Why operational procedures outlive their reasons and become a source of waste that is hard to remove

Procedures are put in place in companies in response to a real need, and every step is added to address a problem that exists at the time. One department may ask another for a monthly report for a specific purpose; the purpose then disappears, yet the report continues to be requested and prepared out of habit. Or a company may adopt a system that stores its operational data, while its team continues to record the same data on paper as it did before the system, so the same work is done twice.

Because each of these procedures had a sound justification when it was added, no one regards it as waste, even though it no longer serves the purpose it was created for.

Managers feel that adding a procedure is safer than removing one. Whoever adds an extra verification step or approval appears diligent, and if an error occurs later, they have done their part. Whoever removes a procedure, however, receives no credit if the work runs as it should, or even better than before, and is held responsible if anything goes wrong afterwards, even when the removed procedure had no direct bearing on it.

In this way, the logic of accountability inside the company pushes everyone in the same direction: procedures are added and applied quickly and easily, while removing them becomes highly complicated.

Every procedure a company adds to its operations is added at someone’s request and for a specific purpose. Yet that person is usually not tasked with reviewing and assessing it, and the task is not assigned to anyone else once the procedure is adopted. No review date is set, and neither its reason for existing nor its value is documented, so it continues automatically even after its reason is gone, and those performing it today may not know why it was created or why they must do it.

The procedure thus remains an inseparable part of operations, even after it has become an obstacle to them.

When procedures put in place to protect the work become an obstacle to it, employees look for ways around them: completing the work informally and documenting it afterwards, copying the previous years’ reports with superficial changes, or filling mandatory system fields with placeholder data just to complete the transaction.

The work is then done twice: once as it actually happens, and again to match what the procedure requires. Employees’ time is spent producing outputs that benefit no one, and placeholder data accumulates in systems, requiring additional effort to correct later.

In this way, a procedure put in place to protect the work becomes a source of compounded waste, and the company bears the cost of the procedure and the cost of working around it, without achieving the purpose it was created for.

Addressing this waste begins with three questions asked of every procedure:

1. What problem was this procedure created to address?
2. Does that reason still exist?
3. What would happen if the procedure were removed, and what would be put at risk in its absence?

If the reason is gone and removing the procedure carries no risk, removing it is the right decision. If the reason remains but the procedure no longer serves it efficiently, it should be redesigned. And if the reason remains and the procedure still serves it efficiently, someone should be made responsible for reviewing it periodically.

Performance optimization does not always begin with adding new procedures; it often begins with removing those that are no longer needed.