How Fragile Are Your Processes?

A number of years ago I had rescued a friend stranded at the Ft. Wayne, Indiana bus station. During the course of the trip, a butterfly got entangled, literally wrapped around, the radio antenna of my car. It struck me, much later, just how fragile that formerly beautiful creature was. At the time, I was too busy driving, moving forward, to pay any, or much, attention to the butterfly struggling with the antenna. I couldn’t wait to pass a semi so it would blow off the antenna and stop distracting me. And I certainly wasn’t going to stop my forward progress to take the time to rescue the creature or put it out of its misery. I was in too much of a hurry for that.

I felt no remorse or guilt at the time. But, in hindsight, I still feel a sense of obligation and am disappointed that I didn’t’ feel any discomfort. I was so focused on the short-term act of getting from one place to another in less than 35 minutes; I didn’t really care about any peripheral distractions. I suspect I was immune to any level of emotional concern.

OK, race ahead a whole bunch of years. IT data centers are focused on their short term deliverables. While they are “attending to today’s business” what is the likelihood they will ignore the state of their processes? How likely is it they will ignore the pain of their staff, their customers and their superiors while trying to “get from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’? I see these fragile processes that have been ignored for years, tangled around some obstacle and those responsible are looking the other way. Distracted, self-absorbed, or protecting their jobs and defending their turf, they won’t, or can’t, take time to address the carnage right in front of their noses.

The problem is the processes won’t “blow off the antenna.” They’ll hang on, broken and disfigured as they might be, and continue to hamper efficiency and productivity. Why do some managers take such a dispassionate stance when it comes to their processes?
• They don’t bother to put controls (and a control plan) in place to manage their processes.
• They’re too busy with day-to-day, “keep the lights on” activity, to be concerned with the processes that are vital to their production activities.
• They don’t have time or perhaps the insight, to put monitors and key metrics in place to gauge the health of their processes.
• They think process improvement is hard; perhaps the mystique surrounding legacy quality initiatives is intimidating.
• There is no perceived financial incentive to pay attention to process health.
• It’s easier to bypass an existing process rather than fix or revise it.
• There are no process owners in the organization or those present don’t understand process fundamentals.
• There is no coherent strategy to resolve issues permanently; true problem management does not exist.
• They do not recognize how the time and associated expense of repeatedly fixing issues impacts overall availability and ultimately revenue.
• They cannot justify dedicating staff to permanent fixes.
• The culture of the company does not support process documentation, process improvement, process monitoring or alignment of processes with organizational vision.

I’ll not preach about the value of being proactive. I’ll just say that, just as I ignored that butterfly, managers who disregard the tenuous nature of their processes are destined to a spiraling cycle of destruction. These processes which were functional, effective and beautiful at one time are now ignored and totally disconnected from the current needs of the organization. They have become disfigured and broken. The trip, from ‘A’ to ‘B’ will be mined with traps and hazards. Caught up in the adrenaline of fixing an issue, managers will only feel remorse much later. They will continue to handle availability events and service delivery failures as one-offs, and fail to see them holistically, as they impede production, profitability and employee and customer satisfaction. By the time they get around to thinking about strengthening their processes, it may be too late.