I haven’t done a list in awhile so let’s try one today to summarize down some topics I’ve been writing about recently. If you want to make your CRE processes work better keep these things in mind:
- Figure out what you are trying to solve for. A process that simplifies Lease Administration abstractions is not simply a lease admin process. It solves for data quality, resource availability, system capability trade-offs, time to data availability, etc. There are lots of ways to look at it. Know what you are trying to fix or improve before you start. Process for process’ sake is ineffective.
- Get the right people involved. Some people know and understand the problem more deeply than others. Often times those people that understand the problem aren’t even involved in the thing that is causing the issues. Do you really want to try and solve the problem without including the people impacted and just hope that you get it right without them? Similarly, don’t choose the same people over and over. You need to make sure you share accountability and responsibility across the team to give everyone a chance to grow.
- Implement but then iterate. It is unlikely that you will land on the perfect solution with your first attempt. Put something in place with the idea of adapting and changing as you go. Building in no room for flexibility is a recipe for creating even worse issues.
- Be open and transparent about what you are doing. There are few things worse for employees than changing a process and disrupting their workflows for what seems like no reason. If there are problems then the entire team should understand what is happening. Hiding issues from the ones causing them (even if they are not doing it on purpose) does not help anyone – it just delays the knowledge coming out once the problem gets even worse.
- DO NOT ASSUME TECHNOLOGY IS THE ANSWER. Finally, never assume that technology can magically solve your process problems. Technology is often a mask for issues or an easy scapegoat for what is really going wrong. If I had a dollar for every time someone blamed technology for their lack of performance I’d be quite a few dollars richer. Technology may or may not be part of an answer but don’t assume that it will be. Sometimes it does nothing but make things worse because it doesn’t address the root causes (i.e. PEOPLE).