We’ve recently posted about the significance of process and the five steps of process development. Creating and implementing a strong process is only half the battle, though. What happens when you can’t get buy-in from the people who are responsible for using the process?
Consider for a moment how many times an organization has implemented a new process only to have it ignored or performed inconsistently, rendering it useless. The success of a process depends on the people involved having both the Will and the Means to complete it.
The Will & Means Test
The Will & Means Test is a reliable way to determine if a process will be fully adopted and consistently used by the organization. It is made up of two components.
Will
The first part of the test is Will, which refers to institutional willpower. Simply posing the question of whether or not there is institutional willpower to follow the process will help you determine whether it passes this part of the test.
Two variations on the same question can help illuminate the answer:
Does the company feel the need to follow the process?
Is there a level of accountability that motivates an individual employee to follow the process?
When processes lack institutional will, they fail because they are not seen as important by those who are supposed to execute them.
Means
The second part of the test is Means. This component evaluates the question of whether there is the institutional ability to follow the process.
Questions such as these help us determine the answer:
Does an employee have a clear way to complete a process, to identify and capture what information is needed?
Is there too much ambiguity or complexity in what needs to be done so that different employees will generate wide ranges of results?
When processes lack institutional ability, they fail because the people who are supposed to execute them are unable to do so in a consistent manner.
If either the will or means are lacking, the process will not be successfully adopted. Fortunately, there are several ways to create will and means and to improve them. Awareness of these factors is the first step towards the successful adoption of new processes in an organization.
The concepts from this article were taken from Master Processes: Utilizing processes with organizational will and means to reduce variation. Available through The ReWild Group and Amazon, the book explores in-depth this and other concepts while providing illustrations to help business leaders incorporate the ideas into their organizations. Get your copy today, and don’t forget to download the free workbook that serves as a companion guide to the book.