The Importance Of Talking And Observing Before Making Changes In Business

Observation is one of the most important steps in any evaluation of a process that might need to be changed. Observation of the process and each one of the steps involved before and after that process. You can’t merely look at a single process, you have to know what context to place it in, and in that way you ought to know how everything works together. You can go through the spec sheets, the standard operating procedures and all of the guidelines on how the processes were made to work together and alone.

But unless you go out onto the floor, with a clipboard in hand, you’ll never know precisely how they work. How is it that one employee can put together or build a part much quicker than another member of staff? It could be that the employee is just more motivated or faster or maybe just more experienced, but it could be that somewhere in the process they identified a way to do something which saves effort and time that nobody has thought of yet.

It also could be that the employee is skipping a step that he or she is not aware that they are skipping. Without careful observation of what is going on and recording these events for later analysis, will the answer ever be discovered. Now, it is important to remember that you are observing people that are doing their jobs and being observed and studied may be a little bit uncomfortable for some of them.

That is not to say they are trying to hide anything or do not like being supervised, but when an outside observer comes into the facility, it can be unnerving for some people. That is why it is also important to consider their feelings and well being. You don’t want to make them so nervous that they begin to make mistakes. Try and make them comfortable, try and introduce yourself before the initial observation phase, get to know each person a little bit at least and help put them at ease.

Make an appearance before the observation day because when you simply show up and announce that you are there to observe, or worse yet, don’t even say anything to them, just sulk around in the distance making notes, it’s easy to see why it can be a bit stressful for some men and women. Just remember, they will be happy to learn what will make them better at their job if it’s done in a kind and respectful manner of presentation.

One of the best things that you are able to do for your business is incorporate the six sigma process. You are able to locate information on lean six sigma along with the various levels by logging onto mbajournal.org.