Becoming a process-focused organization requires a sustained effort, and for most industrial and service organizations that is a difficult task. Failure to improve the performance of your processes leads to a failure to improve the organization and results in improperly managing the business.

All major business initiatives—quality, lean, Six Sigma, innovation—must focus on improving those processes that have the greatest impact on the organization’s critical success factors. These factors are the essentials, and the key processes that affect them should be the primary focus of management.

Focused process improvement is a fundamental requirement to sustain initiatives like quality or lean, and to generate positive results. Organizations succeed or fail based on what happens within specific key business processes. Many organizations don’t sustain their quality or lean efforts because they are not focused on improving critical business processes. Instead employee improvement teams are left adrift and end up working on trivial, inconsequential projects that matter least to improving the business.

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