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Your organization is a collection of processes. These processes are the natural business activities you perform that produce value, serve customers and generate income. Managing these processes is the key to the success of your organization.

Unfortunately, most organizations — probably yours — are not set up to manage processes. Instead they manage tasks. As a result, people tend to focus on “local” concerns instead of the “global” needs of process customers. Inefficiency and waste become part of the system. They rob your organization of profits, productivity and its competitive advantage. But, there is a way out.

Rediscover and Reinvent Your Processes

Process Mapping & Analysis is a simple yet powerful method of looking beyond functional activities and rediscovering your core processes. Process maps enable you to peel away the complexity of your organizational structure (and internal politics) and focus on the processes that are truly the heart of your business. Armed with a thorough understanding of the inputs, outputs and interrelationships of each process, you and your organization can:

1. Understand how your processes interact in a system
2. Locate process flaws that are creating chronic problems
3. Evaluate which activities add value for the customer
4. Streamline process flow to improve quality and service time

• The evolution of process management
• Process management cycle: seven stages
• Systems thinking
• Creating a system map
• Case study assignment

• Charting tips
• Top-down flow chart
• Block diagram
• Activity chart
• Work flow diagram
• Cross-functional flow chart
• When to use each chart
• Class exercise: bubble process
• Process optimization
• Process measures

• Implementing change
• Organizational change
• Creating and sustaining organization change
• Managing resistance to change
• Implementation strategy
• Final thought: purpose

• Identify and understand your organization’s true core processes
• Locate process flaws that are creating systemic problems
• Streamline processes to improve cycle time and efficiency
• Identify the processes that need to be redesigned
• Gain support for process change

Noncredit Schedule No. 08SPON 99347 PF
Dates: Thursday and Friday, April 17-18, 8 am-4 pm
Location: SDSU Extended Studies/Gateway Centers, corner of Campanile Drive and Hardy Avenue.
Fee: $1,105
Preferred Partner Fee: $995

Schedule Number 08SPON 99347 PF is Closed

To find out how your organization can benefit through our Preferred Partner program, contact the Professional Development Division at (619) 594-5640 or email tmcleod@mail.sdsu.edu.

SDSU Research Foundation Program

How To Reduce Costs and Improve Quality
Six Sigma performance (<4 errors per million opportunities) is a worthy business goal. However, the investment required to train Green Belts and Black Belts is significant, as is the cultural shift that may be needed to embrace advanced statistical methods.

Fortunately, it is not an all-or-nothing proposition for your organization. You can begin the journey toward Six Sigma performance simply by enhancing your current process improvement techniques.

Improve Process Performance

Think about it, all performance improvement methodologies (PDCA, Six Sigma, TQM, reengineering, etc.) have four elements in common:

1. Customer Requirements
2. Process Maps and Measures
3. Data/Root Cause Analysis
4. Improvement Strategies

Improving processes begins with the customer, be it internal or external. Understanding which customers and which requirements are most critical to your business determines which processes should be improved. Before relying on advanced Six Sigma techniques, significant process learning can be achieved using key problem solving and quality improvement tools (see outline) included in Measuring and Improving Processes. You will be able to:

• Measure process performance
• Understand variability and how it drives your improvement tactics
• Determine the stability, capability, and flexibility of your processes
• Recognize trends in performance
• Identify the factors that limit quality, slow service time and increase costs
• Develop results-oriented solutions that will yield improved business results

• Identifying key customers
• Prioritizing customer expectations
• The Kano model

• How my customers measure quality
• How I measure quality
• Determining pulse points
• Collecting data
  - the check sheet
• Evaluating data
  - the trend chart

• Identifying issues
  - Pareto analysis
• Histograms and distributions
• Understanding variation
  - the control chart
• Root cause analysis
  - the scatter diagram
  - the fishbone diagram

• Toward Six Sigma performance
• Benchmarking
• Options and consequences
• Keys to success

• Measure and analyze process performance
• Determine what level of quality your process is capable of delivering
• Identify the root causes that prevent your team from its achieving full potential
• Evaluate and apply process improvement alternatives
• Develop results-oriented process improvement solutions

Noncredit Schedule No. 08SPON 99348 PF
Dates: Thursday and Friday, May 15-16, 8 am-4 pm
Location: SDSU Extended Studies/Gateway Centers, corner of Campanile Drive and Hardy Avenue.
Fee: $1,105
Preferred Partner Fee: $995

Register online for 08SPON 99348 PF

To find out how your organization can benefit through our Preferred Partner program, contact the Professional Development Division at (619) 594-5640 or email tmcleod@mail.sdsu.edu.

SDSU Research Foundation Program

Well-executed performance improvement initiatives usually deliver good short-term results…but what do you do after the low-hanging fruit has been harvested?

There are three enduring tests of a process change initiative. Did it:

1. Deliver results the customers care about?
2. Advance bottom-line or strategic goals?
3. Improve how we position our business in the marketplace?

In order to answer these questions positively, your organization must be able to do more than streamline operations: process innovation is essential. Innovation, when added to solid process management techniques, creates sustainable operational excellence, i.e. advantages in speed, value, quality or cost that are unique to your organization.

Create and Leverage Process Strengths

• Evaluate process performance relative to current strategic goals
• Consider improvement alternatives in a strategic and customer-focused context
• Use cutting edge “Blue Ocean” and process leveraging techniques to generate ideas for breakthrough performance
• Clarify current customer priorities and explore new value propositions that innovation enables
• Redesign processes for maximum customer/strategic impact

• Process change: does the customer care?
• Measuring strategic process performance
• The process perspective of the balanced scorecard
• Improvement strategies: continuous improvement versus reengineering

• Cause-and-effect/affinity diagrams
• Identifying necessary process changes

• The Five Max method
• Process extension
• Kano analysis

• Market extension
• Enterprise creation
• Blue Ocean tools and the strategy canvas

• Roles and responsibilities
• Project planning
• Team situation case studies

• Winners and losers from change (w/workshop)
• Top ten facilitation tips

• Evaluate the business return of process improvement alternatives
• Think outside the “process box”
• Devise innovative process designs based on customer needs
• Leverage process excellence to foster growth
• Create a Strategy Canvas to assess the impact of processes on strategic position
• Plan for the practical and political realities of process change

Noncredit Schedule No. 08SPON 99349 PF
Dates: Tuesday and Wednesday, June 17-18, 8 am-4 pm
Location: SDSU Extended Studies/Gateway Centers, corner of Campanile Drive and Hardy Avenue.
Fee: $1,105
Preferred Partner Fee: $995

Register online for 08SPON 99349 PF

To find out how your organization can benefit through our Preferred Partner program, contact the Professional Development Division at (619) 594-5640 or email tmcleod@mail.sdsu.edu.

SDSU Research Foundation Program