Working remotely isn’t always easy, especially during real-time business process improvement (BPI) efforts involving many stakeholders. In the past year, we’ve evolved three success factors for facilitating BPI sessions virtually:
- Take time to scope the effort to avoid rework. Though it can be tempting to move quickly during initial planning meetings, it is critical to carefully document the desired process inputs and outputs, and with the right people in the (virtual) room.
- Be flexible to the team’s style and needs. Consider the team’s unique preferences regarding meeting frequency and duration, use of cameras or not, and method for managing follow-up items. And while flexibility is key, the focus remains on gathering everyone’s contribution, brainstorming improvements, and agreeing on how new processes will be implemented.
- Lean into virtual solutions. We recently worked with a client to develop an interactive SharePoint site for all new business processes, with each process map hyperlinked to relevant work templates, role-specific activities, as well as links to a repository of best practices, templates, and checklists tagged by the user. This virtual solution enables remote work from multiple locations, even after the pandemic subsides.
Successful business process improvement is absolutely possible to execute remotely – with a bit of extra planning, flexibility, and creativity from all involved.