One question before you "process"

Before installing your next process - before asking prospective suppliers to submit their customer relationship process or their work flow procedures - ask yourself:

Why am I looking for a process?

If it's because you want to find a smarter or quicker way to achieve something, then that's great. But if it's because you're frustrated with mistakes being made, with sloppy performances, with uninspired work or with bad customer service, maybe it's not a process that you're in need of.

A process will not guarantee that your supplier, for example, will take care of you, be creative or even just care. Those issues, as tough as they are to deal with, have to be faced head-on with humans.

A prospective client asked my company, LaBov and Beyond Marketing Communications, to show them our project management process. Once we listened long enough, we discovered that their current provider took them for granted and gave them little more than competent products delivered with lip service. That provider also probably had an impressive project management process. They just didn't care.

Do you need more process improvement - or do you need people improvement?