3 Signs of a Perfect Process

One of my favourite business writers is Patrick Lencioni. Recently I reread his book “3 Signs of a Miserable Job”. Once again I was struck by its simplicity and how the philosophy of job satisfaction can be applied to many aspects of life as well as business.


In his book, his theory is that a great job boils down to 3 elements; measurement that is almost instantaneous feedback, not delayed by weeks or months, understanding of an employee’s relevance to the business, their boss and the people they interact with, and people they work with having a genuine interest in them as a person. He puts in the negative though: the three signs of a miserable job are irrelevance, anonymity and immeasurement (his word, not mine!).

Machines are not people but processes are organic! So if you apply the same basic idea, you should be able to get the “perfect process” or 3 signs of a miserable process.

Sign 1: Relevance
o all steps of the process are understood (process map)
o interactions between this process and other process are understood
o people in process understand why they make the product they do, and how it helps the customer and the business

Sign 2: Measurement
o the value each step brings is understood and measured
o process variables that are controllable are measured and reported
o that day’s or that shift’s or that hour’s performance is measured
o corrective action can be associated with the measurement

Sign 3: Identity
o all steps of the process are understood
o interactions between steps and impact of each step is understood at all steps of the process
o cross-functional people interactions occur (ie production meetings)
o the people who are part of the process are known by their names and not just their functions

Identity and measurement are probably the hardest of these to implement. Many organizations have high turnovers so keeping track of who is in what role is often difficult. Measurement is difficult because most systems are set up to only track performance either at the end of the process or on a weekly or monthly basis.

Actually, all three are difficult to implement. Do you know how your processes really work? Do you know the impact you have on the overall business?