What executives want to see from process improvement project recommendations

Executives are moved by visuals and workflows that quickly communicate the causal relationship between business outcomes (revenue growth, profit and sustainability of the business model),customer delight (success), then business process (how it gets done).

These components when technically, yet artfully tied together, how value is created, where decisions need to be made and how those decision will impact business outcomes up, down and across the organization.

What C-suite executives truly care about

Keep the following in mind when sharing the sum total of your process analysis and improvement work:

First: Business outcomes: Senior leaders care about what matters to shareholders revenue, profits, market share, growth, innovation and new business models that change the competitive landscape.

Second: Customer delight: After business outcomes, senior leadership care about delighting internal and external customers (or they should care). Moderately mature organizations focus on customer experience. Breakthrough companies focus on customer intimacy. These business leaders look beyond traditional percentage of sales from new customers, average deal size and customer penetration to voice of customer (VOC) metrics like customer satisfaction levels, customer experience index (CxPi) and Net Promoter Score).

Third (and in this order): Business process: Senior leaders recognize business process illustrates how work gets done and the manner in which customer delight can be systematically delivered. Whether the process is documented using packaged software like ERP, SCM, and CRM or full fledged BPM suites is inconsequential for most c-suite executives that don’t really care that deeply about the details of how the process works -- even if its a brilliant future state design with supporting process maps, automations and animations. They care whether the outcomes are visible and digestible and will they generate customer delight.

Tip: Process professionals, don’t expect great results if you go into the c-suite with process maps, architectures, and as-is and to-be diagrams. Expect for eyes to quickly glaze over if you do. Instead remember to communicate the causal relationship between business results (revenue growth, profit and sustainability of the business model), customer delight (success), then process (how it gets done) as a precursor to your recommendations. Doing so puts your process improvement suggestions in context to what your executive deems most important. And it shows you have the enterprise perspective necessary to drive meaningful improvement.

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