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The Thought in Brief

Ironically, process standardization can undermine the very performance it'south meant to optimize. Many processes work best when treated like creative piece of work, rather than rigidly controlled.

To decide if a process should be more creative than scientific, look for these conditions:

  • Inputs to the procedure are variable (for example, no two pieces of wood used to brand a Steinway piano soundboard are alike)
  • Customers value variations in the process's output (pianists appreciate the distinctive sound quality of their own pianos)

If your procedure is artistic, train employees in the judgment required to reply creatively to variable weather condition. Ritz-Carlton recaptured its reputation for unrivaled service when it empowered employees to improvise their responses to private guests' needs.

The Idea in Practice

Hall and Johnson recommend these steps for managing your processes once you've adamant which ones should be artistic:

Develop an infrastructure to support art

These practices can assistance:

  • Create appropriate metrics. Artistic processes must rely on external measures of success. So continually betrayal artists to customer feedback.

Example:

At Steinway, piano voicers (who suit completed pianos to perfect each instrument's experience and audio) interact directly with professional pianists.

  • Manage artistic and scientific processes separately. In a surgery center, repetitive piece of work that can be standardized (such as high-book hernia repair or Lasik corrective middle surgery) is managed separately from more than complex inpatient surgery that requires individual judgment.
  • Build effective training programs. Provide employee "artists" with experiences such every bit apprenticeship with a master, stories of outstanding client service, and extended time with a client. These experiences will help them develop an agreement of customers' needs, the judgment required to act without perfect information, and the ability to larn from both good and bad outcomes.
  • Tolerate failure. The variations characterizing artistic processes make information technology incommunicable to satisfy every client on the first effort. Then constitute extensive quality inspections to foreclose failures from affecting customers. And systematically clarify failures to identify which ones could be prevented or minimized in the future.

Periodically reevaluate the partition betwixt art and scientific discipline

Regularly enquire yourself:

  • What new technologies can aid brand a science of fine art?
  • Do my customers still value variation?
  • How practice the costs of art stack up against the benefits?
  • What opportunities does art allow that science doesn't?

Instance:

MinuteClinic has hundreds of walk-in medical offices. It has lowered costs and improved quality of basic health care by developing decision-support software that leads nurse practitioners and physician assistants through a step-by-step process for diagnosing and treating common ailments (strep throat, bladder infection, conjunctivitis). MinuteClinic continually evaluates the line betwixt art and scientific discipline: Though it keeps exploring means to raise its software and related processes to treat additional diseases, it also gives its clinicians enough freedom in their interactions with patients to deliver a personal customer feel.

Can a successful European sales procedure exist rolled out worldwide, or should regional teams exist allowed to perform their individual magic? Does it make sense for a manufacturer to invest in developing and documenting a detailed process that complies with the latest ISO standards, or would more employee training and empowerment lead to higher quality? Can quality be improved by managing surgeons similar nurses or auditors like mechanics? Executives in almost every industry face like questions about how to handle their processes. There are some processes that naturally resist definition and standardization—that are more fine art than scientific discipline. Helping executives sympathize which should non exist standardized and how to manage artistic and scientific processes in tandem is the purpose of this article.

The idea that some processes should be immune to vary flies in the face up of the century-old movement toward standardization. Procedure standardization is taught to MBAs, embedded in Vi Sigma programs, and practiced by managers and consultants worldwide. Thousands of manufacturing companies have achieved tremendous improvements in quality and efficiency by copying the Toyota Production System, which combines rigorous work standardization with approaches such as just-in-fourth dimension commitment of components and the employ of visual controls to highlight deviations. Process standardization also has permeated nearly every service industry, generating impressive gains.

With success, though, has come up overuse. Procedure standardization has been pushed too far, with little regard for where information technology does and does not brand sense. We aim to rescue creative processes from the tide of scientific standardization by offer a iii-pace approach to identifying and successfully integrating them into any business organisation. We argue that artistic and scientific approaches demand not be at odds but must be carefully harmonized.

What Is an Artistic Procedure?

What we phone call "art" is often described as "judgment-based piece of work," "craft piece of work," or "professional work." The mutual thread in such work is variability in the process, its inputs, and its outputs. Art is needed in changeable environments (for example, when raw materials aren't uniform and therefore require a craftsperson'south adjustments) and when customers value distinctive or unique output (in other words, all customers don't want the production or service to perform or be performed the same style).

If both of those weather condition aren't present, a mass or mass-customization process, non an artistic procedure, is the answer. If a firm is operating in a highly variable environment and produces variations in products or services that customers do non value, chances are it has nascent or cleaved processes. In those instances, a firm needs to learn how to bring the environment under command. (Run across the exhibit "The Process Matrix.")

This simple tool can help managers categorize processes and consider how they might or should change.

Mass processes are standardized processes that are geared to eliminate variations in output. They're appropriate when the goal is completely consistent output for a narrow range of products or services. In such cases, all artistic discretion should be eliminated. Steel, cars, and consumer fiscal services are examples of industries where mass processes are widely practical.

Mass customization uses a scientific process to produce controlled variations in output. Assemble-to-order products like Dell's personal computers and cars in BMW's "Build Your Ain" program fall into this category. While the number of possible combinations might exist enormous (BMW claims more than than 130 1000000 configurations), output variability is limited to combinations of predefined components. In many cases, mass customization represents the best of both worlds: control and variation. But when customers need true customization ("I want a pink estimator with a fabric-covered chassis that complements my office"), it will fall short.

Nascent or cleaved processes can't produce the consequent output that customers demand. Out-of-control processes are common when a production or process uses radically new materials, engineering science, or designs. In these situations, managers should consider whether decision-making output variation is feasible or desirable. If variation can't be controlled but customers tin exist persuaded to value information technology, an artistic process is the solution. If customers won't tolerate variation, the focus should be on understanding its causes and creating a standard procedure. Boeing did this for its new 787 Dreamliner, the first commercial aircraft with a carbon blended airframe: The company conducted test runs to learn how to standardize the process for manufacturing fuselage sections.

Artistic processes leverage variability in the surroundings to create variations of products or services that customers value. They rely on the judgment and direct experience of craftspeople. Building Steinway pianos, serving passengers on flights, and developing radically new software applications are but a few of the processes that meet those criteria. Before choosing art, it's critical to make sure that customers really value output variation. Some managers delude themselves into believing they need artistic output when the vast majority of customers really want a standard product.

Let's await in more than detail at the atmospheric condition that favor artistic processes:

Highly variable environment.

Scientific process management calls for blindly reducing variability. But sometimes variability cannot be avoided. Accept the inconsistencies in the forest used in the soundboards of pianos. In other cases, the costs of decreasing variability outweigh the benefits—for case, if doctors applied a cookbook approach to treating circuitous diseases. The traditional scientific approach to such situations is to try to tame the environment by imposing complex rules that spell out what to do in every possible circumstance. Not just does that reduce accountability, but information technology oft causes workers to switch to autopilot instead of trying to sympathise the specifics of each job.

Non only does standardization reduce accountability, merely it causes workers to switch to autopilot.

That was a decision reached in 2006 by executives at Ritz-Carlton, the hotel chain renowned for its high quality. After decades of demanding that employees strictly attach to a 20-point list of customer service nuts, the company's management realized that the specified routines weren't adequately addressing the widely ranging expectations of the luxury chain's customers, who had get younger, more various, and more than tech savvy, and often traveled with children and other family members. The company's leaders likewise saw that expanding the list to address every possible state of affairs that an employee might see would be futile. Equally a result, they shifted to a simpler 12-betoken set of values that allowed employees to use their judgment and improvise. Tightly defined process dictums (like "always carry a guest's luggage," "escort guests rather than point out directions to another area of the hotel," and "utilize words like good morning, certainly, I'll be happy to, and information technology'southward my pleasure") sometimes felt stuffy and out of place. Direction replaced them with looser value statements (such equally "I build strong relationships and create Ritz-Carlton guests for life" and "I am empowered to create unique, memorable, and personal experiences for our guests"). The alter encouraged employees to sense customers' needs and act appropriately. Customer satisfaction improved.

Output variation that creates customer value.

In highly erratic environments, variation in outcomes is natural—and is often a good thing in customers' eyes. Consider the Steinways played by the majority of the world's concert pianists. Steinway & Sons knows that each of its concert grand pianos expresses a different "personality," and the company promotes that as a positive—an indication of the richness of the materials and the adroitness that go into its products. Besides, principal winemakers know that their job is to make the near of the distinctive qualities of each year's harvest.

Creative processes are often required where no consistent definition of quality exists. (Run into the exhibit "Many Processes Are an Art.") If customers value—or demand—uniqueness or variation, then information technology must exist created by artists who devote considerable effort to understanding private client preferences. Artistic processes tin capably and reliably produce innovative products and services that many scientific business processes cannot mimic. While a scripted greeting and forced smile at the front end desk ensure a minimum level of service, a greeting crafted by an employee at the Ritz volition choice up on verbal and nonverbal cues to fit that particular guest at that detail time and place.

A wide range of processes lend themselves to creative approaches, which produce unique or tailored results. Here's a sampling:

Leadership training. Developing determination-making capabilities and cocky-sensation in individuals takes fourth dimension and ane-on-one coaching.

Auditing. Applying the broad principles of new international reporting standards requires understanding the implications for each firm and using judgment to make up one's mind the right response.

Hedge fund direction. While computer models can spit out adventure estimates, making final bets oft entails personal calls.

Customer service. Satisfying individual customers might require frontline employees to get "off script" and exercise what they feel is best.

Software development. Writing code for a new application oftentimes involves iterating with customers to learn how to refine the program to address their needs, equally well as decisions on which corners can exist cut.

Account relationship management. Keeping valued customers happy oftentimes ways calculation a touch of tailored service to standard offerings.

Business concern evolution. Spotting new opportunities and envisioning how the business could exploit them tin can't exist reduced to a formula.

Industrial pattern. Integrating the customer'due south needs with a compelling design takes imagination and feel.

A Procedure for Managing Art

Successfully developing and supporting art in an arrangement requires a three-step approach that is at odds with the standardization-focused grooming of many managers. Each step addresses a cardinal question that managers must explore: Where volition art add value? How should art be supported? How should artistic processes evolve? Our guidelines for answering these 3 questions are derived from our research and consulting experience.

Footstep 1: Identify what should and shouldn't be art.

Begin by taking a hard look at your processes, conspicuously identifying where art or scientific discipline will add value for customers. Apply the procedure matrix to assist you.

If a method or practice is nevertheless nascent, you'll need to make up one's mind whether information technology should evolve toward a mass or an creative process. Many managers wrongly discount or ignore the possibility that customers tin can be persuaded to value variations—a trend that leads managers to choose the path to mass processes.

Fifty-fifty when a mass process is the right destination, moving besides chop-chop down that path can be disastrous. If yous don't even so have a clear view of the causes and effects at piece of work, you demand artists, who tin can operate effectively in chaotic environments. Trying to standardize a nascent process before it's truly understood volition alienate cardinal artistic staff—exactly the people you demand to manage it during the interim and assist yous learn how to control information technology. Until y'all've reduced the process to a scientific discipline, you should create an environment where artists can thrive.

That said, managers must guard against preserving artistic processes that have outlived their usefulness. If the science has been mastered or if customers no longer value the variations, retaining creative processes can allow competitors that encompass standardization and become more efficient to leap ahead of y'all.

Step ii: Develop an infrastructure to support art.

This infrastructure has two purposes: to ensure that artists have liberty to practice and refine their art and to ensure that they create the maximum customer value. Y'all should go along those goals in heed when figuring out how to measure artistic results, make art and science work together, train artists, and respond to inevitable failures.

Creating appropriate metrics.

The simple, internally focused metrics for a scientific process, designed to make certain everyone executes it the same verbal way, will non work for art. An creative process has to rely on external measures of success. Artists demand continual exposure to client feedback, which prevents them from constructing their own idiosyncratic notion of quality.

An creative procedure has to rely on external measures of success, similar customer feedback.

Sometimes this feedback must come from a broad swath of customers. For case, medical professionals obviously have to piece of work closely with all afflicted patients to diagnose and treat complex diseases—to obtain a complete picture of their symptoms and track their reactions to remedies. With other processes, including those used to produce Steinway'south high-finish pianos, feedback from a select group of customers tin can suffice. At Steinway, piano voicers, who adjust completed pianos to perfect the feel and sound of the instrument, regularly interact directly with professional pianists, whom the company'southward longtime president Bruce Stevens (at present retired) called "Steinway'due south biggest fans and its harshest critics."

Getting art and scientific discipline to work together.

If businesses employ both artistic and scientific processes (the rule rather than the exception), managers should piece of work to separate them and then carefully manage the areas where they intersect. To begin, managers must evaluate whether 1 procedure is beingness asked to perform both art and science. If it is, it should be divided. Consider sales. It often pays to apply a standard process for low-risk, low-reward sales efforts but to assign sales artists who thrive in an uncertain surroundings to tackle high-risk, high-reward efforts. Given the differences in the sales approaches too as the compensation schemes that each requires, integrating the ii can be counterproductive and sometimes disastrous. Similarly, in an ambulatory surgery center, separating repetitive work that can exist standardized, such as a loftier-book hernia repair or Lasik corrective middle surgery, from variable in-patient surgery that requires more art will lower costs and improve outcomes. If need for either the artistic or the standardized procedure isn't high plenty to make segregating them economical, it's ofttimes all-time to exit ane of the businesses.

Managers should as well divide any creative process from support processes that can be standardized. It'due south crucial that the latter not be treated as art; rather they must exist organized and operated to provide a stable platform for the creative person. (Meet the showroom "Science as a Platform for Fine art.")

The creation of many products and services involves both artistic and scientific processes. In such cases, the output of the scientific processes should provide a stable platform on which artists can and so employ their craft. The ii kinds of processes need to be separated, however, because they have different goals and metrics of success.

Consider how Steinway & Sons produces concert pianos:

Fine art

Perfecting the sound and feel of the pianos is an art that requires the judgment of skilled craftspeople—such as the voicers who customize the instruments for individual professional person pianists.

Science

Many components of pianos tin be standardized. Making them uniform—through scientific manufacturing processes—minimizes the complexity that the voicers have to debate with.

Summit salespeople, for instance, rely on client human relationship direction systems to provide basic, consistent information to tailor pitches to private customers. Any missing or wrong information weakens the salespeople'due south ability to execute and clouds the feedback loop that allows them and their managers to guess their performance. Similarly, Steinway's voicers require consistent strings, hammers, and activity assemblies (the mechanisms that connect the keys to the hammers that strike the strings). Without such standard components, the challenge of perfecting the feel and sound of instruments for individual professional pianists would be far more than difficult.

Building an effective training plan.

Artists, of course, must learn the skills of their trade. They often have to undergo a formal apprenticeship or breezy mentoring and a probationary period during which their freedom is curtailed. They might fifty-fifty have to pass a formal test to be certified.

But whether the artists are insurance claims adjusters, civil engineers, or software architects, their preparation entails more than than but mastering new skills. Information technology also involves developing an understanding of customer needs, the judgment required to deed without perfect information, and the ability and willingness to learn from both good and bad outcomes. Often organizations with artistic processes have a strong culture that guides artistic judgment. Steinway wants its voicers to place with world-class concert pianists—to empathise the tension they feel onstage when they're playing before a breathless crowd and how they depend on their pianos to deliver.

Companies can employ a variety of methods to instill their culture in new artists. One we've already mentioned: an apprenticeship with a master. Some other is storytelling. Ritz-Carlton regularly shares stories of outstanding customer service to inspire its frontline employees. Nevertheless another powerful tool is the "ride-along": having an amateur spend an extended period of time with a client.

All in all, turning a novice into a master may take considerable time. Steinway voicers spend 1 to 3 years in preparation before working independently. At the Ritz, receptionists, bellhops, and restaurant waiters receive four to five weeks of formal training during their first year. Frontline Ritz employees—new hires and veterans—meet for 15 minutes each mean solar day to share stories of how they wowed guests and discuss ways to improve customer service.

Tolerating failure.

The variations that are the authentication of creative processes brand information technology impossible to satisfy every customer on the first try. This reality means that a company may have to establish extensive quality inspections to prevent failures from affecting customers. Information technology also may have to develop approaches to recover quickly when they occur. Ritz-Carlton, for example, empowers frontline employees to spend up to $two,000 to fix a customer's problem.

But because some amount of failure is inevitable doesn't mean that failures should be passively accepted. To the contrary, they must become learning opportunities—both for the artists and for the managers who shepherd the process. Failures should be systematically reviewed with the aim of identifying which ones could be prevented or minimized in the future (for example, past strengthening a standard back up process, spotting them earlier, and improving recovery responses).

If you lot get to the betoken where failures are rare, it ways that the procedure has get predictable and can be turned into a science.

Step three: Periodically reevaluate the partition between art and science.

Changing customer needs and new technologies can alter the landscape in ways that make art more than or less desirable. Managers must regularly ask themselves: What new technologies can help make a science of fine art? Do my customers value variation? How practice the costs of art stack upwards against the benefits? What opportunities does art allow that science doesn't?

Diverging customer demands drove Ritz-Carlton to shift toward art, while advances in computer-controlled machine tools for making components prompted Steinway to move in the opposite management. In health intendance, some organizations have flourished by replacing artistic diagnostic processes with technology. At its hundreds of walk-in medical clinics, MinuteClinic employs homegrown decision-back up software that leads nurse practitioners and doc assistants through a step-by-step process for diagnosing and treating common ailments such as strep throat, bladder infection, and pinkeye. MinuteClinic continually evaluates the line betwixt art and science: While information technology relentlessly explores how information technology might enhance the software and related processes to treat additional diseases, it strives to make sure that its clinicians accept enough freedom in their interactions with patients to deliver a personal customer experience.

Sometimes the line between art and science shifts only because of a realization that art produces better results. This is now occurring in the U.Due south. accounting profession, where the largely rules-based Generally Accepted Accounting Principles are making way for the International Financial Reporting Standards, a simpler set of principles that let managers and auditors to exercise more than judgment. Although a desire to harmonize the standards of different countries is one reason for the shift, another is the growing view that promoting judgment and accountability in accountants and legal professionals will pb to better reporting outcomes than rote adherence to rules does.

When evaluating the division betwixt art and science, managers must be wary of "fine art diffusion": unwittingly extending artistic liberty to people who surroundings and support artists. While the centre surgeon might need creative freedom, those involved in preoperative patient training should strive for consistency so that the patient reaches the operating room in a known, stable state. If all-time practice can exist defined and documented in advance, there is little value, and mayhap much danger, in allowing the exercise of fine art. • • •

In spite of the variability-quashing tendencies of modern process direction, we believe that both art and science have of import roles to play in many business organisation processes. Art allows for a flexibility, creativity, and dynamism that a purely scientific approach cannot replicate. Well-implemented and managed creative approaches tin can also create differentiation that cannot easily be copied, commoditized, or outsourced. For decades, the process management pendulum has been swinging toward the standardization and control of scientific discipline. It's time to recognize the limits of such processes and consider where artistic freedom should be restored or preserved.

A version of this article appeared in the March 2009 issue of Harvard Business concern Review.