The Self-Healing Business Process

One way we understand something new and different is by comparing it with something we understand.  We start with an analogy or metaphor. ProcessTriage® , our trademarked brand wonderfully captures the idea of applying the structured but rapid medical examination process of battlefield or mass casualty events, to business processes. It also reflects how fast our methods identify what to fix first, as our clients have observed.

I am blessed to be invited to introduce process triaging to Vistage member groups, typically 12 to 18 CEO’s of growing companies.  After reviewing each step of the Process Triage Decision Cycle, from the start point of the CEO setting the strategic financial goal to finally monitoring and celebrating the completed process improvements, I usually conclude with by saying something like, ‘Now rinse and repeat.”

Each cycle of the decision cycle nominates a fresh, focused, and prioritized list of improvements based on new information.

One of the members observed, ‘Rosey, what you’re saying is this decision cycle creates a self-healing business process.  That no matter what new thing inhibits the process’s capability, the decision cycle exposes and diagnoses it.”

After sleeping on it, I woke up wondering, ‘Why hadn’t I seen this before?”  Sustaining the cycle makes the process it is applied to self-healing.  Like a self-sealing fuel tank.

Pitch perfect, indeed. It does.