In addition to what Barry offered, let me add the following:
1. Process flow diagram or process map. This allows you to see what
is actually happening, especially if you leave out the managers and
get the people who actually DO the process to construct the map.
2. Joel Barker's Paradigm Prism. This lets you explore the "wht?"
questions from the standpoint of what rules (or assumptions) are
operating in the work environment that are guiding behavior to get the
current results.
3. Joel Barker's Implications Wheel. This lets you start with a
change (small ones initially) and impact it on the entire
organization, assess the ripples that will come off of that change,
evaluate whether the ripples are desirable or not, and assess the
likelihood of those various alternatives actually happening.
4. Cost/time analysis. This lets you put dollars to time and
activities to see what the process is costing you and to identify
where time and dollar savings can be achieved.
We tried the Quality Function Deployment tool but found that it was
too complicated for beginning organizations. It integrates a number
of other techniques into one nice package. However, if the
participants are not proficient with these other tools, the QFD
becomes too complicated, confusing, and intimidating. If the
facilitator is not proficient with these other tools, the QFD becomes
a real bear to facilitate.
If you want, drop me an email and we can talk about TQ tools and
methods offline in more depth.
--Clyde Howell orgpsych@augsta.net
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>