Page 127 - Performance Leadership

116 • Part II Operational and Analytical Dimensions

F igur e 7.8
Business Interfaces in the Management Process

Feed forward Business
Interface

Variance
Horizontal Actual/plan
variance
Estimates
Deadline
Feedback

is the result of its ISO 9001 certification process and its strong process
orientation. One of the major challenges in this effort was to formal-
ize the interactions between the processes, in other words, the busi-
ness interfaces. It took La Réunion almost three years to accomplish
this task. First, because of the elaborate process descriptions that
needed to be made, and also in part to the undertaking that went into
changing people’s perception on how to deal with targets, objectives,
and performance indicators. La Réunion quickly found out that the
traditional ways of target setting and ownership led to organizational
silos and suboptimal results. For instance, it is in the best interest of
the production department to have as large as possible production
batches. The marketing department, in the meantime, would prefer
as many production variants as possible. The solution has been to
introduce a shared objective and target between both departments
called “time to market.” Another example is the shared objective
between HR and production, each being equally responsible for an
efficient workforce planning.
Throughout the process, La Réunion has developed some interest-
ing insights into successful management of business interfaces, includ-
ing its measurement. To show the concept of shared responsibility (part
of the concept of business interface metrics) in a nonconfrontational
way, the controlling department decided to measure its degree of health
with an official performance indicator “total weight.” The weight of the
three people within the department was not to exceed 250 kg. Every