Part one. The Definitions
And then what
Follow any process one step past where your responsibility ends. Keep asking until you reach the customer.
Read the transcript
Take any process you own and describe what happens at the point you consider it finished. Then ask, and then what. Then ask again. Keep going until you reach a customer or the money. Most operators can answer twice and stall on the third, and the stall is exactly where the instrument is aimed. What it surfaces is rarely a missing step. It is a step that exists, is performed, and is performed on an assumption nobody checked. The classic version: work is finished, filed in the agreed place, and collected on a weekly cycle. Nothing is dropped. The work simply sits for three days for no reason anyone chose, and no report contains that number. Do it out loud, with the person who receives the work in the room.
Take any process you own and describe what happens at the point you consider it finished. Then ask, and then what. Then ask again. Keep going until you reach a customer or the money.
Most operators can answer twice and stall on the third. That is not ignorance, it is the boundary of their remit, and the boundary is exactly where the instrument is aimed.
What the exercise surfaces is not usually a missing step. It is a step that exists, is performed, and is performed on an assumption nobody checked. The classic version: a team finishes a piece of work, files it in the agreed place, and the next team collects it on a weekly cycle. Nothing is dropped. The work simply sits for an average of three days for no reason anyone chose, and no report anywhere contains that number.
Do this with the person who receives the work in the room, and do it out loud. The thing you are listening for is the moment one of you says "I assumed you", because that sentence is the seam, said aloud.
Two things worth doing, neither of which costs anything
Read the standard in full, free and in the open, before you pay anything or give anyone an address.