Brought on as a Project Manager, but the real work is process engineering and design

Anonymous

August 15,2022 at 6:54PM UTC

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Brought on as a Project Manager, but the real work is process engineering and design

Hello, does anyone have experience with process engineering? I took a job under the guise of a Project Manager role that would be focused on customer experience. After pulling the curtains back, it turns out there are broken business processes everywhere. I'm up to 15 broken processes identified and I'm a little under 3 months in. And now, everyone is turning to me to fix all these internal process breakdowns. Does anyone have experience in process engineering? Are there resources that you use? I've done value stream mapping, workflow diagrams, and other tools but it seems like this job calls for other resources. Thanks so much

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Robin LampertAugust 16,2022 at 6:29PM UTC
I have limited experience in process engineering. Like you, it wasn't supposed to be my primary job, but we kept running into processes that needed to be made more effective. You probably already saw this, but just in case...
One tool/diagram we used was the "swim lane" where across the top we had the steps of the process and along the left side were the groups or individuals responsible or participating. Then in the grid, there were the specific actions that the group/individual had at each step. Arrows could be used to show the hand-offs.
I hope others can contribute better suggestions.
AnonymousAugust 17,2022 at 9:08PM UTC
Thanks so much Robin! Yes, I've begun building out swimlane diagrams for some of these processes. But because I'm new and still building trust in a toxic work environment, I'm having some difficulty getting buy-in from some of the stakeholders. Any advice on stakeholder management in a turnaround/sinking ship environment?
Robin LampertAugust 18,2022 at 3:48PM UTC
Depends on the stakeholders and the reasons for their resistance. Since they're the ones who may have set up the processes to begin with, they could feel some "ownership". Or they may just have the normal concerns about change. Sometimes, the "fix" has been tried before and didn't work. You'd need to take that into account for a different adjustment. No matter what the cause, talking to the stakeholders about the problems the current processes cause (maybe take on one at a time?), what they think about it and suggest, and run your suggestions by them?
Good luck!