‘Twas the Night Before Process

‘Twas the night before Process, and all through the land,
No corporation was safe from what was at hand.

All the process managers were asleep in their beds,
Process maps were hung neatly by their heads.

Be it Continuous Improvement or Re-engineering instead,
We have to do something the consultants have said.

We were going to be Customer-Focused once for and all,
Tell your troops it is time or the ax might fall.

Let’s start with outcomes, that’s the trick,
We’ll see if our process is truly sick.

Are the customers satisfied with what we do,
Or is it they just have no one else to choose?

If the failure we have is by Design,
Nothing we can ever do would make it fine.

Customer dis-satisfaction would always be,
A routine, predictable failure you see.

Our only choice would be to punt,
And if we didn’t we’d surely be sunk!

It is clear our customers really don’t care,
As long as we give them quality, speed and price that’s fair.

But what if Design is not the key,
Our processes could work if we set them free.

Organizational structure seems to get in the way,
Due to silos, handoffs and accountabilities that are gray.

Let’s take a look at what our suppliers feed,
To the process front end, and then we’ll see.

Maybe our inputs indeed need to change,
But management will think we’re all insane.

Inspired responses we hope to hear from above . . .

“I don’t know why we’ve always done it that way,
We’re ready to change — and usher in a new day!”