The dirty secret of process improvement is that most of the value comes from the first 20% of the work. The remaining 80% is usually re-org theatre — new names, new diagrams, same problems.
Why programmes fail
- Too many changes at once. Nothing actually lands.
- No baseline. You can't prove it worked.
- No owner. The 'transformation team' disbands and the process drifts back.
A four-step DIY method
- Walk the process. Sit with the people doing it. Write down what they actually do, not what the SOP says.
- Find the handoff everyone complains about. There's always one.
- Fix that handoff. One change. Measure before and after.
- Wait a month. Then do the next one.
Measure before and after, honestly
- Cycle time (hours or days).
- Error rate (per 100 transactions).
- Effort (people-hours per cycle).
Pick one of the three for any given change. Measure for two weeks before, two weeks after. If the number didn't move, the change didn't work — back it out and try a different fix.
After a year you'll have changed the business without anyone noticing the transformation programme — because there wasn't one.
When the change doesn't stick
Either the new way is harder than the old way (redesign the change), or no one owns it (assign an owner), or leadership is still rewarding the old behaviour (talk to leadership). It's almost always one of those three.
