Process Improvement and Operational Excellence
Everyone knows where the waste is. Nobody has been asked.
Every team has a process that made sense once. The approval that exists because of an incident in 2019. The report nobody reads. The handoff that adds three days and no value. The people doing the work can list them in about ninety seconds, and they have usually never been asked.
This workshop gives managers a method rather than a philosophy. Participants map a real process from their own operation, measure where the time actually goes, and identify the specific steps that add cost without adding value. Most find that the biggest waste is waiting, not working.
Operations and department leaders use this where capacity is short and hiring is not an option, or where the same bottleneck keeps reappearing. HR and learning and development leaders use it where continuous improvement is a stated value that nobody has been trained to practice. It works in constrained environments, including public sector operations where policy limits what can change and the improvement has to happen inside the rules.
Content, scenarios, and examples are built around your actual work before delivery. Most groups train live online, and on-site in-person delivery is available by request. This workshop is available by request only, with a three participant minimum, and sits alongside our other leadership development workshops.
This course includes
- Live, instructor led workshop delivered in two 4-hour sessions
- Hands on mapping of a real process from your own operation
- Root cause techniques applied to your actual bottleneck
- One improvement scoped and ready to run by the end of the day
- Digital learning materials and take home reference guides
- Certificate of completion for every participant
Description
The day opens with mapping, and it is deliberately the real process rather than the documented one. Participants trace a workflow from their own operation step by step, including the parts that exist only as habit. The gap between the map and the procedure manual is usually where the interesting material is.
The middle is measurement and diagnosis. Participants learn to separate the time work takes from the time work waits, which is where most of the delay lives, and to distinguish a step that adds value from one that adds only checking. They practice root cause analysis on their own bottleneck, and learn why the obvious fix is often addressing a symptom.
The last stretch is making it stick, which is where most improvement work dies. Participants learn to test a change at small scale before committing, build the measure that tells you whether it worked, and handle the reasonable objection from the person whose job the change affects. They leave with one real improvement scoped and ready to run.
What You'll Learn at a Glance
- Map how work actually flows rather than how the procedure says it does
- Separate time spent working from time spent waiting
- Tell a step that adds value from one that only adds checking
- Find the root cause rather than fixing the visible symptom
- Test a change at small scale before committing to it
- Build a measure that shows whether an improvement worked
- Make an improvement hold after attention moves on
Details
Duration
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites for this workshop. It is designed for managers, supervisors, and team leads responsible for how work gets done. Teams looking at consistency and quality at the individual level can pair it with Quality Assurance and Service Excellence.
Your Leadership Training Goals, Customized to You
DWC provides expert leadership training aligned to your organization’s needs, your funding requirements, and your participants’ skill levels. With customization at every level, from content to scheduling to delivery format, DWC builds leadership training programs that produce measurable outcomes.
20,000+ Participants Trained | 90% Completion Rate | 1,500+ Organizations Served
Tuition
Process Improvement and Operational Excellence is available by request only, scheduled around your team.
- $495 per participant, with a three participant minimum
- Private training: request a custom quote. One on one sessions and teams below the three participant minimum are priced case by case
- Larger groups: request a custom quote. We price larger cohorts case by case based on group size, schedule, and delivery format
Colorado state agencies, higher education institutions, cities, counties, school districts, and certified nonprofits may purchase this course directly through our State of Colorado Price Agreement. Request a quote and we will build pricing around your team.