Organizations
The written process description should be in as much detail as necessary to understand and manage it, and to facilitate teaching it to those who work in or around to it. The process description also provides a handy tool to guide continuous improvement efforts.
Is the Process Stable or Unstable?
A process is stable if it produces a predictable Output - that is, for a given input over a period of time, the system produces results within a known and predictable range. If the system does not have a predictable output, leadership must work with all involved to make it predictable (stable).
Managing Improvement
If the system produces a predictable Output, leadership has two jobs. One is to improve the average: raising the average for activities scored as bowling, lowering the average for activities scored as golf. The other job is to narrow the range of variation in the output. For instance, in a given process the desired average output might be a value of 10. Imagine a machine that fills 10 pound bags of flour. Suppose the machine dispenses, on average, 10.1 pounds of flour per bag. Not bad. But in achieving that average, some bags receive 4 pounds of flour and some bags 14. Not good! Some customers would love you, some would take you to court. It would be better to have an average of 10.1 pounds where the range only went from 10.0 to 10.2.
Feedback
Part of managing a system involves managing feedback loops. This includes feedback from those whom your process serves (customers) - both external and internal customers - as well as those who serve you (suppliers) so that your process can function well and continually improve.
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