Pink Elephant Blog
Focus On “Lean” As Opposed To “Process Maturity”
While browsing The IT Skeptic's blog I linked to another blog entry by Charles T. Betz posing the question "Is Lean The Antithesis Of Process Maturity?" ( I'd have left a comment there but couldn't figure out where the button was for posting comments. Sorry, Charles, I know you're probably going to say "it's easy, just do this ...."!) Back to the point, Charles' question (which I've paraphrased) seems fair and relevant, and I can see where he's headed. The "laser focus" of a lean approach is certainly going to get more attention and is easier to justify from a value standpoint than the shotgun approach of evaluating process maturity across a wide breadth of IT and highlighting all the gaps - implying that you need to bridge all the gaps. But there's the rub; let's not say that you need to do a complete process maturity assessment of all processes, then implement ALL processes up to the maximum maturity. Don't do it - just because you can. And certainly don't do it just because a vendor recommends it. As you may know, Pink does these types of assessments through our PinkSCAN product. (There's a consultant-led option as well as a DIY option). The vast majority of these assignments are what we've nicknamed miniSCANs, or mini-PinkSCANs. The idea being you: 1. First identify the processes you NEED to improve. 2. Then assess "where you are now" through the assessment process. 3. Before planning "how to get to where you NEED to be". 4. And moving forward with improvement efforts. It's not rocket science. Process maturity for the sake of it - no. Process maturity focused on pre-defined objectives - yes. So please DON'T use a process maturity assessment because "we need to find out where we're performing poorly, and then once we review the results we'll decide which areas to focus on". If that's your approach - you've got too much time on your hands and probably too much money to spend! There'll be some vendor, somewhere, who'd love to get your call. But if that's your approach - be warned. it will all end in tears one day.
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Comments
David, a good blog, got me thinking. ISO 20000 is a process maturity yardstick and I use to assess my customers practices. Sometimes I do all processes, sometimes only a few. My approach is quick and light assesment so it will not take many days.I think it provides useful information because sometimes it is easy to know that there are problems in the service but not so easy to know what to about them.
Sometimes organizations are excellent on some aspects and completely overlooking other aspects. A good maturity assesment can be an eye-opener: should we do that too? Could it be the reason we are having these problems?
Maybe you could say that NEVER act on maturity assesment alone. You need to support it with service measurements.
Aale Roos | December 2, 2009 at 8:28am
Well, the laser-shotgun comparison is clear but why should we consider lean and maturity as opponent concepts? It seems they can effectively accompany each other. Here are two points on that: 1. The only situation where the rule ” you’re not really doing “it” unless you are doing all of it” is formal certification. But the model and the idea of maturity can be applied where needed - for particular processes or domains… so it is may be a shotgun but the calibre is adjustable. 2. Lean techniques require a degree of maturity anyway - even not calling it “maturity”. A value stream should be identified, documented, analysed… optimised to ensure flow… improved and analyzed again. I’d say Lean is only applicable to quite mature activities - or it will make us to upgrade its maturity. Finally, the main idea of all improvement frameworks (techniques, philosophies, ...) is the same, isn’t it?
Roman Jouravlev | January 12, 2010 at 8:29am