Being lazy is not the same as being efficient

A common process improvement tactic is to take a thorough look at current processes and analyze them for non-value add (NVA) activities. NVA activities usually meet one or more of the following criteria (all other activities are value-add):

• The activity has no customers, internal or external
• Customers/members are not willing to pay for it
• The activity is not required for financial, regulatory or other business reasons

What is sometimes lost in this process is looking with an objective eye to see if a process is missing a step that could turn out to be a value-add for the credit union. It is a counter-intuitive thought—why would you add steps to your process when process improvement usually means eliminating or refining steps?

The truth is, process improvement is designed to add value and eliminate waste. It is feasible that adding or reintroducing steps to a process may add value, and therefore would be an important addition to make. Sometimes human nature takes over and people stop doing important things they used to, or skip steps due to familiarity, and a process becomes slack over time because unintentional laziness has set in. What they don’t realize is that making up those steps later usually takes more time than if it was done in the first place, or not doing something at all has cost the credit union opportunities for income.

Examples:

continue reading »