges, MicroCraft introduces our second new product for 2008, the MicroCraft “Recession Tune-up”. This is a three-step process to improve your company’s performance while at the same time build a sense of commitment in your workforce to the ultimate success of your organization.

 

Step One: Current Business Process Analysis

We conduct an audit of your existing processes by concentrating on interviews with the process owners. Through these interviews we begin to map out how the current process works and where it has problems. Then, we use brainstorming techniques with the process owners to identify possible solutions to the problems they’ve described.

After we finish the interviews with the process owners, MicroCraft creates a current business process map including narrative. This describes all of the interrelationships and problems with the current process. Then MicroCraft conducts a review meeting where all of the process owners fine-tune the map and narrative so it provides an accurate representation of the current process and all related problems as they see and deal with on a daily basis.

During the step one process, MicroCraft holds periodic status meetings with the company senior leadership sponsors to keep them appraised of the current findings. When the process owners validate the current business process map and narrative a final meeting is held with senior leadership to review the findings before proceeding to step two.
 

Step Two: Develop Revised Business Process

MicroCraft develops a revised business process using the process owner suggestions from step one, benchmarking of similar processes in other industries and Best in Class techniques where applicable.

MicroCraft then creates a revised business process map including narrative. This describes all of the process additions; deletions and adjustments needed to address the problems with the current process. Then MicroCraft conducts a review meeting where all of the process owners fine tune the map and narrative and validate that the revised business process will resolve all problems with the current system without introducing new problems.

As with the step one process, MicroCraft holds periodic status meetings with the company senior leadership sponsors to keep them appraised of the revised business process direction. When the process owners validate the revised business process map and narrative a final meeting is held with senior leadership to review the findings before proceeding to step three.

Step Three: Implement Revised Business Process

MicroCraft is committed to helping company senior leadership; sponsors and process owners successfully implement change in their organization. A fundamental part of steps one and two was to develop a sense of ownership in the problems and necessary changes amongst the actual process owners. In this third and final step, MicroCraft provides mentoring to the implementation project manager and project team in developing an implementation plan to make the revised business model a reality.

Having the process owners directly involved in identifying the problems and creating the solutions as part of steps one and two developed a sense of ownership in the required changes. Now, in implementation we take advantage of that commitment to have several process owners on the implementation team pushing for the implementation to succeed and actively leading their peers in the implementation of the revised business process.