Organizations invest in new software to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and better serve customers. But technology alone doesn’t create better results. If the process stays the same, the new system just makes the same work happen differently.
Before implementation begins, take a step back. These five questions can help determine whether your next software investment will deliver lasting value.
1. Are we improving the process or just replacing the system?
A new system is an opportunity to rethink how work gets done.
Before configuring software, look at the process itself. Where are unnecessary steps? Where do handoffs create delays? What work no longer adds value? Improving the process first allows the technology to support a better way of working instead of reinforcing an inefficient one.
2. Will this system work with the rest of our organization?
Technology shouldn’t operate in isolation. When processes are thoughtfully designed, new and existing systems work together more effectively. Teams spend less time navigating disconnected workflows and more time using technology the way it was intended.
The result is greater value from every software investment, not just the newest one.
3. Have we made success easier for our employees?
Even the best software can’t overcome unclear processes. When responsibilities are well defined and workflows are consistent, employees learn faster, adapt more quickly, and require less retraining.
New team members become productive sooner, while experienced employees spend less time relying on workarounds. Clear processes build confidence, reduce frustration, and help organizations retain valuable knowledge.
4. What capacity could we create?
Consider process improvement beyond time savings. It’s about creating capacity. Innovation Process Design clients recapture an average of 2,800 labor hours annually through process improvement initiatives completed alongside new system implementations.
Organizations that redesign processes alongside system implementations often discover opportunities to eliminate wasted effort, reduce duplicate work, and free employees to focus on higher-value activities.
5. What happens after implementation?
A successful implementation shouldn’t mark the end of improvement.
When employees participate in redesigning processes, they gain the skills and confidence to continue identifying opportunities long after the software goes live. That momentum creates something more valuable than a successful implementation. You’re actively building a culture of continuous improvement that supports every future investment.
The Best Time to Improve Is Before You Implement
Software is an investment in your organization’s future. The greatest return comes when that investment is paired with better processes, engaged employees, and a commitment to continuous improvement.
Technology may change how work gets done. Process improvement ensures it’s done better.
About Lee Kuntz and Innovation Process Design
As founder and president of Innovation Process Design, Lee Kuntz brings over two decades of experience helping leaders of complex service organizations solve challenges through process improvement.
Through expert training and coaching, she helps teams see their work with fresh eyes, transform processes, and deliver meaningful results.
Interested in learning more? Reach out to Lee to discuss your unique situation and goals.
Process conversations can be difficult because the word process often means different things to different people. This disconnect can lead to staff confusion, inconsistent expectations, dissatisfied customers, and poor outcomes—especially during system changes or conversions.
To create clearer, more productive discussions about how work is performed, it is helpful to break process into three distinct levels. Understanding these levels allows teams to align on goals, design effective workflows, and execute work consistently.
🔷 Level 1: Process Framework (The “Why” and “How Well”)
This level defines what the process must achieve and how success is measured. Some elements:
• Speed (e.g., turnaround time)
• Accuracy
• Compliance
• Service level expectations
Think of Level 1 as: “What are we trying to accomplish, and how do we know if we’re successful?”
🔷 Level 2: Process Structure (The “Who” and “When”)
This level defines how the process is organized, including:
• Who performs major steps
• When tasks happen
• What main workflow exists
• What exception paths exist
Think of Level 2 as: “How is the work structured, and how does it flow?”
🔷 Level 3: Process Detail (The “How”)
This is the most granular level. Yet, even when documenting process detail, there are sublevels—from the highest level of detail to the most specificity, including:
• Process step checklists
• Workflow maps
• Detailed process steps with decision trees
• Step-by-step instructions with screen shots
Think of Level 3 as: “Exactly how do we perform each step?”
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🎯 Why This Matters
Without this structure, many teams jump into and get lost in details (Level 3) without agreeing on goals (Level 1). These team have difficulty answering questions like: Why and how?
Using all three levels together improves process discussions, software requirements alignment, and operational performance.
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💡 Simple Level Analogy
Think of building a house:
Level 1 “We want a three-bedroom house built in six months within budget”
Level 2 Blueprint: layout of rooms and construction phases
Level 3 Instructions: tools, materials, measurements
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✅ Key Takeaway
A complete process conversation answers three questions.
1. What are we trying to achieve? (Level 1)
2. How is the work structured? (Level 2)
3. What are the clear and executable steps? (Level 3)
When all three levels are outlined and aligned, processes become measurable, scalable, conversion ready, and effective.
About Lee Kuntz and Innovation Process Design
As Founder and President of Innovation Process Design, Lee Kuntz brings over two decades of experience helping leaders in complex service organizations solve challenges through effective process improvement.
Through expert training and coaching, Lee partners with teams to view their work with fresh perspective, redesign processes, and achieve meaningful, measurable results.
Interested in learning more?
Connect with Lee Kuntz to discuss your organization’s unique challenges and goals.
Is your organization looking to use artificial intelligence (AI), but wondering where to start? Using AI tools to support operations is an easy and productive win.
Creating Vital Operations Procedures, the Quick and Easy Way
Organizations know they need procedures documents, but dedicating time to type up work steps and take screenshots becomes a roadblock for many leaders.
Those procedure documents are important. Then staff are out of the office, it is essential that their backups have reference documents to guide them in completing various processes. Without such resources to do work correctly, client deliverables can be late or incorrect.
Undocumented processes are also costly when implementing a new system. New system installations start with understanding how work is done now. If undocumented, the software vendor will bill for documenting the process for the team, which adds to the cost and slows the project down.
These two undesired results can sting.
Using an AI tool to document work steps is an excellent way to create simple, usable procedures documents quickly. For example, using Zoom’s meeting summary function and its recording capability (both visual and sound) can document a process in about 15 minutes.
Here is an example of summarized work steps using Zoom AI Summarize function.
Most summations need to be edited because AI makes assumptions and records those assumption. Recently an AI summation listed Lee as a he rather than a she. Those types of assumptions need to be corrected in finalizing procedures documents.
Using AI in this manner can save your team hours of labor on each set of procedures. Taking the 15 minutes to more frequently summarize procedures is an excellent resource for back-ups or new employees, reduces your risk of disappointing your customers, and decreases cost and risk when transitioning to new systems.
Here are links to train your team on recording and summarizing procedures with Zoom meetings.
• Getting started with computer and cloud recording
• Using Meeting Summary with AI Companion
Many other tools, such as Windows 11 or Firefly in conjunction with Microsoft Teams, can also be used to summarize or record procedures.
What Leaders Say About Using AI to Document Processes
Right now, forward-looking leaders are using AI to document processes ranging from gift contributions to accounts payable. Recently one organization leader said each departing employee is expected to record all their procedures using AI before walking out the door. This expectation increases the likelihood of providing consistent, high-quality service to the organization’s customers.
When Lee’s firm begins a process and outcome improvement project, she asks clients to record their process steps using the Zoom meeting summary and record features. This initial step takes the organization only about 15 minutes, saving them both time and expense and speeding the completion of the project.
Contact Lee Kuntz at lee@improveprocess.net to ask about recording procedures. Also, contact Lee to share any operations pain points you see or to talk through process and outcomes you seek to improve.
About Lee Kuntz and Innovation Process Design
As founder and president of Innovation Process Design, Lee Kuntz has spent over two decades using process improvement to solve the unique challenges faced by leaders of complex service organizations. Through expert training and coaching, she helps teams look at their work with new eyes, transform how work gets done, and create real results. Contact Lee with questions or to talk about your situation and what you want to achieve.
The volume of work during November and December for nonprofits and community foundations can overwhelm normally adequate processes and capacity. A way to create capacity and to firm up processes during the upcoming onslaught is to conduct a one-hour process walk through of all high-volume processes. This best practice reminds employees of how work needs to be done, identifies sticking points, and engages the team in making backlogs visible and solvable.
An effective process walk through follows specific steps. Contact me, Lee Kuntz to receive our firm’s one-page Process Talk Walk through Best Practices. Also, let’s reconnect next year to talk about what you saw during busy season. As a process coach and trainer, I have seen teams go from drowning to thriving during November and December. Your team can also.
As founder and president of Innovation Process Design, Lee Kuntz has spent over two decades using process improvement to solve the unique challenges faced by leaders of complex service organizations. Through expert training and coaching, she helps teams look at their work with new eyes, transform how work gets done, and create real results. Contact Lee with questions or to talk about what you see and what you want to achieve.
What level of community impact is your team looking to create this year? One source of community impact comes through the effective delivery of service or operations.
Recently, as part of our sector survey, we found that community foundations and nonprofits are transitioning from traditional operations roles to new ways of delivering better, more consistent results and impact to their community. Learn more:
• Refine Operations Roles and Responsibilities to Increase Community Impact
• Our executive summary. Innovation Operations Survey Summary
As founder and president of Innovation Process Design, Lee Kuntz has spent over two decades using process improvement to solve the unique challenges faced by leaders of complex service organizations. Through expert training and coaching, she helps teams look at their work with new eyes, transform how work gets done, and create real results. Contact Lee with questions or to talk about what you see and what you want to achieve.
Many foundations and nonprofits receive the majority of their contributions during November and December. This makes for a busy donation season, which can result in employee stress and delayed responses to donors and grantees. Instead, some teams take one hour to conduct a process walk through, which enables them to thrive during this busy season.
The Best Practice to Create Capability
The volume of work during this time can overwhelm normally adequate processes and capacity. A way to create capacity and to firm up processes during the upcoming onslaught is to conduct a one-hour process walk through of any high-volume processes. This best practice reminds employees of how work needs to be done, identifies sticking points and engages the team in making backlogs visible and solvable.
An effective process walk through follows specific steps. Here is a link to my firm’s IPD Process Talk Walk through Best Practices. Feel free to print this document and use it during your process walk through.
And contact me with any questions or to talk about what you see during busy season. As a process coach and trainer, I have seen teams go from drowning to thriving during November and December. Your team can also.
Throughout the 25 years I have been a process improvement coach and trainer, I have learned that people are the most important factor in achieving effective and efficient organization results. Yes, methodologies, training, and tools are important. But engaging the people doing the work in a way that increases their readiness for improving the way they work is the most important element.
In a recent conversation with one of my clients, I was reminded of the power of engaging and readying staff for process improvement. This leader moved from the CFO role in one foundation to a similar role in another. Both foundations are huge and healthy with big growth ahead of them. This experienced leader had brought my firm in to the first foundation to help him create capacity to take on that big growth. He anticipated the busy season ahead and knew the workload would be unmanageable unless he took action.
During our training, we built both the skills and will to improve how work is done. See how this looks in this video: Energized, Inspired, and Engaged.
My firm also conducted a process deep dive with this leader’s team to recapture capacity in their donor advised fund (DAF) grants operations. See how a deep dive looks in this short video: IPD Process Deep Dive Experience. The team redesigned their process to cut the time to do a DAF grant by 40 percent. That meant delivering grants and confirmations faster to donors and freeing employees up to enjoy the year-end holidays.
Last month I reconnected with this leader to congratulate him on his new CFO role. He mentioned that he brought the language of process improvement with him to his second organization. He said, “We constantly look for and talk about finding unproductive tasks, exactly as I learned to do in your training.”
Because this leader identified the challenges ahead, learned key process transformation concepts, and took action to implement them, he has now been able to lead two teams to improve how work is done. As a result, both he and the two organizations he has worked for have streamlined their operations and increased employee satisfaction. You and your organization can achieve these favorable results too.
Contact Lee Kuntz at lee@improveprocess.net if you see pain points in how your organization’s work is done or if you seek to improve the outcomes your organization delivers to your community.
About Lee Kuntz and Innovation Process Design
As founder and president of Innovation Process Design, Lee Kuntz has spent over two decades using process improvement to solve the unique challenges faced by leaders of complex service organizations. Through expert training and coaching, she helps teams look at their work with new eyes, transform how work gets done, and create real results. Contact Lee with questions or to talk about your situation and what you want to achieve.
Is doing more for your community one of your organization’s goals?
A community action agency (CAP) was working hard to address all the energy assistance requests from their community while tracking with funder regulations. The agency’s energy assistance department was draining funds from the rest of the agency rather than being self-sustaining as it was supposed to be. To compound these challenges, the team was going into energy assistance season down two staff. How was this team going to meet its community’s energy assistance needs with fewer staff, yet still perform well in the government’s regulatory audit?
The director of energy assistance met with IPD’s Lee Kuntz to share the team’s goals and challenges. Lee then recommended IPD’s four-hour Think Differently Concepts™ skill building workshop and a one-day coached deep dive into energy assistance processes and operations to help employees identify, accept, and solve the problems that were hampering their operations.
Lee then provided the training workshop and coached the fourteen-person energy assistance team through the one-day process deep dive. Through this work, the staff began to understand that operations pain points were caused by their poor process, not people. With this new understanding, the staff engaged, using their workshop time to identify the process steps that were essential and effective, and those that were not. This coached team reduced energy assistance application intake from 77 steps to 45 better steps. Then staff members generated numerous ideas on how to improve their energy assistance operations. After IPD handed off the project to the energy assistance director, who led the team in implementing the ideas over the next several weeks. IPD delivered what it promised on budget and on time.
As a result of IPD’s workshop and the team’s hard work, the agency was able to hit its regulator’s turnaround time deadlines with fewer staff, due to recapturing over 2,000 work hours, and at lower cost during the next energy assistance season. The team also received fewer regulatory audit comments. Now, the team continues to improve how it delivers energy assistance services to its community.
Is your organization installing new technology this year? You are not alone. Many organizations are installing new software this year. And that is not about to change.
Given the cost of technology, managing new software installation and maximizing technology is now a core piece of organization work. Here is a story of one organization’s journey to build their skills to make software pay for itself.
Build Process and System Success through a One-time Process Investment.
To learn more about how today’s nonprofit is maximizing software, check out our newly published article: Bust these myths and save 2,800 hours in day-to-day operations.
About Lee Kuntz and Innovation Process Design
As founder and president of Innovation Process Design, Lee Kuntz has spent over two decades using process improvement to solve the unique challenges faced by leaders of complex service organizations. Through expert training and coaching, she helps teams look at their work with new eyes, transform how work gets done, and create real results. Contact Lee with questions or to talk about your situation and what you want to achieve.
Many community foundations and other nonprofits receive the majority of their gifts in November and December. Even though leaders plan for this hectic time, employees often work long hours under significant stress, and despite their best efforts, they provide slow service to their community, which inevitably results in complaints.
Did you experience any of these problems and pitfalls during your organization’s end-of-year rush?
The good news is that your employees do not have to be pushed to exhaustion as they tackle year-end duties. Taking action this year to redesign gift and grants processes will enable your team to seamlessly serve your community without burning out.
Processes are Built for Slow Times
Most organizations’ processes and operations are built for the first ten months of the year when everything moves at a slower pace. From January through October, work gets done on schedule, staff members go home on time, and the community receives the service they expect.
Then November and December hit, when 70% of most organizations’ gifts and grant recommendations come in. Even by restricting vacations in order to create capacity, there just is not enough work time to produce the expected results. Instead, processes and operations break under pressure, causing more delays, errors, and calls from donors seeking updates.
The Solution for 2026
If your team experienced any of these significant challenges at the end of 2022, you need a significant solution. That solution is a coached deep dive into your organization’s operations.
Teams that engage our help by way of a deep dive into their gift or grants operations increase capacity and turnaround time by 30% to 60%—and that is by using resources they already have in place. These teams build their process skills and then decrease and improve the steps of work, recapturing capacity that they can leverage during busy times.
For example, one foundation went from 125 steps to 42 steps in the course of being coached on a redesign of their donor advised fund (DAF) grants process. This dramatic reduction created capacity and built the team’s ability to nimbly help each other get work done. Figure 1 shows the working model of this team’s grants operations before and after their deep dive.
Figure 1
One key to our success in achieving measurable results during our deep dives is using proven process transformation techniques and training. As we build a team’s skills-and-will to change how work is done, staff identify opportunities for improvement, often generating between 20 and 50 ideas. Since the ideas come from employees who are actually carrying out the processes, they are excited to engage in the transformation and then maintain the new processes. Check out how both an in-person and a virtual deep dive look in this brief video: deep dive video.
Are you hoping your organization’s year-end tasks will go better this year than they have in previous years? Do you and your employees want to see more of your families during the holidays? Do you want to avoid errors and slow service that will frustrate the community you serve?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, contact me, Lee Kuntz, to talk through what you see and to discuss a plan to achieve your goal. Learn more about what it takes to do a process deep dive in this blog post: This Year, Plan to Succeed!
Other organizations have transformed their processes to achieve greater success. You can too!
As founder and president of Innovation Process Design, Lee Kuntz has spent over two decades using process improvement to solve the unique challenges faced by leaders of complex service organizations. Through expert training and coaching, she helps teams look at their work with new eyes, transform how work gets done, and create real results. Contact Lee with questions or to talk about your situation and what you want to achieve.
Contact Lee today to discuss your challenge.
