Can a process be considered extraordinary?

Vishwadeep Khatri

In another discussion, someone commented that a process is never extraordinary. It is just good or bad. What do you think?

Aniruddha Sahasrabudhe
Answer to this question lies in precisely " Defining " all the Inputs , nature of Interactions e. g. Simple or Complex between misc. activities in the " Process Blackbox " & Quality of Final Deliverables ( Intented as per some Customer spec. v/s What is Actually delivered ).

For example Process of Criminal Investigation with global ramifications may be called complex and extraordinary whereas most of the established & known engineeing processes in manufacturing & service sector may be called as just good or bad.

Vishwadeep Khatri
I get your point of view. There are many ways of looking at processes. I am not in favor of just a good/bad assessment. Why not an ordinal scale?

Most certifications including ISO 9001, SEI-CMM, COPC, TL 9000, AS 9000, ISO 14001, ISO 22000, HACCP, etc have a process approach. When the assessment is done, would you just say that the process met expectation or did not meet expectation? Or would you consider some processes really far ahead of what is fundamentally expected of them?

Uma
I restrict being binary by saying a process good or bad in achieving the results...defining such adjectives (extraordinary, remarkable, incredible) to process is an herculian task and to quantify as well!

As Aniruddha stated there could be complex process depending on the sector and its limitations, but a complex one need not be an extraordinary process!

Vishwadeep Khatri
Customer satisfaction assessment used to be a 3 point scale in hospitality industry. Below expectation, met expectation, above expectation. Now it has moved to 10 point scales at most places.

Vishwadeep Khatri
Also, Process maturity assessment (CMM or others) is generally a five level assessment. I like the five levels approach quite a lot. One process may be at a level which barely meets the requirement. Another may have controls on all key inputs and flexibility built-in to respond to changes in supplies, market or competition. I would not like to consider them as equal in my assessment.

Aniruddha Sahasrabudhe
In my opinion we must also look at & link Customer's feedback with " How& What the Process ultimately Delivers " to the Customer. I will give a simple example of smooth landing which all of us must have experienced over hundred times by now.

Depending on air traffic over an airfield , ATC gives clearance to a Pilot to land on a particular runway. As all of us know each runway has certain width and there is a white line right in the middle of runway which the Pilot is supposed to follow for a safe landing. Now imagine for sake of understanding that this line as the spatial reference ( 0,0,0) and the width of runway as the Upper & Lower Limits.

A Pilot adheres to the ATC's landing instruction & most of the times lands safely.But imagine what would be the mental & physical condition of Customers ( passengers ) if the plane lands just couple of feet close to either side of the runway and then taxis to the park bay.Theoretically Pilot is still well within the width of the runway , the aircraft is also intact but some of the passengers might faint. In this simple example KPIs ( Key Process Indicators ) of Customer's satisfaction are are Quality of Inflight service , Operational Punctuality ( Actual Takeoff & Landing time vis a vis , that mentioned on Flight schedule ) , Safety & Passenger comfort.

The point I want to stress is that there may be several ways of looking at a process by measuring several parameters and applying multiple criterias but we must always remember that ultimately the deliverables -- Product / Service must comply with Customer's requirement and it is the Customer's choice / prerogative to call a Process as Good / Bad. Any Process certainly can be improved by very well established methods of Process improvement which are beyond the scope of current discussion hence I am not going into those details.