What is a process improvement consultant?

Someone engaged to establish how work is currently produced and where it could be produced better. The distinguishing feature is not the title but the evidence: whether the assessment is built from the organisation's own operational records, and whether every step is given an explicit outcome.

What does a process improvement consultant do?

Maps the operation from data, assesses each step against the commercial objective, reports where value is created, lost or constrained, and produces a roadmap that orders what follows. They should also report the steps that could not be specified, and the processes that turn out to be working well.

What are the seven types of process improvement methodology?

The list usually given is Lean, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, Kaizen, the theory of constraints, total quality management and business process re-engineering. The count is a convention. What separates one approach from another is the evidence it starts from and the range of conclusions it is willing to reach.

How is this different from a Lean or Six Sigma programme?

The intent is similar. The differences are the starting evidence and the scope: the map is built bottom-up from operational data across the whole of the functions in scope rather than around a nominated process, and each step ends with an explicit decision to retire, automate, assist, or leave to a person.

Do you need our staff to record anything new?

Preferably not. The work uses records that already exist. Asking an operation to instrument itself for a diagnostic changes the thing being measured.

What if our processes are undocumented?

That is normal and not an obstacle. The map is built from what the data shows, and the absence of documentation is recorded as a dependency risk in its own right.

Will you say where our margin is going?

Yes, in commercial terms, with the evidence attached. Findings are written to be argued internally, because that is what will happen to them.

How long does it take?

The diagnostic is produced within a Discovery, which typically runs for three to six months, and closer to three where strong operational data already exists.

Guide

Process improvement consultancy

A process improvement consultancy examines how work is produced and finds where value is created, lost or constrained. The assessment is step by step and evidence-led, built from timesheets and operational data rather than from opinion. It separates chargeable work from work that cannot be billed, locates the bottlenecks, identifies quality that depends on a few experienced people, and counts the tools already bought but not fully used.

What does a process improvement consultancy do?

It converts an operation into a model that can be examined, then examines it. The model records the inputs, decision points, controls, dependencies, outputs and verification steps that determine how the work is produced. Each step is then assessed against the commercial objective.

The output is a diagnostic rather than a report of impressions. Every finding is traceable to the evidence that produced it, and every recommendation carries the reasoning behind it.

How do you find where value is created, lost or constrained?

By reading the operation against three questions. Which work is chargeable, and which is not. Where does work wait, and what is it waiting for. Where is the quality of the output dependent on the availability of a small number of experienced people.

Each is answered from the data rather than asserted. The first identifies margin. The second identifies bottlenecks. The third identifies a risk that is usually understood informally and rarely written down.

Why does chargeable and non-chargeable work matter so much?

Because it is the line on which an internal argument turns. Non-chargeable work is not necessarily waste. Supervision, quality control and client management are unbilled and not optional. But when non-chargeable effort grows without anyone deciding that it should, the margin moves quietly.

Timesheets are the best available record of that movement, because they connect tasks to processes and to the measures the business already reports against.

What about the tools that have already been bought?

They are counted. Most operations of any size hold licences for systems whose capability overlaps, and use a fraction of each. A finding that an existing platform already does what a proposed purchase would do is one of the cheapest results a diagnostic can produce.

More often than not, the gain is in fewer steps rather than in new software.

How is the work prioritised?

By commercial value, feasibility, data readiness, governance requirements and delivery complexity. A finding that is valuable but not yet feasible is not dropped. It is sequenced behind the work that makes it feasible, and that dependency is stated.

Nothing is recommended without the conditions it depends on being written down.

What does the finished diagnostic look like?

A model of the operation, an assessment of every step within it, the findings in commercial terms, and a roadmap that orders what follows. Each finding carries the evidence that produced it and the conditions it depends on.

It also carries the negative results. Steps that could not be specified are listed. Data that was expected and did not exist is recorded. A process that turns out to be working well is reported as working well, which is a cheaper answer than any change, and is rarely the one a change programme is willing to give.

The document is written to be argued with internally, because that is what will happen to it. It should be legible to a finance function and to an operational one at the same time, and every figure in it should be traceable to a record the business already keeps. None of it requires a new system to be bought first. A diagnostic that concludes with a purchase before it has counted the licences already held has skipped a step, and that count is usually the cheapest part of the work.

Questions

Common questions

What is a process improvement consultant?

Someone engaged to establish how work is currently produced and where it could be produced better. The distinguishing feature is not the title but the evidence: whether the assessment is built from the organisation's own operational records, and whether every step is given an explicit outcome.
What does a process improvement consultant do?

Maps the operation from data, assesses each step against the commercial objective, reports where value is created, lost or constrained, and produces a roadmap that orders what follows. They should also report the steps that could not be specified, and the processes that turn out to be working well.
What are the seven types of process improvement methodology?

The list usually given is Lean, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, Kaizen, the theory of constraints, total quality management and business process re-engineering. The count is a convention. What separates one approach from another is the evidence it starts from and the range of conclusions it is willing to reach.
How is this different from a Lean or Six Sigma programme?

The intent is similar. The differences are the starting evidence and the scope: the map is built bottom-up from operational data across the whole of the functions in scope rather than around a nominated process, and each step ends with an explicit decision to retire, automate, assist, or leave to a person.
Do you need our staff to record anything new?

Preferably not. The work uses records that already exist. Asking an operation to instrument itself for a diagnostic changes the thing being measured.
What if our processes are undocumented?

That is normal and not an obstacle. The map is built from what the data shows, and the absence of documentation is recorded as a dependency risk in its own right.
Will you say where our margin is going?

Yes, in commercial terms, with the evidence attached. Findings are written to be argued internally, because that is what will happen to them.
How long does it take?

The diagnostic is produced within a Discovery, which typically runs for three to six months, and closer to three where strong operational data already exists.