What if we eliminated the traditional school system organizational chart? What if we really looked carefully at this enterprise called public education through the lens of process management?
I know many of you are probably saying we have our process model well defined. You are probably thinking that we have been down that road and we have the t-shirt. Many of you use ISO, Baldrige, Six Sigma, process flow maps, DMAIC and other improvement strategies. If all of this sounds strange to you, then there may be hope!!
Our school system had been down most of these roads and we have some successes and some failures. Currently, we have started a national project with the American Productivity Quality Council in Houston, Texas to look at process management architecture to help improve K-12 public education.
As a Baldrige alumni examiner and a Six Sigma supporter, I thought I really understood processes. Our school system had flow mapped over 100 processes. We have in-process measures linked to strategic measures. However, what I am discovering is that I knew just enough to be dangerous. I have a number of examples where working on the measures of one process have actually negatively impacted other processes. Working on processes while continuing to manage the organization through a function based organization chart often leads to fragmentation, lack of alignment, and unintended consequences.
With a process management approach, our school system is moving away from a traditional function centered organization into a process centered organization. Why? We are achieving student learning results among the best in North Carolina while spending at a rate among the lowest in North Carolina.
If you want to know more about the APQC K-12 process management initiative, look on their web site or send me an e-mail and I will send you information. ([email protected]). A great resource is also Michael Hammer's work on re-engineering processes.
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