If you are on a project redesign team and are asked to analyze a process, you will usually begin by figuring out the basic activities or steps that make up the process. Assuming the process has been performed for some time, you can assume that goals, plans, schedules, and a budget are in place. As you talk with employees and managers concerned with the operational aspects of the process, you should remain alert for complaints that suggest that employees do not understand the goals of the process or that well-understood plans or schedules are missing. Similarly, you should listen to see that needed resources are provided. If an activity fails to function correctly because it is understaffed or because needed resources are unavailable, you will want to note that, and it will suggest that you will want to talk with the process manager about why he or she thinks those problems have occurred. In an ideal world, when a new manager takes over the responsibility for a process, he or she ought to review all the assumptions and ensure that plans, budgets, and schedules are adequate for the objectives of the process. If they are not, they should be altered. Unfortunately, too often, a new manager will simply use the scheduling and budget assumptions of a predecessor, and this will lead to misalignments as time passes and procedures change.