100 Managers' Toolbox: Business Excellence Framework
To develop a ‘vision’ for the organisation, you must understand Business Excellence Framework, and how to put it into action. This is a framework to work around to enable a holistic approach to business excellence
When to use
When needing to understand the bigger picture for achieving business excellence. Particularly
useful as a communication tool.
What you get
A framework to work around to enable a holistic approach to business excellence
Time
To develop and implement all the issues surrounding the framework will take about 12 months.
Number of people
The whole organisation.
Equipment
Visible displays of progress.
Method
1. Develop a ‘vision’ for the organisation. See tool 91: visioning – The Future. The ‘vision’ is a statement of ‘what’ you want to be’. It needs to be simple, clear, meaningful and written in the present tense.
2. Determine the company values and belief. See tools 75: Shared Values to help here. This provides an understanding of ‘who you want to be’. It is important that all employees but into the values.
3. Develop a business strategy to support the achievement of the vision. See the project matrix at the front of the book for useful tools.
4. Develop a clear mission, which needs to contain the purpose and scope of the organisation, i.e. ‘what do we do’. It is fundamentally important that people are brought into the vision and mission, and understand their role in making it happen.
5. Develop the critical success factors (CSFs), this is about creating a picture of what success will look like. See tool 2: Balanced Scorecard card for the balanced approach to this. Develop and put in place key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor progress and clearly understood targets to aim at.
6. Develop the core processes to enable the achievement of the mission. An approach to help is tool 7: Business Design and Improvement.
7. Manage the processes to continuously improve and get closer to the vision.
Method
|
Vision |
The UK’S best railway company |
|
Value |
Clean, safe, trains on time at times when customers require them with genuinely caring employees offering a standard of service beyond expectations. Company and employee integrity to be recognised by passengers on our trains. |
|
Mission |
Frequent services on the secondary line between the non-intercity station in Midlands and London using modern rolling stock. |
|
CSFs |
Trained empowered staff rewarded on success of operation new rolling stock On-time service to customer-required timescales Low-Cost Happy employees. |
|
KPIs |
Customer care surveys Passenger load factors Age of rolling stock Profitability. |
|
Core processes |
Identification of customer needs Training of employees Train scheduling and management |
Exercise
Consider all of the elements for your own company. Are there any contradictions or missing links?
Key points
The communication and involvement of all employees throughout the processes is key. It is from the
core processes downward (on the diagram below) that the vision is delivered; ensure the project
momentum continues well into that area. It is the hard bit and will be required everyone working
together to make it happen.
You need to make the process yours. It is useful to say the framework has worked elsewhere, but
you need to give it your organisation’s identity.
Don’t be afraid to get external help, it is much cheaper to learn from other people’s mistakes!
Additional Information
Don’t expect miracles. Miracles do happen but you have to work hard at them.
Other information
For further information on business excellence, see British Quality Foundation –
www.quality-foundation.co.uk or European Centre for Business Excellence, www.ecforbe.com also
EFQM – European Foundation for Quality Management.
