Brownfield & LentPerformance Improvement Through
Rapid Organizational Alignment (ROA)
Building organizational effectiveness by leveraging
the existing capabilities of your people
ROA is an innovative approach to improving organizational performance and business results. It improves business operations by engaging the internal talent and knowledge of the organization. It enables managers and staff to reduce low-value business activities and create new levels of business performance. ROA does this through fast cycles of activity designed to build sustainable results quickly through the efforts of your own people. Applications and Results
ROA has addressed many of the challenges faced by organizations and their executive teams:
| Organizational Challenges | ROA Results |
| New market
opportunities |
-Realigned 24 functions and 3000 managers and staff around a completely new service strategy. |
| Merging organizations |
-Created common
operating systems and practices across geographical locations and
specializations. -Integrated two plants and two product lines into one lean and profitable operation. |
| Developing distinctive
customer service |
-Reduced processing
time to open new accounts by 71% -Reduced time to process checks -Reduced lead time for customer orders by 200% |
| Improving quality and
productivity |
-Redesigned supply
systems, reducing supply costs and stock rooms -Improved first pass quality from 88% to 97% -50% improvement in operator productivity |
How Does ROA Work?
Working with key executives, we identify specific organizational processes for ROA action. In each process, specially designed teams representing a cross section of responsibilities for the process are formed. A group (or “wave”) of 3 to 8 teams focusing on different areas for process improvement then goes through 5 cycles of ROA activities. Each cycle helps them push improvement forward while learning from other teams what works for this organization in improving performance and leading change. Early successes create important new stories for the organization. Momentum builds. ROA activity spreads through out the day-to-day activities of the organization providing results, building teamwork, improving efficiency, and establishing sustainable performance.
What Makes ROA Different?
Other improvement efforts begin with analyzing what’s wrong, and then provide reports and training in how to improve. In contrast, ROA builds upon what the organization’s people already know how to do but don’t or can’t. ROA recognizes that:
1. Most employees are doing the best they can given how they understand the situation. They will change as their understanding of the situation changes.
2. Redesigning any one part of a process has ripple impacts on the rest of the organization. To stay aligned, relevant parts of whole system must be involved all at the same time.
3. Rapid, sustained improvement comes from first taking action to produce results -- and then planning to improve those results.
What clients say about ROA.
“It is uncovering past practices that are no longer useful to us and streamlining how we do our work. We have reduced our operating costs by 10-40% in different areas and enhanced the use of our human resources.”
“Since we began, we launched a new product and work loads tripled. Before ROA there was no way we could have handled the work loads.”
“The most significant change is in communication – at all levels, in all directions, and across departments. It empowered people to bring out their ideas.”
John Haskell and Jim Van Patten have been important partners in developing ROA.