A BPM state of mind: The Morning Routine

Before trying to improve a business process you need to study the tasks that compose it. Find out:

1. Which tasks are being performed
2. What approximate sequence the tasks are performed in
3. How much time is spent performing each task
4. What kinds of time are spent as each task is underway

Take as an example someone’s everyday morning routine. To help them reduce a tendency to arrive to work late, you could examine their routine as a process. The triggering event would be the person’s alarm clock waking them up, the steps that take place as they are getting ready would be the tasks, and the process’ result would be the person finally arriving at work.

To gather some relevant information about the time spent for each task you could record:

1. Task description: (”Jogged”, “Walked the dog”, “Showered”, “Brushed teeth”, “Cooked breakfast”, “Rode the train”, etc.) and briefly described (with who, where)
2. Task sequence: The order this task was performed relative to the others
3. Task time elapsed: How many minutes spent performing this task
4. Task time: The types of time expended during a task’s activity.

It’s #4 that can really provide some low-hanging fruit for process improvement. To locate the kinds of time in a process just look for 5 things:

1. task order: “…certain things work better when done in a particular
   order or at a particular time of day”
2. wait time: “…time between the moment at which one is ready for an activity to start and the moment at which this activity can actually begin”
3. setup time: “…the time needed to perform tasks involved in starting up an operation”
4. time worked: “… the time it would take one worker to do all the work…divid[ed] by the number of workers…it takes less calendar time to finish the job than when just one worker has to do all the work….”
5. transit time: “…[t]hose idle hours in the car and on the plane…”

Studying the task-level details as they relate to the above help you reduce the cycle time for a process; think of them as control knobs that give you a chance to quickly optimize how long a process takes to complete. Locating the noise in a morning routine process might lead you to make recommendations or ask questions similar to these:

Task order:

• “Don’t spend time surfing the Web until after you’ve showered and dressed.” (They can just skip the surfing if they’re running late)
• “Eat after you exercise, not before. You’ll feel less sluggish and have more energy to complete the rest of your tasks.”

Wait time:

• (If they live with family or several roommates) “You can eliminate the time you spend queuing in line for access to the bathroom by waking up earlier or later than everyone else.”
• “If you could adjust the rest of your routine to end closer to a scheduled train or bus arrival or to avoid the morning driving rush hours, you won’t have to wait at the stop or in traffic as long as you do now.” (This also sets up the output from all previous tasks with what might be a shorter Transit time)

Setup time:

• “Instead of searching in the closet or digging through the dirty clothes hamper each morning, you could lay out your workout clothes each night.”
• “If you stop with the bacon and eggs in the morning, and switch to something like fruit, yogurt and granola, your breakfast will take less than half the time to prepare and the nutrition value will likely be higher.” (If someone is cooking breakfast for this person, maybe it’s Wait time we’re talking here)
• “You might consider doing your ironing the night before or better yet, stop wearing clothes that require ironing.”
• (If they take their lunch) “Prepare your lunch the evening before instead of each morning.” (Like choosing their clothes the night before, this doesn’t eliminate the time required but instead shifts its expenditure to outside of the morning routine’s “critical path”)

Time worked

• “Have your spouse help get the kids ready for school or cook breakfast instead of just you doing it.”
• “Hire a maid, butler, au pair, nanny, etc. to help out.” (This increases their cost (of living) but frees them up personally for other aspects of their morning routine)

Transit time:

• “Try to layer in additional activities beyond simply driving or sitting so it’s no longer pure travel: read the news, catch up on your paperwork, listen to your self-help podcasts, surf the Web, read a book, or just meditate so you’re relaxed for the remainder of the day.” (Of course if they’re actually behind the wheel of a car during transit, concurrent activities are hopefully pretty limited)
• “Let’s find a quicker route to your destination.”

And if you just wanted to take some quick swipes at reducing cycle time you could go at it with items like these:

• “You seem to take really long showers, averaging close to 20 minutes, could you spend less time in the shower?”
• “You might try a shorter but more intense exercise routine.”
• “Could you take the dog on a shorter walk?”
• “You could probably combine your exercise with your dog’s walk by training your dog to jog with you.”
• “Does your dog really need a morning walk?”

The average morning routine is simple enough that you probably wouldn’t need to sample many measurements to suggest sensible improvements, but the morning routine is good for a quick analogy.

For actual processes that exhibit some murkiness and/or complexity, you probably ought to put some sensors in place, run some queries, etc., and get some numerical data on time spent to help you get a handle on all the areas ripe for improvement. It will be just a start on gathering important baseline metrics but a great start nonetheless; on top of being a good way to get a handle on where things are at, the basic measurements will provide you and your client with some data to compare with the results of your subsequent BPM magic.

So save the fancy tools for later. And happy BPMing.

By the way, check out Chapter 6 of Alec Sharp’s Workflow Modeling: Tools for Process Improvement and Application Development for a closer and much better study of this aspect of process work. I was fortunate to participate in several of his training sessions and in particular found his teachings on this stage of process assessment to be highly practical.

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