Example Process Design roadmap

If you decided to try working with your team to figure out what is the best way to work for your company, here is what a roadmap can look like.

1. Hold a meeting to announce the Process Design initiative

• Introduce the philosophy
• Explain that everyone will be working on this together
• Ask the team to notice points of friction and record them so they can be discussed during future reviews
• Emphasize that this effort is about figuring out a comfortable and productive way for everyone to work together, so sharing observations is not good or bad, it’s just a part of the process

2. Schedule an initial Process Design workshop

• Write down challenges and points of friction the team encountered so far
• Be gentle with presenting the problems coming from the leadership team
• Review the problems together
• Think of ways to prevent or mitigate these challenges in the future
• Select a few achievable action items to try (go for low-hanging fruit, quick wins are powerful motivators!)
• Decide how to make sure they get implemented and tracked

I share how I usually run these sessions in How to run the initial Process Design workshop.

3. Try your new process and record remaining or new points of friction

Give people time to try the proposed changes and don’t jump to conclusions too early. Implementing something new will often be bumpy in the beginning, but can settle once the initial ripples calm down.

If you work in sprints, give it 2–3 sprints. Otherwise, 2–4 weeks is a good start.

Create a place where people can record their observations when they encounter challenges. Make it as easy as possible, you don’t want the fact that it’s annoying to ‘follow the feedback submission procedure’ to prevent people from reporting things.

Provide a mix of channels to share feedback, because different people would be comfortable with different ways to communicate.

I share some tips on the topic in Process Improvement Initiatives: Collecting Feedback.

4. Review and evolve

Make sure that collected feedback is included in the next process review.

Repeat the workshop, but for each following iteration start with reviewing your previously-identified action items and things recorded between the workshops.

Did you make progress? Did things get better? If not, why? Adjust your potential solutions accordingly, based on this new information you receive.

I share an experience about one of my recent workshops in Process Improvement Workshops: Example 1.

5. Repeat!

Keep trying your proposed changes, reviewing and tweaking them.

Don’t skip your review sessions because you are ’too busy’. If your process doesn’t improve, you will keep getting busier and busier. You have to take time to make time!

If you are consistent and honest, you should start seeing improvements very soon and keep ripping the benefits of your evolving process for years to come!

Next up: How to run an Initial Process Design Workshop

This story is a part of the Process Design series:

1. How much process does a startup need
2. Each team is unique and so should be the way they work
3. Process Design 101
4. Example Process Design roadmap
5. How to run an Initial Process Design Workshop
6. Process Improvement Workshops: Example 1
7. Process Improvement Initiative: collecting feedback
8. How to run a follow-up process Design workshop