28 May
We’ve been seeing a trend with some of our clients lately: they’re standing up their own internal process teams.
One client promoted someone internally to lead process improvement. We helped them hire a business process analyst, and now we work alongside them as the third leg of the stool. Another client launched an internal PMO with two new hires. We take on some projects entirely and partner with them on others.
This isn’t us working ourselves out of a job. It’s actually the model that works best.
Most companies think it’s one or the other.
Either you hire consultants to come in and fix things, or you build an internal team to own it. But the companies getting the best results are doing both.
Here’s why.
An internal team knows your company. They understand the culture, the history, the relationships. They’re there every day and can champion the work from the inside.
But internal teams have limits. They get pulled into other priorities. They don’t always have the bandwidth for big initiatives. Sometimes knowing the politics too well makes it hard to stay objective. And when you’re implementing something for the first time or doing a major re-engineering project, the lift is often too heavy for an internal team alone.
That’s where an external team comes in.
We bring speed when you need to move fast. We bring perspective because we’re not inside the politics. We bring methodologies we’ve tested across hundreds of companies. And we can scale up for big projects without you adding permanent headcount.
The magic is in the combination.
The internal team provides continuity and context. They know the culture, they’re there every day, and they can champion the work from the inside.
The external team brings the heavy lift, the specialized expertise, and the objectivity. They design it, build it, and can run continuous improvement cycles alongside the internal team long after the initial project ends.
Together, you get process improvement that actually scales and actually lasts.
If process improvement keeps falling to the bottom of your priority list, you might not need to choose between hiring internally or bringing in outside help.
You might need both.
How does your organization handle process improvement? Internal team, external partner, or some combination?