A systemic complex problem solving approach to process improvement

Organisations often discover process improvement implementation crash. Consequently, they are at a loss to explain the reasons for the failure. The team fails to understand processes often function within other systems and sub systems. Therefore, the complexity of the system(s) is not taken into account during process improvements. Process improvement teams often operate under the misunderstanding that there will be order in the process or system being improved. The improvement team is unaware that their actions in a process might influence the system or a sub system negatively. It is as a result that a human that functions in a process, system or sub system can assume many roles or identities. It is imperative the team undertaking the improvements to understand the complexity of systems. The team must understand who the customer of the process or system is. Furthermore, an understanding of the actors and transformation process in the process or system is required. The implementation team must take into account the environment in which the process or system operates and who the owner of the process and or system is. The paper attempts by utilising a current project to implement a systemic complex solving approach facilitating improvement.