Process or People?

There has been a lively discussion on LinkedIn about which to invest in first, process or people. Many said to first invest in people and others said to first invest in process.

I suggested in the discussion to invest in both at the same time. Or better yet, why not make the investment in human resource a process in itself? The HR processes of people investment is wide and varied, some good, some not so successful.

Let's say we're in HR and our directive is to enhance people knowledge across the enterprise. That's a project. Or lots of little projects. What's the process of executing the absolute best way we can with the greatest outcome?

That would be the steps in the process (for the projects). I'm not talking about a task list in MS Project, but rather a set of dynamic action steps with the "how to do it right descriptions" that drive the human investment initiative.

The execution will most likely be team initiatives with lots of smart collaboration. Executives would want to gain confidence that our approach is the best way and the progress is transparent with real-time information.

We could envision this human investment to be a cookie-cutter approach for all departments as we refine the best process.

In summary, this is a critical process that could be managed to ensure success with our people investment initiative. Not that process comes first, but that both process and people investments may be best served in parallel.

Written by Paul Dandurand, Pie CEO/Founder

Photo by Kyle Ryan