Process Improvement Coaching

PI-21 collaborates with clients to reengineer business processes, and to provide skills and expertise to compliment and support internal process improvement staff enabling successful implementation of the process improvement program.  Our goal is to allow organizations to maximize the benefits of process improvement programs while minimizing dependence on outside consultants.

Our philosophy for process improvement consulting is often termed “collaborative consulting.”  We continuously emphasize the following approaches during process improvement consulting work:

• Process improvement should be done to help the business – not for its own sake.

• Process measurements must be tied to business objectives.

• Process management is a strategic effort.

• Process improvement must be integrated into the business model.

We strive to understand the organization’s business objectives, culture, legacy, and systems so that we can help to build a program that supports the needs of all parts of the organization.

We assist in building an integrated process improvement program.  We provide model orientations and tools support, and work with clients to select the optimum approach to process improvement depending on business needs, areas of technology and client base.

We evaluate the existing processes to develop a tailored process improvement approach that fits the organization’s needs.  From identified needs, we work with clients to prioritize improvements that provide maximum payback in the shortest period of time, without losing sight of the long-range process improvement goals. From these prioritized actions, we assist in developing the Process Improvement Plan (PIP).

PI-21 consultants team clients to determine specific needs relative to successful process improvement and implementation.  Our consultants provide guidance, suggestions and in some cases assistance to clients.  During our consulting engagements we strive to become familiar with client culture, organization, and business objectives to provide recommendations on how to optimize processes.  We jointly walk through processes to identify areas of risk. We support clients in organizing and preparing for appraisals.

Our consultants work with clients to use results of the gap analysis activities for action planning sessions.  During these facilitated sessions, PI-21 consultants ensure that the client fully understands the findings and gaps and solicits suggestions by all affected parties on effective resolution. 

Our consultants provide clients advice, recommendations and expert review during development and enhancement of process documentation destined to be implemented throughout the organization. 

PI-21’s consultants conduct facilitated sessions to help quickly define high level process definitions of processes either currently inplace within the organization or processes that need to be defined for implementation within the organization.  These facilitated sessions are often conducted using the KJ (Jiro Kawakita) analysis method to quickly come to consensus on the process definition.  Once the facilitated session is complete, PI-21 consultants work closely with the client during the process of developing and finalizing the process definition documentation and the supporting templates, repositories and examples needed to effectively implement the developed processes. 

Our expert staff provides advice, recommendations and assistance throughout the engagement to fill the needs of the staff and management team to maximize the benefits of a successful process improvement program.  PI-21 consultants assist with monitoring the process improvement activities against the plan, with regular status reports, and practical indicators to ensure that the process improvement program stays the course to meet the identified objectives and recommends actions to take when the programs strays from those objectives.

We will set up a PI-21 SharePoint page for exclusive use by our clients to share information with process improvement consultants to ensure timely virtual review of processes and collaboration in areas when and where we are needed most.  This SharePoint page has limited access to just a specific PI-21 client and contains a repository of deliverable artifacts developed by our consultants for use by that client.  We track risks, issues, and action items relative to the process improvement effort on this site and provide regular status through this site.  Through this mechanism, we ensure management is kept informed of progress at every step of the journey.  We also monitor internet chatting mechanisms such as MSN to provide real time answers to issues our clients are concerned about.

• July 2009 Coming Soon CMMI Tour of the Americas

• June 2009 PI-21 unveils new website

• June 2009 PI-21 COO certified to teach and appraise CMMI-SVC

• March 2009 CEO gets prestigious SEI Member Award