While it’s recommended that you limit touchpoint redesign efforts to 20 days, some processes that affect customer experience are too broad to be tackled in that timeframe. So, what should you do about those big broken processes?
Before getting the answer to that, consider the mistakes organizations have been known to make by tackling projects that were too big for a reasonably quick resolution — projects like fixing the entire order-to-cash process or reengineering the product-innovation-to-commercialization process. Here’s what often goes wrong with these types of projects:
These types of large-scale process-redesign efforts are typically inward-focused, not customer-focused. Often, their intent is just to try to save money and “get lean.” Nothing is necessarily wrong with that; it’s just a different goal from improving customer experience.
The sheer size and scope of these larger types of projects typically require a multi-month — and sometimes multi-year — effort. Very few organizations have the internal discipline to stay focused on anything for that long.
These efforts are ripe targets for mega-consulting firms, which typically come in and do it to you rather than with you. As a result, employees often don’t buy into the change, and the whole effort can often stall.
The chances of finding significant real-cost savings are average at best. And the chances of significantly improving the customer experience with these mega projects are often negligible.
The prescription is this: You should consider tackling larger, cross-touchpoint problems after — and only after — you’ve redesigned at least half a dozen customer touchpoints using the 20-day method. Get addicted to the rapid pace of redesign. You’ll love it. And once you do, you should use the exact same approach, dividing the project into smaller pieces and extending the time period to a maximum of 30 days.
Here are a few tips:
Don’t be afraid to break the bigger problem into several component successive scopes, to be handled and redesigned by the same touchpoint team.
Ask the redesign team stakeholders to hold the reins a little tighter to avoid scope creep.
Ensure that stakeholders quickly get recalcitrant peers to the decision table to hammer out what will be some difficult and thorny issues.
In a larger project, the stakes are higher, and the challenge of redesigning the customer experience is more complex, but it’s definitely doable. Organizations big and small have successfully executed large projects using this approach.
