How Cross-Functional Process Friction Affects Departmental Performance

A department misses its performance target. Where do leaders usually look first? Inside the department. They examine staffing. Productivity. Training. Workload. Procedures. Individual performance. Those are reasonable places to investigate. But what if part of the problem isn’t inside the department at all? What if the department’s performance is being affected by how work reaches […]

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Why Rework Is a Warning Sign in Your Business Process

Why Rework Is a Warning Sign in Your Business Process On the way to completing the work, someone discovers a problem. Information is missing. Something was entered incorrectly. An approval wasn’t obtained. A requirement wasn’t understood. A handoff was incomplete. So the work goes backward. Someone corrects it, resubmits it, and the process moves forward […]

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Who Owns a Business Process That Crosses Departments?

Everyone owns a piece. But who owns the process? That question becomes especially important when work crosses departments. Sales completes its activities and hands the work to Operations. Operations performs its responsibilities and sends something to Finance. Finance completes its portion and passes information somewhere else. Each department may be doing exactly what it is […]

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Why Workflow Validation Should Come Before SOP Development

A well-written SOP can still fail. The instructions can be clear. The formatting can be professional. The steps can be numbered correctly. Roles can be identified. And the SOP can still document the wrong process. That’s what happens when organizations begin documenting procedures before they have validated how the work actually happens. Before turning a […]

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