Bad Process or Bad Practice?

I am told there is something capitally wrong with some of our business processes. Too wasteful, too long-winded.

But UNICEF staff have a knack for making it worse. Self-inflicted pain abounds. There are offices

• labouring for several months to come up with new insights for a CCA rather than summarizing what is known;
• vipping each other to exhaustion in UNDAF workshops;
• spending weeks preparing an office work plan that is too long to be read by anyone;
• preparing volumes of MTR documentation, instead of highlighting findings and recommendations;
• making 200 small payments instead of 2 big ones;
• recruiting five staff in three years instead of three staff in five years;
• holding management meetings that try to do the work of managers;
• keeping money aside for flexibility and ending up under pressure to spend;
• procrastinating until it really hurts.

We all are implicated. Very few of us were hired as managers. And it is difficult to balance control and delegation. Following the established business processes, and getting it right the first time, is often faster than going for shortcuts and getting lost in the process.

But still, there are the processes that hold terror for many of us. A task force is going to do something about it. So, which is your favourite menace?

(1 April 2005)

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