How do you recognise someone who improved a process?

Use the before and the after. Process work is judged on what stopped being painful, and a message with two numbers in it does more than a paragraph about efficiency.

Why do process improvements go unrewarded?

Because the good ones remove things. A person who deletes a weekly report has nothing to demonstrate at the end of the quarter, while a person who created one has a report.

Should you recognise work that reduced someone’s own workload?

Yes. Automating your own worst afternoon is not laziness, it is the version of the job where the boring part stops consuming a person every week, and it usually generalises to everyone doing the same task.

What about improvements that took several attempts to land?

Thank the advocacy separately. Persuading a team to stop doing something is usually harder than the change itself, and the person who raised it three times absorbed the friction each time.

How do you recognise someone who spent time on tooling instead of output?

Name the trade and say it was right. That decision looks like under-delivery in the quarter it happens and only becomes obviously correct later, which is exactly when people forget to mention it.

Recognition messages

Recognising Process Improvements: 10 Messages

Nobody gets promoted for deleting a meeting, which is a shame, because it is often the highest-value thing anyone does that quarter.

The best version deletes something

A process improvement that adds a tool, a dashboard or a checklist leaves something behind to point at. One that removes a meeting leaves an empty slot in a calendar.

The second kind is usually worth more and is much harder to claim credit for, which means it depends entirely on somebody else noticing.

Two numbers is the whole message

“A Friday afternoon is now four minutes.” “A two-hour handover is fifteen minutes.”

Nothing about efficiency or streamlining is needed. The before and the after do the work, and they are the part the person will quote when they are asked what they did this year.

10 messages you can send

You killed the Thursday sync and replaced it with a document. Six people got an hour back every week and nothing got worse.
Manager, on removal
The second clause is the proof.
Thanks for the script. What used to be a Friday afternoon is now four minutes and I stopped dreading it.
Peer, on automation
Includes the emotional cost, which is real.
Ines rewrote the release checklist after watching two people get confused by it. Nobody has asked a question about it since.
Manager, on iteration
Names the observation that prompted the change.
Thank you for merging the three trackers into one. I know it was tedious and I know nobody thanked you at the time.
Peer, on tedious work
Acknowledges both the tedium and the silence.
You made the staging environment reset itself. Half the incidents we used to have were people forgetting to.
Manager, on prevention
Ties the change to a class of problem.
Thanks for pushing to stop writing the weekly report nobody read. It took three attempts and you were right each time.
Peer, on persistence
Recognises repeated unwelcome advocacy.
The new PR template has cut review time noticeably and I am fairly sure you just added it without asking.
Manager, on unasked change
Light about the process while crediting it.
Thank you for the runbook that turned a two-hour handover into a fifteen-minute one.
Peer, with numbers
One before, one after, nothing else needed.
You spent a week on tooling instead of features and the team has been faster ever since. That trade was not obvious at the time.
Manager, on a judgement call
Credits a decision that looked wrong initially.
Thanks for asking why we do it that way. The answer turned out to be that somebody left in 2021.
Peer, on questioning
The punchline is the value.

What makes one land

Credit removals as loudly as additions. Deleting a meeting or a report is real work with no artefact, and the person who did it has nothing to show.
Use the before and after. “A Friday afternoon is now four minutes” is the entire case.
Thank the advocacy, not only the change. Getting agreement to stop doing something usually takes more attempts than making the change does.
Acknowledge the tedium. Merging three trackers is genuinely boring and nobody enjoys it.
Name the trade. A week on tooling instead of features is a decision somebody had to defend, and it looks like a mistake until it does not.

Questions people ask

How do you recognise someone who improved a process?: Use the before and the after. Process work is judged on what stopped being painful, and a message with two numbers in it does more than a paragraph about efficiency.
Why do process improvements go unrewarded?: Because the good ones remove things. A person who deletes a weekly report has nothing to demonstrate at the end of the quarter, while a person who created one has a report.
Should you recognise work that reduced someone’s own workload?: Yes. Automating your own worst afternoon is not laziness, it is the version of the job where the boring part stops consuming a person every week, and it usually generalises to everyone doing the same task.
What about improvements that took several attempts to land?: Thank the advocacy separately. Persuading a team to stop doing something is usually harder than the change itself, and the person who raised it three times absorbed the friction each time.
How do you recognise someone who spent time on tooling instead of output?: Name the trade and say it was right. That decision looks like under-delivery in the quarter it happens and only becomes obviously correct later, which is exactly when people forget to mention it.