Harvard ManageMentor — PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

Checklist for Deciding Whether Process Improvement Is Necessary

The questions below relate to the signs and symptoms suggesting that your team may need to embark on a
business process improvement (BPI) effort. Use this tool to decide whether to launch a BPI initiative.

Question: Yes No
1. Is your team failing to meet quality, cost, or time requirements?
2. Are there significant external developments (for example, in customer preferences,
competitors’ behavior, and technology) that may require considerable adjustments to current
processes?
3. Are there important changes within your organization (for instance, a new
corporate strategy emphasizing high-quality customer service) that may suggest the need for
process improvement?
4. Have you seen evidence of fragmentation and lack of cooperation or coherence in
how work is being carried out?
5. Are customers complaining about the quality of service they are getting from your
team?
6. Does your team’s performance compare unfavorably with that of other teams in
the organization that do similar work?
7. Are employees expressing frustration with their job responsibilities?
8. Do tasks often get done incorrectly the first time?
9. Are some tasks taking too long to complete?
10. Do certain procedures seem overly complicated; for example, multiple signoffs
being required to approve a single purchase order?

TOTALS
If you answered “yes” to most of these questions, your team probably needs to launch a BPI initiative.

© 2006 Harvard Business School Publishing. All rights reserved.