WHY BUY INSTEAD OF MAKE

There are really only two factors that provide ample justification for purchasing process expertise or tools instead of developing the skills or tools in house:

1. Your organization does not possess the skills that it needs to accomplish its goals.

2. Acquiring outside expertise or tools is more cost-effective than establishing them internally.

However, before you can make the above decisions, you first have to know:

The organization s business and process improvement goals What knowledge, skills, and tools your organization currently possesses

In other words, the organization needs to have some inkling of an idea of what constitutes the total project work before it can know what portion or aspects of that work to outsource. If the organization s leadership and process focus personnel can t see or scope process improvement even in terms of goals, as shown in Figure 6.2, then the scope of process improvement is an amorphous blob. In this situation, the organization doesn t want to simply ask a consultant to come in and help us or do some stuff; that is tantamount to handing them a blank check. However, the organization can hire outside expertise to provide some narrowly defined facilitation work to help the internal decision makers define the strategy and goals.

Figure 6.2: Scoping the Process Improvement Project before Outsourcing