Insurance / operations · 2010s
Financial services
Complex process → 80% simpler
A high-volume operational process producing costly errors, rework and constant escalation.
The situation
A core operational process ran on manual handling. Error rates and rework were quietly baked into the cost base, and every attempt to fix it added another control on top of the existing one.
Everyone involved was competent. The process still failed regularly.
The actual problem
It looked like a people problem.
It was a systems problem.
The information the process needed never arrived in a usable shape.
What I changed
Messy
Untangle
Make it understandable
Before
25 moving parts
- Complex.
- Expensive.
- Hard to change.
After
5 moving parts
- Simple.
- Flexible.
- Easy to scale.
- Mapped the process as it actually ran, not as it was documented
- Traced errors back to their information source
- Redesigned the process around automation instead of controls
- Removed steps rather than supervising them
- Rebuilt the operational model around the new flow
Artefact — process diagram
Artefact pending publication.
Result
80%
fewer errors
80%
process complexity removed
Efficiency improved because the work disappeared, not because people worked harder.
What this taught me
“When a process keeps failing with good people in it, stop looking at the people.”
More thinking →Principles at work here
Fix the system, not the symptom
Symptoms move. Systems don't.
Remove before you optimise
Optimising unnecessary work leaves unnecessary work.