How to Overcome Obstacles in Process Improvement

Most people have a natural aversion to change, especially when it challenges their established work processes. This can make it difficult to gain buy-in for process improvement initiatives. To make meaningful improvements, it’s important to overcome major obstacles in process improvement interviews.

Interviews can provide valuable insights into how a process behaves, which is essential for identifying areas for improvement. That is why overcoming these major obstacles in interviews is a crucial step in the process improvement journey. It allows for a more effective and efficient approach that is supported by key stakeholders and is more likely to be successful in achieving desired results.

The interviews can be fast paced and exciting, giving you new insight that might take years to acquire on your own. That being said, there are a few things that can go wrong prior to the interview, during interviews, and gaining sign-off on the completed improvement model. Here are the top process improvement interviewing problems.

Stalling – Can’t Get an Appointment

Everyone is busy, but some people can stall for days trying to avoid being interviewed. Test their availability by using the (1 – 3 – All) technique. Start by suggesting a specific time, if that does not work then suggest three alternate times. If they decline the alternate times, tell them that you will open your schedule (which includes before work, at lunch and after work). If they hesitate you can be pretty certain that it is not really about how busy they are. They have “gotten the wrong message” or no message at all when the project was originally announced. They are worried about what this project will mean to their department, team or even their own job.

If they have gotten the wrong message (or made up their own message) ask them if you can have ten minutes to show them what you are doing. Go to their desk with your laptop and show them a process. You may want to bring up a demonstration file, like the “Hearing model” (which is provided with the software), and show them how it works. Help them to understand that you will be doing the same thing for their process. The vast majority of time they will become enamored with the idea that they can participate in the change process and an interview time can be set. If this doesn’t work you are going to have to pull rank, because somebody didn’t get the message that everyone was supposed to cooperate. Go to the senior manager or to the designated appointee and have the manager get the “message” out to the right people. Obviously, an interview under duress is not ideal, but it is better than having no information.