Designing work groups, jobs, and work flow

by Toni Hupp

Creating jobs and independent work units that can sustain high levels of performance - through leaner processes and enhanced job ownership - is one crucial, yet often ignored component in achieving the full benefits of any reengineering effort. Glorified automation, downsizing, or redrawing political turf is not the answer. A systematically focused redesign of work processes at the grassroots level is critical to any organization that hopes to meet customer expectations and influence tomorrow's transformed marketplace. Designing Work Groups, Jobs, and Work Flow offers an integrated approach to using the most powerful tools of reengineering to design single work units that are productive, responsive, and build participant ownership and commitment. Toni Hupp and her coauthors present a tool kit with many checklists, reusable worksheets, flowcharts, and other resources for analyzing and designing the daily work flow, group structure, and job responsibilities of intact work groups. They pr