Maturity Assessment Module 4 PDF

# MODULE 4 | UNDERSTANDING AND ANALYSING PROCESSES ## CHAPTER 2: MATURITY ASSESSMENT ### 2.1 INTRODUCTION This chapter contains the maturity assessment for the module Understanding and Analysing Processes. It tells the story of the journey to becoming a company that applies leading practice in te...

# MODULE 4 | UNDERSTANDING AND ANALYSING PROCESSES ## CHAPTER 2: MATURITY ASSESSMENT ### 2.1 INTRODUCTION This chapter contains the maturity assessment for the module Understanding and Analysing Processes. It tells the story of the journey to becoming a company that applies leading practice in terms of continuous improvement. ### 2.2 MATURITY LEVELS The term 'maturity level' is used to describe the level of performance in relation to best practice. A company's maturity has five levels and can be described as follows: - Novice - Learning - Competent - Sophisticated - World-class ### LEVEL 1: NOVICE A novice company is 'just in businesses. Its performance signifies the lowest possible score and it is characterised by a very traditional style of thinking. - People on all levels use phrases such as: 'We have no time for this 'and 'this is the way it has always been done'. - Level 1 companies lack the supportive conditions for improvement activities and people resist new ideas with comments like: ‘We have always done it like this' and 'there is no money'. - Teams often hear words like, ‘You know what you're supposed to do, so get to work!' This could be experienced as an autocratic management style and creates an environment in which people only do what is necessary and as little improvement as possible. - There is a shotgun approach to improvements. People have little concern for improving methods and processes. Improvements come haphazardly, mainly as individual improvements via an employee suggestion system. Only so much improvement can be made since it relies on large numbers of unrelated individual improvements, rather than on a systematic, end-to-end process. - There is a climate of suspicion and there is antagonism towards studying current conditions and potential improvements in terms of the time measurement of activities. Team members fear that the result will be shorter standard times and more difficult, pressed-for-time work conditions. ### LEVEL 2: LEARNING During the learning phase, improvement efforts have started with a single focus or they have undertaken a range of unrelated initiatives. - Performance-Driven Teams and Continuous Improvement Teams have been trained in the techniques of root cause analysis and problem-solving. Examples are available of improvements made through these methods. - Continuous Improvement Teams are well-established and are being used as the vehicle to implement Module 4. They have begun to adopt more systematic methods such as process mapping, listing obstacles to improvement and applying the 5W1H method (asking who, what, when, where, why, and how). - Team members start to identify gaps in performance and would like to improve these gaps. People use phrases such as: 'We have never thought about it this way!' - Major processes are mapped and systematic improvements have begun in each process. Time values of activities are part of a systematic, quantified approach to the improvement of processes. - A climate has been created in which everyone recognises the benefit of systematic value analysis and people start viewing individual improvements from the broader perspective of how it affects an entire department or company. - Process improvement sheets are widely used to clearly and quantitatively identify the kinds of improvements needed for an entire series of activities in processes, to devise specific countermeasures and to keep improvements on schedule. - Typical problems encountered on level 2 could include the following: - The lack of knowledge of what is value-adding and what are wasteful activities - Inability to clearly grasp problem areas like bottlenecks or constraints - Lack of knowledge about how to devise good countermeasures - Loosely assigned responsibilities - Failure to set clear deadlines for improvement implementation ### LEVEL 3: COMPETENT Reaching competence means that people have started to buy into the concepts and principles of world-class thinking pertaining to continuous improvement of the work environment. The culture of the company has started to change and 'the way we do things around here' has improved for the better. - The principles, tools and techniques of problem-solving and innovation are applied on a broad scale in the company and significant improvements in productivity, cost quality and delivery have been quantified. - Management actively encourages continuous improvement activities and ensure that value is created through a supportive leadership style. - People have learnt how to make systematic improvements of each process and to focus on individual activities, with an eye for eliminating wasteful activities. - Process improvement sheets are used to distinguish between 'value-adding activities' and 'wasteful activities', and to analyse the various types of wasteful processes and activities. Team members calculate the time spent on each activity, and, if possible, assign a cost to it. - Through all the combined efforts, teams have managed to improve their work efficiency by a significant percentage. ### LEVEL 4: SOPHISTICATED Sophistication is characterised by efficiency-boosting improvements that have enabled the company to double its production. In a hospital environment, important by-products of efficiency should be more time available to spend with the patient and more time available to coach and develop other clinical staff. - Team activities go smoothly without much support from management, and team members are proud of their self-made successes. - The entire business area celebrates the success that they had with process improvement. Wasteful activities have been identified and eliminated from the links between different processes, and the right activity times have been reduced significantly. - People are in the habit of using the process improvement sheet and have reached their final goal of doubling productivity in all areas. - For clinical staff, the essential results of efficiency improvement include more time available to spend with the patient and more time available to coach and develop others employees. - As the interrelationship of Mediclinic's Continuous Improvement Modules become clear, it is easier to understand improvement objectives. To get this far in Module 4, the business area must already have reached at least level 3 in all the other Modules, since those other Modules provide some of the tools and techniques needed to reach the doubling of productivity goal. - Typical problems encountered on level 4 could include the following: - After changes in work volume or new services, it takes time to bring productivity back up to its doubled level. - Taking improvement further will require cooperation with corporate process owners and the understanding of value analysis can help these service developers to create new offerings that emphasise only genuinely needed functions, or to take process steps into consideration during the design process. Other avenues of potential improvement include the adoption of the technologies. ### LEVEL 5: WORLD-CLASS A world-class company embraces change and is fully prepared to deal with changing conditions in the pursuit of its goals. The company is a true leader in its field and is highly flexible, reliable, innovative, productive and competitive. It is able to adapt to the external environment and continuously improves itself to meet ever-changing client requirements, demands and expectations. - Management regularly embarks on benchmark activities and enhances the long-term vision and strategy of the company. They continuously challenge teams to further improve towards a world-class company. - Continuous Improvement Team activities are regularly successful, and as soon as one goal is reached, the team already thinks about the next challenge. - The improvement-making process is systematic and implemented repeatedly. The processing system is adaptive to changes in service design and work volume. - Automated and integrated processing systems are utilised for all relevant functions in the company. No wasteful activities are encountered and processes can process special requests with no wasteful activities. - Integrated processes, systems and databases are enablers for complete end-to-end processes, with no wasteful activities in process activities. Advances in large-scale integration technology have enabled the development of newer automated processes that can flexibly adapt to diverse user needs. ## ACTIVITY 2 1. What is the purpose of the maturity assessment? 2. How often should an internal maturity assessment be conducted? 3. How would you use the results of the maturity assessment? - Internal (i.e. within the team): - External (i.e. outside the team):