^The APQC Blog

C. Jackson Grayson is the Founder and Executive Chairman of APQC.  I interviewed Jack about why companies struggle to improve process, resist change, and how to get people to focus on process and not outcomes.  

Jack will be a presenter at the 2014 APQC Process Improvement Conference October 16-17.

There are many types of benchmarking, but most organizations continue to focus on what I’ll call “descriptive” benchmarking. This type of benchmarking follows a structured methodology, which is critical to success, but is characterized mainly by collecting data from a group of benchmarking participants and generating comparative or descriptive findings. This approach does not provide the information required to maximize improvement decisions, the data is too direction and not prescriptive. There is a better way.

There are many emerging and continuing trends around talent management that are impacting the transportation and logistics sector. Due to a retiring workforce there is a need to place qualified talent into the increasing number of jobs becoming available in the logistics and transportation industries. 

Organizations today are experiencing a leadership deficit. In recent years, surveys have revealed that CEOs fear a shortage of leaders across the globe will impede their plans for growth. Yet business press and business research show the leadership deficit is continuing unabated. However, some organizations have managed to buck this trend and are effectively developing leaders within their organizations. APQC conducted a best-practices study with several organizations that are best-practice in training and developing leaders. These five organizations are:

The use of HR metrics is becoming increasingly common. However, some organizations may be hesitant to adopt using a standard set of metrics for measuring HR performance because of the fear of increased costs; organizations understand that money and resources are required for implementing standard metrics because it takes time to develop and implement the measurement system and train employees. Some organizations may not be able to build a business case for these costs in the short term unless using the metrics is associated with lower costs in the long run.

Big Q and little q are terms discussed by Dr. Juran and is key in fully understanding the significance of quality, and how to achieve World Class premier and sustainable Quality.

I recently spoke to Carla Wolfe, Senior Business Analyst at Elevations Credit Union, about how Elevations Credit transformed organizational BPM performance by focusing on engagement, validation, and deploying ‘Special Forces’.

Carla will be a presenter at the 2014 APQC Process Improvement Conference October 16-17.

You can follow Elevations Credit Union @elevationscu.

Working with benchmarking organizations affords me a view of some of the mistakes organizations regularly make, as well as the things that make them successful. One of the basic mistakes I see organization make is not adhering to some foundational benchmarking principles or rules. This doesn’t happen out of malice; it mainly occurs because organizations focus on the data and information they want to collect and ignore aspects of the benchmarking process. This isn’t a new issue by any means, either.

I was able to talk to Ronald G. Ross Co-Founder & Principal, Business Rule Solutions, LLC and
Executive Editor, Business Rules Journal, about how to build a better business process model and why having too many rules can be a problem.

What is the main reason people still focus on making traditional process models?

The workplace of the future won’t be a place at all. It will be anyplace, anytime, by any technology. Of course, the mantra of “always on, always connected” is well known by many already so why aren’t we there yet? It’s about the business rules; the rules that have yet to be written. To wit, one organization creates an email moratorium rule in order for people to focus on other things. Another goes even further by attempting to eliminate email altogether. Another creates a rule that says instantaneous responses to colleague requests are expected.