Return on Process (ROP): Getting Real Performance Results from Process Improvement

Although there are countless books about process improvement and business performance, there is a dearth of literature on how process improvement yields business performance results. Filling this need, Return On Process (ROP): Getting Real Performance Results from Process Improvement provides strategic and tactical guidance on how to achieve a positive ROP.

The book details a comprehensive and coherent end-to-end process for integrating organizational performance objectives and measures to process improvement activities. Describing how to achieve real business performance results from process improvement, it supplies sound, proven advice on how to improve your organization’s software and systems development and delivery processes in ways that affect your business.

Defining the relationship between performance and process, the book presents metrics for business performance and explains how to set performance and process improvement goals, measure process improvement results, and lead a performance culture.

Filled with examples and case studies that illustrate key concepts, it provides "how to" information based on three role categories: executive, manager, and practitioner. Describing non-traditional and innovative ways to achieve process and performance improvement, the book includes action plan guides at the end of each chapter that provide clear-cut guidance on exactly what you should and shouldn’t do.

About the Author

Michael West is a lifelong practitioner and student of process improvement. He is the co-founder of Natural Systems Process Improvement (Natural SPI), a consultancy specializing in designing, developing, and deploying process systems that enable performance improvement gains. Mr. West’s process insights and innovations have helped many organizations in various sectors of the economy achieve real process and performance improvement. His process consulting clients include ATK, Autodesk, AVL, BAE, BB&T, Crane Aerospace, DCS, Deloitte, Sandia National Labs, and the US Navy. Mr. West frequently presents and speaks at industry conferences and is the author of Real Process Improvement Using the CMMI (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, 2004).