Process improvement

Here we discuss the problems that organisations often have with the redesign of systems and processes; specifically Hammer and Champy’s Process Redesign model to achieve improvement in performance when there are several conflicts occurring simultaneously within an organisation or when there are excessive amounts of communications – no strange thing in universities! The chapter examines the ‘Five Why’ approach, an iterative technique used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships behind particular problems, developed by Toyota and applied here to schools and universities. Finally, the chapter discusses Motorola’s Six Sigma approach as applied to High Reliability Schools.