Designing work groups, jobs, and work flow

Creating jobs and independent work units that can sustain high levels of performance - through leaner processes and enhanced job ownership - is one crucial, yet often ignored component in achieving the full benefits of any reengineering effort. Glorified automation, downsizing, or redrawing political turf is not the answer. A systematically focused redesign of work processes at the grassroots level is critical to any organization that hopes to meet customer expectations and influence tomorrow's transformed marketplace. Designing Work Groups, Jobs, and Work Flow offers an integrated approach to using the most powerful tools of reengineering to design single work units that are productive, responsive, and build participant ownership and commitment. Toni Hupp and her coauthors present a tool kit with many checklists, reusable worksheets, flowcharts, and other resources for analyzing and designing the daily work flow, group structure, and job responsibilities of intact work groups. They provide the step-by-step procedures for capturing who does what, when, why, and how, and offer guidelines for improving critical work processes. For consultants, managers, team leaders - anyone charged with improving work processes - the authors show how to gauge whether the group's purpose serves customer needs, and how well technical processes support such goals as quality, responsiveness, and employee involvement. They also demonstrate how to evaluate the human support system of any work group for flexibility and encouragement of teamwork.