From IPAPI

Break points are "hand offs" and the internal interactions of people, systems and machines in a process.

IPAPI Definition

Break Points are any transfer of product, work, information or data between two process actors other than the Customer.

Break Points exist everyplace a hand-off occurs in the flow of products, paper, and information. Break points are the root cause of organizational “white space.”

Overview

Break Points in and of themselves: 1) create no value 2) consume resources 3) distract us from doing planned work

While most processes will have Break Points, minimizing them is a key imperative of process optimization. The fewer the Break Points the better, as the impact they have on process efficiency is quite significant.

Any point within a process where something (work, information, data, control, responsibility) is handed off is a Break Point. It doesn’t matter if it’s between people, systems, machines or any combination thereof. A hand-off is a hand-off, and every hand-off creates dependencies in the process where things can go wrong.

When analyzing process, we identify Break Points to give us a perspective on the dependencies in the process and the amount of unintentional work the process is likely to cause.

Just as with Moments of Truth, once we can see the Break Points in the process we can challenge them – and challenge them we do. When Break Points are brought out where everyone can see them many Break Points will not be able to stand up to our scrutiny because they are simply unnecessary. They are non value-added work and the cause of unintentional work. While Break Points exist in most processes, removing unnecessary Break Points will dramatically improve the efficiency and value of the process.

Break Points are the sources of duplication, misunderstanding, mishandled responsibility, loss of visibility... the places where stuff goes wrong more often than any place else. Handoffs fail, work is incomplete, and stuff gets duplicated in a cycle that produces a perpetual drain on the organization’s resources.

Break Points are all around you.

To identify with the concept of Break Points (BP) all you have to do is think about the work you do on a daily basis. How much of that work is caused by Break Points?