Playback Central: Continuous Process Improvement

Ed.: This is the third post in a series of Q+A sessions focusing specifically on playback session best practices, with our in-house expert, Kris Komassa. See our previous coverage here and here.

Of course there is never a “finished” process. How often do you typically use a playback session to fine-tune a process that is up and running? How often do you do this, once a quarter? Twice a year? Can you give us a few examples?

We have a customer in Dallas that is unique because they have a very wide sales force who are all remote and need a number of approvals before they can close any business. We finished a project with them just a little over a year ago, and we’ve since done a number of other engagements on top of that original project, so the work is more or less constant. They’re a good example of fine-tuning and building on top of a first project.

The way that I always start off the new work with them is by having them do a playback for us to see where we are, and then have that segue into a talking session around what it is that they want to see or what new work they want to have done for them. So, we start with what we have already, instead of starting with what we ultimately want. This helps to create that delta between what they have today and what they’re looking for down the road. They’re a very active customer and good to work with for this reason - each new project flows naturally and organically from the ones that have preceded it. I’d recommend this way of working from one process to the next for everyone.

Another example is a large company in Austin that is very happy, but they are different in that they don’t do a lot of ongoing work. They’ve been running the process that we originally worked on, just like it is, with minimal tinkering going on. Every six months or so we get together as a group so that a.) they can understand as an organization what the process looks like today and what new tools are available to them; and b.) they can think about what forthcoming advances they might take advantage of in the future, given their ongoing business objectives (which might be evolving too). These are always very productive sessions and they help us stay in touch and prioritize the work that needs to be done, because for them, again, they are absolutely looking to take advantage of any potential improvements, but it’s not something that they need to be focused on even on a daily or weekly basis.

Let’s talk a little bit more about continuous process improvement (CPI) as it is a huge buzzword these days. As a best practice, CPI, coupled with very specific playback sessions, encourages flexibility, minimizes surprises, and generally helps focus the team on getting work done on a practical level. But, what do you do when the members of a group hit up against what Derek Miers has called “analysis paralysis” even despite their best intentions?

We try to level set as much as possible so that we focus in on a very tight scope so as to avoid that kind of paralysis. The saying “you don’t want to boil the ocean” when you start a process, I’m a huge believer in that. You need to get something done and get it done quickly, and then build on that afterwards. Start small and go from there - it all has to do with how much you bite off at first, as alluring as it is, as I said, to try and boil the ocean - ultimately that’s just a trap.

That being said, we understand that it can be extremely difficult to maintain this laser focus, especially given the many different interests involved in a given process. What we’ve learned is that it is crucial to find champions, whether those champions are in IT or business, that help us do just that - get work done on a practical level. This is something that is so important for anyone doing BPM, whether you’re an old hand or just starting out. It also matters, frankly, who you buy software from.

Here at Lombardi, when people buy this software they’re buying the methodology as well. And they’re buying into the people that work here - people they can rely on. It’s our job to help our clients deliver on their objectives without getting sidetracked along the way, to move them towards a state of true process excellence, and I’m really proud of what we continue to accomplish, day in and day out.

As a follow-up to that, let’s talk some more about playback sessions at different stages - can you do a little compare and contrast around effective playback at the requirement (discover/understand), design, build+test, stages, etc.?

The first playback for me is to be done as soon as possible. We like to get quickly to the core of what we’re doing. The goal is to lay out the work ahead.

The initial session is designed to validate a process flow. What we like to do at this stage is put screens in place as well. The screens are placeholders, what we’re showing is what a process is roughly going to look like at a given point in time. The screens aren’t very attractive, so you have to set expectations going in, i.e. that at this point it’s all about the data, not the look and feel.

But once we get past the first session, I run the next playback 4-6 weeks later to fine-tune that process flow, and to make sure that on the most basic level, we have the data in place. We may need to integrate data from an existing process as well.

During the third playback and before we get into some testing, we’re really focused on validating what we’ve done up to this point, that our work is correct and that our calculations and fields are on-target. Once we have the process flow and data correct, then we’re able to begin testing.

Overall, it depends on the overall project scope, but I like to do major playbacks every 4-6 weeks, then minor playbacks with the core group consistently within that 4-6 week window.

Ed.: This Q+A series on playback session best practices continues here. If you have any playback-specific questions that you’d like to have answered, either as a follow-up to the content discussed here, or just in general, leave us a note in the comments!