The characteristics of a good process may seem obvious. Words like simple, clear, easy-to-follow, documented and efficient immediately come to mind. But let’s go beyond the obvious and look at characteristics that should be a part of our processes in our education organizations but very often are not.
Our processes should create something of value for our customers (our learners, parents and stakeholders), something that they need or want. And our processes should also align with our education organization’s goals and objectives. You would be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t be) at how many employees spend time on processes that customers don’t need or want or that don’t align with what the organization is trying to do. Instead, they do things that interest them, that they enjoy, that they are comfortable with or that advance their personal agendas. The whole reason we get paid by an organization is to complete activities that serve our customers and move our organization towards its goals and objectives. We don’t get paid to do what we want to do; we get paid to do what the organization needs us to do. Our processes, what we spend time on to get outcomes for our customers, should reflect this.
Our processes should be repeatable (the same steps in the process get the same outcomes) and standardized(different people do the same steps in the process the same way). When the outcomes of a process are different each time or when a different process is used with each customer, it is not just inefficient, it is really, really confusing. For everyone. Think about an education organization that gets different outcomes each time a course is graded or that uses a different registration process for each customer. The organization would have absolutely no credibility with its customers.
Our processes need to use technologies appropriately to provide a more efficient and effective student or customer journey. Using technology just to use technology (look at the wonderful system we have!) is a waste of time and money. Even worse, using technology that is full of errors and problems, creates a lot of frustration for our customers, and makes the process more difficult, rather than easier. And even worse, investing in a technology and not using it all, or just using one small part of its capabilities, and instead clinging to familiar manual processes, is a HUGE waste of money. Technology is not an instant magic wand for success. But using technology strategically, to improve our processes, allows us to offer our customers the modern processes they expect.
Our processes change over time. They are not static. We need to update our processes as the needs of our customers and organizations change. We need to continuously improve our processes based on the data we collect and the feedback we receive. Doing things the way we have always done them doesn’t cut it. While we can learn from how we did things in the past, we can’t stay frozen in the past, clinging to how we have always done things because it feels comfortable. As our customers change and the world around us changes, so our processes also need to change.
Our processes should be transparent, meaning both our employees and our customers should know what happens at each step of the process and when. Unfortunately, education organizations are notorious for having non-transparent processes. Students have no idea how their applications are evaluated or how long it will take before they hear the results. They are not given reasons for not being accepted into a program. They don’t know why they received a particular grade or result. The list of non-transparent processes in education organizations is long. There is no reason for it to be this way. Delivering education services is not rocket science. We don’t need to keep our processes a secret. The more our customers know how things work, the better.
Do the processes in your education organization meet the above characteristics? If not, this is your starting point for some important and impactful process improvement work.
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