It's been a long journey though this series of posts. If you've stuck with me this long I appreciate it and hopefully you've gathered some additional insight that you can apply to your organization. I'm wrapping up this series with a post about continuous improvement and organizational development.
High-performing companies make a commitment to continuous improvement in every area of their operations. This improvement focus is centered on both the effectiveness of service delivery as well as the relentless pursuit of ever increasing efficiency. There are a number of opportunities to focus on improvement. Much of this improvement will be incremental and take place inside the walls of the broader transformation effort. While true transformation makes bold leaps from one point to another, an organization's continuous improvement efforts supplement and refine that transformation effort.
Senior management must be visible in their commitment to the process, not only in word but in deed. Funds must be allocated to the effort and the Shared Service Organization’s management team must be held accountable for delivering on promised and potential benefits. Here are some ideas to contemplate as you improve your organization:
- Develop an integrated scorecard for the Finance organization that focuses on Financial, Customer (internal and external), Internal business processes and Learning and Growth. It's hard to know how your journey is going if you don't have a way to keep score. Develop a series of balanced metrics that provide a feedback loop for not just your current performance, but also to track the investments you're making to continuously improve. You can track the number of customer invoices without an error, but you should also track the investment in training hours that you're people complete.
- Hold regular "lessons learned" meetings to identify areas for improvement. I used to be a Controller in private industry, so I know as well as anyone that time is short in Finance and Accounting. Yet it's important to set time aside to evaluate the current performance of the organization against established metrics. What, you don't have metrics? See point #1. Really, why do Finance organizations continue to make the same mistakes and live with the same inefficient and ineffective processes month-after-month and year-after-year? Don't let money be an excuse. If the value is there and it's well documented in a business case, you stand a chance of improving your future. At least you're trying.
- Rotate Finance personnel through Finance and Operations to give them a broader perspective on how Finance creates value in the organization. I wish I had a dollar for every time a senior Operations manager told me they wished the Finance organization really understood their business. Finance is about more than debits and credits. Leading organizations have a formal rotation program that moves select personnel through both Finance and Operations so that they have a deeper appreciation for challenges of the business and better understand the ways in which they can create value.
- Clarify organizational responsibilities. The world changes and so do a company's priorities. Make sure that people's performance plans are up-to-date and reflect the alignment of operations with the company's strategy. Implement at least two formal review periods during the fiscal year - at the end of the year and at it's mid-point. Don't wait 12 months to give personnel formal feedback on how they haven't been living up to expectations for the last year. Does a sailor only check his compass once a year?
- Implement a formal development plan for both individuals and departments. What are the goals of each for the coming year? What training, both formal and on-the-job, will these individuals and departments get to support their efforts to develop? How do these plans align with the overall strategy of the organization. If you don't have alignment you don't have an effective plan for organizational development.
- Implement a formal quality program. Many companies have made the commitment to a formal program to track and improve quality. And this is not just about manufactured products, but about all the support services used to support the company's strategy, including Finance & Accounting. Instilling a culture of quality is as important as the reduction in error rates achieved.
These are just some ideas that companies use to continuously improve. What have you tried in your organization? What would you like to try and what's stopping you? I encourage you to use the comment section below to leave your ideas and be part of the conversation.
