Writing a Process Objective

An objective is the guidance

Writing a process objective may turn the process management clearer or confusing. It is not unusual to read ethereal and abstract objectives, some of them well intended and others rather excessive. The objective cannot be limited to fulfill a procedure: its purpose is not just to follow a certain method, but achieving something. The objective guides the process management and all that involved people will do to get the expected results.

Start with the obvious and then qualify it

The obvious process achievement is a good place to start: to sell for sales, to provide for purchasing and so on. But the objective is not just doing that; there are requirements about what must be achieved, so to qualify such results with requirements add content and clarity to the process objective: it is not just purchasing, but doing it on time, what is needed, meeting specifications, from a good supplier and within a budget –for instance. Effectiveness, efficiency, timeliness, economy, safety, environment can be subjects from which requirements can be extracted to complete what it is obvious about the process. Namely, a process must perform effectively, efficiently, safe, clean; these words construed for the particular process will produce a complete and clear objective.

Must be aligned

And it is also important to review the objective formulation to check that its achievements are connected to the company directives, for it is in the company operations where the collective achievements are built. The strategy can tell the process what it must achieve, so that managing it contributes to reach collective goals.

Clean wording

Check the wording. If it is confusing, the intention of clarifying the process purpose will be lost; if it is tangled, the reader must make an extra effort to understand it. It is not needed to state it all in just one sentence. Take the time and space necessary to be straight and clear.

Summarizing, the objective starts with what it is obvious for the process and completes it with effectiveness, efficiency, alignment to directives and other subjects that, applied to the process, help defining a clean horizon for the process management.

Messy Process Management

More common than it should

It is not a difficult task to find inconsistencies in public and private organization’s process management.

For instance, what it is written in the objectives is, sometimes, ethereal, abstract, confusing and instead of providing direction and expressing what the process must achieve and deliver, it is forgotten, misunderstood or unnoticed.

Unclear objectives

With those objectives as a reference for performance, there will be difficulties to define the proper process indicators. Without the guide of a clear objective, to find the right way of measuring performance will need imagination, trial and error, search and will produce indicators that will not allow people to see there the process performance and make the proper decisions. It is often heard that indicators measure nothing and that it is a waste of time calculating them periodically.

Useless indicators

Imagination, nonetheless, produces results: high sounding, attractive indicators get quick approval from those involved and their authorities. But problems arise when it is time of using them. Indicators are based on data, for without them there are not possible calculations and when for the first time process statistics are needed, it is found that there is none, for a variety of reasons: no one records or collects data, they are not the kind of information that the process produces or it is not understood what data are all about or where can they be collected.

The necessary information is not collected

An overview on the process shows that nothing in its instructions states the kind of information that must be collected, or where, or how or who does it. Although it is possible to find long lists of attachments and forms in a procedure, their use remains undefined as well as their relevance and clarity. The process then does not produce the information needed to learn whether it is running as required or not.

Not helpful for managing

In this way, to show a good performance will be hard. People –their authorities included- make efforts to get the expected results, but the absence of a consistent management schema is of no help. When performance is to be reported, it is necessary to look for information and to conduct last minute calculations and analyses. A coherent management schema would have defined all these management elements from the very start in a consistent, relevant and objective way.

Inconsistent managing

The cause of a messy management schema lies in the ignorance of the members about the meaning of defining and performing it, which are its elements and their relations. Order is what it is expected form a management schema. On the contrary, incoherence produces confusion, reproduces disorder in process performance and makes difficult both to obtain the desired results and the presentation before others.

What a Kaleidoscope shows

Being still a child I made a Kaleidoscope with carton, mirrors and coloured pieces or paper and glass. I remember it was right and through its lens different combinations of shapes and colours could be seen.

By turning it the shapes changed, the previous one were never retrieved and others who looked through it saw also different things. No one saw the same. Today I think that the world seems likewise. It is often said that it’s all in the eye of the beholder.

I believe it is worthwhile, al least to reduce own ignorance, enter various subjects, be it in introductory way, to get closer to other’s understanding of the world and to enrich own's viwepoint.

I read once that blog is a contraction form WEB and LOG, namely, a journal in the web. This format will allow me to share viewpoints, changing subjects, like a turning kaleidoscope...

Kaleidoscope in Wikipedia

My Web Site

Site logo

In this page I will use e-learning tools to share my experience. 

I have learned things and reached goals with the help of people, books and willpower. I have also seen that the world changes when it is observed from different perspectives, but expanding what one knows, it can be better understood and enjoyed. 

Although it is impossible to know it all I believe that learning is worthwhile. I seek to develop an open mind to better understand what is going on.

Visit my-viewpoint.org