Organizations new to process thinking—and there are a lot of them, even in healthcare and education, which you would expect to be more process oriented because of the continuum of care and educating students for nearly two decades, but are decidedly not—welcome new tools that will help them make the transition from a functional, silo mentality to process thinking.

Here is an approach that any type of organization can use. It is part of a system of process management and continuous improvement in place at Brevard Public Schools (BPS), a large public school district that received Florida’s 2007 Governor’s Sterling Award and is in the running for this year’s Baldrige Award. The system asks and answers simple but powerful questions:

• What do you do and what needs are you meeting? (Process name and description)

• How do you do it? (Process flow chart)

• How do you know you are doing a good job? (Status of outcome measures)

• How do you monitor the process to ensure you meet or exceed customer requirements? (Status of in-process or predictor measures)

• How do you improve? (PDCA, DMAIC, and by-the-numbers)

To make sure these questions are systematically and effectively addressed, BPS trained its senior staff, district leadership, and functional managers in 2006 and 2007 and then trained its principals and school leaders in 2008 and 2009. According to a case study published by ASQ, “more than 100 priority processes have been identified with defined process control systems. The district believes that a key to sustaining success in organizations is to transfer dependency from a few superstars (the hero mentality) to a system of process management and continuous improvement.”

To learn more about the BPS system, check out its 2009 Baldrige Award application. I was particularly struck by the district’s mission—to serve every student with excellence as a standard—and vision—Brevard Public Schools will be first in student achievement in the state of Florida and among the top five in the nation.

As its application shows, it has the system in place to make that vision a reality.

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