Here are some of the links posted over on the Process Cafe Espresso Shots this week1
Column 2 : Bad Processes? Great Service Makes Up For A Lot - I love stories of process failures - or more particularly of process failures which turned into some sort of success. Sandy Kemsley has an excellent example here related to - what else - the airlines. To me this is a prime opportunity to curry favour with your customers and these airlines did it well. My challenge to all you 'outside-in' mavens is "How Would Southwest have dealt with this? Or Ryanair?" (Actually I know the answer to this for Ryanair. They would have told you to go away)
Rand's Place: (Fun) Business Process Mapping - Why can't all process maps be like this? - A little bit of fun related to a process map. I love the apparent complexity of this which is actually very easy to follow. Makes you wonder why all process maps aren't as entertaining and well drawn as this one
A Think Piece: How HR Caused Toyota to Crash : ERE.net - An interesting piece identifying HR issues as a contributory factor to the Toyota quality issues. Basically the metrics associated with success are not aligned with the quality ethos. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
How to make customer service a priority | CustomerThink - The thought is - "How can we improve the process to make customer service inherent in the way we work?". The Outside-In mavens say that this is the way to go, so how is it done?
What Exactly Do We Need a Cloud For? - Gartner posit that the real question to ask in relation to the cloud is not 'How do we use it?' but rather 'What exactly do we need it for'. An interesting read.
Don't Talk the Process - Walk the Process - Craig at the Process Ninja has a few choice words to say about the quickest and easiest first step in understanding the process. I like that fact that this is a way of learning something whilst also getting to meet the people and help them understand what you're doing.
Did Garry Kasparov Stumble Into a New Business Process Model? - Harvard Business Review - The key here is having a good process will always beat having good people. A point worth noting (and a great little article)
1 The Process Cafe Espresso Shots is a place for linking to process related articles written by other people that don't merit a full post on the Process Cafe but are still worth your time reading. Sort of an espresso shot of 'The Process Cafe'-eine.
