The planning team must recognize and address several factors in the work environment that hinder establishment of a lean operating system. These are ingrained business phenomena that must be identified and negated. For instance:
- Business processes overlap functional boundaries yet you allow islands of power (i.e., stovepipes) to exist in the functioning of your business even though they are inefficient, disruptive, and self-serving
- Identified problems are usually solved within functional boundaries and often focus only on immediate problem resolution and not necessarily on the root cause. This means the solving of a problem by one staff function may actually cause problems for another agency.
- Organizations have a tendency to seek a stage of internal equilibrium and comfort within organization boundaries. Ongoing improvement is not a natural state. Change is unnatural, feared, and resisted by most organizations.
- The only persons who have responsibility over all aspects of a single process usually have such broad responsibilities they cannot devote adequate attention to lead the improvement process.
The best solution for the above-mentioned conditions is to assign each process to an owner. In the course of managing a process, an owner assumes responsibility for the output of the work units over which she has no direct control. This fact establishes the need for a process owner who is high enough in the organizational hierarchy to be able to get the work done. The process owner must be able to influence decisions and people outside her direct area of responsibility. The owner must have an overall perspective of her business and the environment to assess its impact on the process. Finally, there must be a reward or punishment factor for success or failure. The owner must be personally affected by the outcome of the process.