Process improvement works when the underlying process is fundamentally sound. When it is not — when the structure itself is the problem rather than how well the structure is being executed — incremental improvement produces incremental results. The waste is reduced at the margins. The core dysfunction remains.

Process reengineering starts from a different premise. Rather than asking how to make an existing process work better, it asks whether the process should exist in its current form at all. The answer, in more federal agencies than most leadership teams are comfortable acknowledging, is often no.

We support federal agencies in designing and implementing process reengineering efforts that replace outdated, ineffective operational structures with processes built around current mission requirements, current technology, and current workforce capabilities. We draw on experience across private sector, federal, and DOB environments to apply the best practices available — and we do it in ways that hold up in the federal operating environment.

How to Know When You Need Reengineering, Not Improvement

The distinction between improvement and reengineering is not always obvious from inside an organization. Agencies that have spent years trying to improve a struggling process often assume the problem is implementation — that the right tools, the right training, or the right leadership will finally make the process work. Sometimes that is true. Often it is not.

Several signals indicate that reengineering is the right intervention.

The process was designed for a different environment. Processes built before digital systems, before current regulatory requirements, or before the agency’s mission evolved are often structurally misaligned with current operational reality. Improving them produces a more efficient version of the wrong process.

Improvement efforts have produced diminishing returns. When successive rounds of process improvement each yield smaller gains and leave the same fundamental pain points in place, the process has been optimized as far as its structure permits. Further improvement requires structural change.

The process creates problems faster than improvements can resolve them. When workarounds have become the standard operating procedure — when staff routinely bypass official processes because the official process does not work — the process has already been informally reengineered in ways that are undocumented, inconsistent, and unauditable. Formalizing the better approach is overdue.

How We Approach Federal Process Reengineering

Reengineering in a federal context requires a different discipline than commercial process redesign. The constraints are real — statutory requirements cannot be engineered away, civil service workforce dynamics cannot be ignored, and the implementation of a redesigned process must account for the approval cycles, change management requirements, and documentation standards the government environment demands.

We work within those constraints, not around them. Our reengineering approach is structured around five principles.

• Start with outcomes, not activities. The redesigned process is built backward from what the agency needs to accomplish, not forward from what the current process does.
• Involve the people who do the work. The institutional knowledge held by agency staff is one of the most valuable inputs to process redesign. We structure the engagement to capture that knowledge rather than replace it.
• Design for auditability. Every redesigned process is documented, measurable, and defensible to the oversight bodies that will review it.
• Plan the implementation with the same rigor as the design. A well-designed process that is poorly implemented produces the same result as a poorly designed one. We treat implementation planning as part of the reengineering effort, not an afterthought.
• Build in the capacity for ongoing improvement. The redesigned process includes the metrics and management practices that allow the agency to identify and address performance issues before they require another reengineering cycle.

Reengineering and Workforce

Process reengineering changes how work gets done, which means it affects the people doing it. In a federal environment, that reality requires careful change management. We do not design processes in isolation and hand them to agencies to implement. We work with agency leadership and workforce throughout the reengineering effort to ensure that the people affected by the change understand it, have had genuine input into it, and are equipped to operate within it.

That approach is not just ethically sound — it is practically necessary. Process redesigns that workforce does not understand or accept do not get implemented. They get routed around, just like the broken processes they were meant to replace. We design for adoption from the beginning.

Working with ACG

We have supported federal process reengineering efforts across a range of agency types, operational environments, and mission areas. Our team brings the analytical tools, federal operating experience, and change management discipline that reengineering requires — and we deliver designs that agencies can actually implement, not theoretical models that look good on paper.

We scope every reengineering engagement to the agency’s situation. Some efforts address a single high-impact process. Others span multiple interconnected functions that must be redesigned together to achieve the intended result. We assess the scope accurately before we commit to a design approach.

If your agency has a process that improvement efforts have not been able to fix, we are prepared to help you determine whether reengineering is the right next step — and to design and implement it if it is.

Anglin Consulting Group, Inc. provides business solutions to federal agencies, including process reengineering, process improvement, strategic planning, and program management. Learn more at anglincg.com/cap/business-solutions/