Process Interventions for Better Productivity

Published On:
December 02, 2021
Authored By:
APQC
Members-Only Content:

Too often, the word “productivity” conjures images of manufacturing floors, e-commerce warehouses, or the Toyota Production System. Efficiency (often measured as throughput) is certainly one facet of productivity, but the focus on creating or moving more widgets in a shorter amount of time has meant that organizations have spent decades focusing only on half of the productivity equation.

In mid-2021, APQC carried out a survey to better understand what productivity looks like for knowledge full-time knowledge workers. The survey asked respondents a series of questions about how they define and measure work productivity, factors that make them more and less productive, and the impact of process and knowledge management interventions on productivity.

This whitepaper summarizes the survey’s key findings regarding process management, focusing on:

  • the definition and measurement of productivity,
  • key process-related challenges to productivity, and
  • process-related solutions to improve productivity.

Along with providing process-related strategies and approaches that demonstrably improve productivity, we also include examples of how leading organizations apply process-related interventions to remove waste from processes, better monitor performance, transcend organizational silos, and more.