Practical Business Improvement

Seven Effective uses of Technology in Business

2011-09-26T11:24:00.001-04:00

This is Part 2 in a series about the role of technology in business improvement. In Part 1 we explored Five Ways to Incorrectly Use Technology.

Organizations can experience significant benefits applying technology in scenarios where:

technology can be a catalyst for innovating around a process.
the majority of the perceived process waste has been removed.
the ability to improve the process without technology has reached its threshold.
technology is better suited for poka-yoke, such as eliminating math errors or guiding complicated work flows.
the risks of injury or danger to employees can be reduced or eliminated. Examples are un-manned military drones replacing pilots in hostile areas or using robots in automotive paint spray booths.
the mechanical burden of maintaining the process using manual methods becomes a hindrance to productivity.
information or collaboration needs to be shared across geographic boundaries.

photo credit: jurvetson / CC BY 2.0

Why Behaviors Don’t Represent a Person’s Nature

2011-08-25T17:14:00.001-04:00

You can’t trust the outwardly presented behaviors of people to accurately represent their real personality or nature. Often behaviors that look “bad” are driven by something outside of the individual’s control. Look at the scenario below as I reveal more information in “The reality”.

The natural assumption

I was walking out of an attractive office building and saw two people about to enter the entrance to the foyer. The guy flicked a cigarette out onto the large outdoor brick and concrete entryway surface. Wow, I can’t believe that guy just did that. A still smoldering cigarette littering the clean decorative sidewalk. What would this tell you about his character?

The reality

When the man and woman first came into my view, the woman was gazing about as if she was looking for something. The man appeared to be looking at the outdoor trashcan with a puzzled look on his face. Just before flicking the cigarette, he shrugged his shoulders out of what looked like frustration. Neither of them noticed me until they were already inside the building.

The office complex was a smoke free campus, but it was not very well marked on the property. There was no cigarette butt receptacle near the entrance. Clearly the man didn’t want to put his butt in the trash can and risk starting a fire. Both of the them were looking for a safe place to dispose of the cigarette - they were conscientious people wanting to do the right thing.

In business, how we treat people and and their ideas are often influenced by our impression of their personalities as perceived through their behaviors. We can be dismissive, judgmental, and exclusive. None of those are conducive to getting the most creative ideas for improvement and support for change.

When you see “bad” behavior at work, instead try assuming there is an underlying issue driving that behavior and let them prove you wrong. If you are a leader, try to find out the root cause and drive it to resolution. Thoughts?

Personality Strengths and the Pinky Swear

2011-08-17T12:41:00.001-04:00

This is a true story about two talented High School gymnasts, Pam and Lisa, and their challenges overcoming pre-event nerves.

Event

The event is the Vault. What differentiates this event from the others, is the gymnast is scored on two vault runs. They have the option of bailing out at the last minute and not performing on a run if it doesn’t feel right. This obviously can have a negative affect on their score, so it is not desirable, unless there is a safety concern.

Background

Both gymnasts have complicated routines that despite repeated practice, they don’t feel 100% confident in their ability to execute them perfectly. That is where Molly “The Motivator” comes in. Molly is a fellow gymnast, but wasn’t competing because of an injury. Pam and Lisa have grown accustom to relying on Molly, above all the others, to motivate them to victory. I say motivate because each of the two gymnasts responds to completely different stimuli.

Pinky Swear

Molly recognizes the strengths of their personalities and what drives them to perform at their best and she emphasizes those strengths when she cheers them on.

Lisa always repeatedly performs better when Molly psyches her up before the event and cheers loudly and enthusiastically for her through the duration of her routine.

Pam is perfectly capable of a near perfect Suke, but her tall height creates an additional challenge for her that impacts her confidence. She routinely walks off after a run before hitting the springboard. However, unlike Lisa, Pam doesn’t respond to positive reinforcement and cheering. During competition, Molly knows she can leverage Pam’s sense of responsibility by having Pam “pinky swear” that she will complete the run and finish her routine. With their pinky swear in play, Pam consistently performs and scores high as a result.

Leadership Lesson

Molly looks at the strengths of each of the gymnasts and individualizes the treatment to what they personally want and need to succeed. It’s for that reason Molly is considered the “go to” person for getting the most out of the team.

It doesn’t matter whether the subject is sports or business, individualizing communication based on the strengths and personality of the individuals generally delivers positive rewards for all of the parties involved.

*The names have been changed to protect the identities of the people in this story.

That Perfect Team

2011-07-08T14:07:00.001-04:00

Many of us have been on that “perfect” team at some point in our lives. You know, the one where everyone’s personalities meshed just right and each person’s strengths were exactly what was needed to get that project done. If you had another chance to work on a project with that team, you know it would be successful.

Starting a team project is similar to integrating multiple different software programs together. Each program is designed for a particular purpose and it does it well. One can rely on an individual program to provide it’s designed value. The thought of integrating it with other programs instantly brings up questions. Is it possible? Will it be reliable? Will integrating them provide the intended result?

The confidence that the integration can be successful begins with a simple test where one small piece of one of the programs can successfully “talk” to another program with a common language. The confidence that the objective will be successful grows as additional parts of the systems are progressively more connected.

People are like those individual programs. Initially there may be apprehension of how well they will work together, but after experiencing sometimes even the smallest group interaction, the team’s confidence can skyrocket and lead to immediate productivity.

Whether it is teamwork or software integration, the result has the potential to be orders of magnitude more valuable when working together rather than individually.

illustration credit: Scooby1980 / CC BY 2.0

A Common Language is Half of the Utility

2011-06-17T13:00:00.001-04:00

I was reminded about the value a common language has on the usefulness of tools through a recent experience with my GPS.

The Story

I loaned my GPS to French exchange students for their trip to New York City.

After they returned, I turned on my GPS to set a destination and all the text and menus were set to the French language setting. I’ve studied Spanish and German, but it was a little challenge to navigate through the French labels on the menus to find the setting to change it back to English.

The Power of Commonality

For the exchange students, the GPS would have still had considerable value to them on their trip even if they left it set to English because of the illustrations and graphical nature of the GPS (and like many Europeans they spoke English). However, when set to their native language, the GPS was far more useful as they didn’t have the distraction and pressure of translating and interpreting the audio prompts while driving in traffic.

A GPS is a powerful tool. But it is just that - a tool. A common language that is readily understandable to the users is a subtle, but often overlooked component of the utility of the tool.

The utility of a common language is a universal principle of business process design, supporting technology, and communication. It is far easier to ensure everyone understands the process and each other if everyone shares the same terminology, vocabulary, and usage. The same holds true with the technologies and tools that are used to support the processes.

Software and other tools are far more effective when the terminology, labels, and workflow incorporate the industry and company specific language and thinking native to the organization.

Transforming Tribal Knowledge to Standard Process

2011-05-17T15:17:00.001-04:00

Organizations lament over the risky dependence on Tribal Knowledge to run their business. Extracting the knowledge from the key individuals is not as simple as asking them to write down everything they know about a process. People holding the Keys to the Kingdom are frequently making heavy use of intuition and hard won experience that can’t be dumped to documentation immediately upon request.

A deliberate structured iterative process is needed to reveal, define, and understand the processes and criteria that people use to solve daily problems, make decisions, and manage in their specific operational areas.

Here is one generalized variation of a method to extract and structure tribal knowledge into a repeatable process complete with decision logic.

Following the 80/20 rule, identify and document the 20% of the process that represents 80% of the normal conditions and decisions of the typical happy path.
Create a visual holding place, if one doesn’t already exist, for the data (actions, issues, and decisions) associated with the process - probably in time sequence. This can be as simple as a spreadsheet.
The objective of the visual system is to have a wider perspective of the norm so that the exceptions and non-standard conditions are more readily exposed for investigation and clarification.
Apply what I call pattern-based process improvement and creative slicing and dicing of the data to begin to fill in the missing pieces that are currently only understood by the people with the “keys to the kingdom”.

This method is best executed with participation between the mentor (process expert) and at least one other person with “outside the process” eyes to distinguish between the intuitive knowledge and explicit knowledge. The additional participants are part of the audit process to verify if the process is being standardized in a form that can be operated by other non-experts.

photo credit: ben.fitzgerald / CC BY 2.0

Design of Experiments for Web Analytics

2011-04-15T13:12:00.001-04:00

After recently participating in a discussion with leading Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts, I realized that there is an under-utilized market for using Six Sigma tools, such as Design of Experiments (DOE) to increase the value of web analytics for increasing sales, conversion rates, and Search Engine Optimization.

OFAT – One Factor at a Time

Most experts in marketing and SEO are familiar with the tactic of using A-B testing to improve traffic, goal conversion, and other website metrics. They may not realize that by using a well designed DOE, they could do multiple A-B tests simultaneously with a minimal amount of confounding while accelerating learning and results.

All Factors at Once

I found little evidence that Six Sigma tools like DOE are commonly being used in the SEO industry. One of the few examples of a case study using Six Sigma Methodology for SEO was to increase the conversion rate of song downloads from a music download website. The author was very open about the process and metrics that were used in the study. They demonstrated the use of the Six Sigma DMAIC (design, measure, analyze, improve, control) approach. From the study it appears they applied all the changes at once and measured the month end results. Applying all the proposed changes at once, while fast, sometimes provides misleading results.

For example (hypothetically), one or more of the changes could have had a negative individual effect of reducing the conversion ratio, while the net affect of all the changes could have still been positive. Reversing or adjusting the changes having a negative impact could have yielded an even higher net improvement, if they were individually quantified, which is not possible when making all the changes at once.

Multi-factorial Design of Experiments

Another option would have been to use a DOE to measure the effects of the individual factors and also interactions between the factors (proposed changes) on the results. Using the referenced study as an example, an experiment could be designed using four factors with two levels each:

Factor	+ High Level (current)	- Low Level (proposed)
Sample length of song	part of song (+)	whole song (-)
Button text	“buy now” (+)	“click here for free downloads” (-)
“downloading fees” text	displayed on website pages (+)	not displayed on website pages (-)
sales funnel process	8 steps (+)	3 steps (-)

Testing all of the 16 possible combinations (full factorial) of the factor levels would yield the most information about the individual effects and their interactions with each other. A full factorial experiment in this case is probably overkill.

Another option would be to run an 8 run fractional factorial experiment which will still provide useful insights to the individual main effects and some information on two factor interactions.

An example recipe for running the experiment follows. Each run is made one at a time, measuring the analytics results for a period of time of time under the conditions described by the run. For example, run 4 would have the following factor levels set:

sample length of song = part of the song (represented by the + sign)
button text = “buy now” (represented by the + sign)
“downloading fees” text = not displayed on the web pages (represented by the – sign)
sales funnel process = 3 steps (represented by the – sign)

Run #	Sample length of song	Button text	“downloading fees” text	sales funnel process
1	-	-	-	-
2	+	-	-	+
3	-	+	-	₊
4	+	+	-	-
5	-	-	+	+
6	+	-	+	-
7	-	+	+	-
8	+	+	+	+

After completing the eight run experiment and collecting the analytic data (as recorded by analytics software, such as Google Analytics), the data would typically be analyzed with the help of JMP or MiniTab software.

The analysis should reveal the optimal combination of the factors studied to maximize the goal conversion rate. Additionally it should provide insight about which of the factors has the highest contribution to the improvement, information that can be used to hone in on additional related ideas to consider for future improvements.

In a market segment like Search Engine Optimization and website goal conversion, it is likely that the information learned from one experiment can be transferrable to other areas immediately.

Summary

Running Design of Experiments like the multifactorial one described above can provide valuable quantitative information about improvements that one can’t get otherwise, but it is not without a cost. DOE’s take time to set up, run, and analyze. They also require the use of experienced Six Sigma practitioners to effectively analyze and interpret the results.

In order to maximize the return on investment from this process, it is better suited for complex challenges where an organization might spend months making dozens to hundreds of individual changes to try to improve their results while not fully understanding the potential effect of the changes at the outset. The additional understanding gained about the contribution of individual changes and interactions can efficiently pinpoint the areas that have the most opportunity to yield the highest improvement.

photo credit: Alex E. Proimos / CC BY 2.0

Technorati Tags: SEO,Analytics,Six Sigma,Business Intelligence,Search Engine Optimization,DOE,Design of Experiments

Operational Excellence doesn’t have to be an Either-Or Decision

2011-03-16T16:02:00.001-04:00

Six Sigma vs. Lean; Shingo Prize vs. Malcolm Baldrige

Lean, Six Sigma, and other methodologies and programs are great, but none of them solve all the problems all organizations experience. As an example, Lean doesn’t solve difficult scientific problems with complex interactions. I am a Lean practitioner and certified Six Sigma Black Belt and have used both of them to solve difficult problems, but I don’t wedge my experience with either into every situation or issue I encounter.

Possibly organizations could be better served by the technical community if instead of focusing on a single cookie cutter strategy for improvement for the entire enterprise, they used the one(s) or a blend that best matched their needs, current conditions, and vision for the future. All environments, cultures, and challenges are unique, why should we expect a “one size fits all” program to be the silver bullet?

What is the Cloud?

2011-02-11T10:29:00.001-05:00

I caught a few minutes of a radio show where “the Cloud” was being discussed by tech-savvy guest “promoters” that had a marketing perspective on the cloud. Marketing often equates the cloud to the internet or Google Apps like Gmail and Google Docs and now thanks to recent Microsoft commercials, Outlook and Office.

But is that really what the cloud is all about? That is only a small part of it. The cloud has three primary marketplace stakeholders:

consumer (you and me)
service provider (apps)
cloud provider (infrastructure)

In the case of Google Apps, Google is really a service provider that uses its own cloud to host the applications. Microsoft is a little different. Microsoft is both a cloud provider (Windows Azure) and a service provider with Office and Skydrive in the cloud. It is not uncommon that promoters don’t realize there is a difference and, as a result, blur the distinction and understate the value of the cloud.

Software as a Service

The cloud provides a platform for many vendors to provide their software as a web-based service, instead of the more traditional shrink wrap software that you install on your home or work PC using a CD or DVD. That is an attribute that is shared by both the cloud and the internet.

The following are characteristics that the cloud provides, but the internet may or may not represent.

Dynamically scalable on demand

One of the best examples for its ability to scale up to handle large bursts of traffic is how a company that advertises during the Super Bowl that normally handles 10,000 page visits per day might need to handle a quarter of a million visitors in a just a few minutes.

Multi-located for performance

An application and/or its data may be located in multiple locations across the globe so that when a person uses the system, it detects where they are geographically located and serves up a version from a data center that is physically closer to the user. The shorter the distance the data travels, the faster it gets there.

An additional benefit of multi-location is that other regions will still have access to their programs and data in the event there is a natural disaster like a tsunami (or a government – Egypt blocks all internet and cell traffic) that wipes out internet connection for an entire country.

Replicated for redundancy

Many cloud platforms automatically create multiple copies of a program and its data so that if a piece of hardware fails, or a physical data trunk is cut, the “replica” can immediately take over and serve its users without interruption.

Priced by usage (to the service provider)

By pricing by usage, it provides a near constant pricing scale that grows (or shrinks) as demand changes vs. the traditionally high initial capital cost for servers in addition to maintenance and support costs.

Computing cycles
memory
storage
bandwidth

The pricing model to the consumer varies depending on the financial model of the service provider. Some software like Google Apps are free to the home consumer because it is funded by advertisements, but it might be priced on a per person basis for organizations.

Infrastructure Purchase Flexibility

Cloud providers provide the flexibility to purchase the specific services needed:

Virtual Machines (VM)
Storage
Database
Service broker
Applications

Virtualized

Typically when a service provider purchases cloud services, they are not buying a physical piece of hardware. They are buying (leasing) an address that points to a cloud provider managed virtual server(s). The fact that it is virtualized means the services can be moved around from server to server and location to location by the cloud provider as necessary to improve availability, performance, and maintainability.

Proprietary Operating Systems

Most computers and hosted servers on the intranet are running standard available operating systems. Because of the nature of how the cloud providers allow their service providers to configure their services and to scale on demand, they often don’t run directly on a native Operating System. They often have an intermediary operating system or control layer that has multiple virtual Operating Systems installed or running on top of. Microsoft’s Azure cloud service has what it calls the AppFabric.

Unicorns and Rainbows

The Cloud has many benefits to both the consumer and the enterprise, but it’s not without its disadvantages. Until private or hybrid clouds allow clouds to be hosted on your premises maintained by your IT staff, you will have to rely on a third party (or multiple third parties) to protect and maintain your priceless data.

Parking meter photo courtesy lancefisher / CC BY-SA 2.0

Mocking Change

2011-01-20T09:41:00.001-05:00

In software development mocking is a deliberate effort to simulate other system elements, such as a database, with a representation of the element in order to test a portion of the software without interacting with the actual database. Mocking is a tactic to make sure that software works as expected throughout the development process and when changes are introduced.

When facing the implementation of a big change in a business process or initiative, why not mock the elements of the change that might be complex or difficult in order to solicit as much feedback as necessary about what might go wrong or isn’t getting adequate consideration to ensure a positive experience for all the participants and stakeholders?

photo credit: Teddybear Junction / CC BY 2.0

What is your Ultimate Professional Subscription?

2010-12-20T12:33:00.001-05:00

If they offered a 12 month subscription to any or all the tools to equip you to be the best in your profession, what would it include?

Technology

I recently won a contest where the prize was a one year Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscription. For a person that develops solutions using Microsoft technologies, there is no better prize. It is the Swiss Army knife of Microsoft Development.

Here’s how I described the prize to my sister in terms she would relate to:

Construction

My brother-in-law is a general contractor who does a lot of custom construction. He is constantly buying some new piece of equipment that he doesn’t have, but “needs” for this special job. If he had a Construction Equipment Ultimate Subscription, it would mean every time he needed a special tool like a spindle lathe, a vinyl siding cutter, or even a Bobcat, he would just take his subscription card to the local construction equipment store and redeem it for whatever non-perishable supply, machine, or equipment he needed that year.

The concept is really pretty Lean; get what you need, when you need it, in the form you want it.

Leave a comment to let me know what your Ultimate subscription would be.

photo credit: Jesse Sneed / CC BY-ND 2.0

Five Ways to Incorrectly Use Technology

2010-10-19T12:58:00.001-04:00

How you adopt technology in your personal life is a personal choice. How technology is used in an organization affects many others, requiring careful consideration to provide its benefits without negative repercussions.

The top five ways organizations incorrectly use technology:

Implement a technology for technology’s sake.
Pick a technology because it is cool, trendy, or new.
Use it to fix a broken process.
Introduce it without adequate trials or testing.
Pick the version with the most bells and whistles.

I’m a big proponent for the use of technology when it is used in a way that truly supports the organization from every perspective. Nobody Likes Bad Change™ in technology, work, or life. Let’s do our part to introduce only good change:

use the right technology
for a specific process
considering the available resources
at the appropriate time
to achieve the desired outcome

Photo credit: Qole Tech / CC BY 2.0

Closed Data Systems Limit Learning and Improvement Opportunities

2010-10-01T16:56:00.001-04:00

Try taking data from a process you are working to improve out of the system you normally use and look at it in other ways. If it is in a proprietary spreadsheet or reporting system that has fixed standard reports and charts, take the raw data out and put it in a clean spreadsheet or database and look at the data from other perspectives.

Slice and Dice the data:

Filter
Sort
Aggregate
Graph
SPC chart
Pivot

Using fixed systems, while good for standardized daily analysis routines, can close our minds to opportunities, exceptions, patterns and trends that can lead to quick improvements and unexpected systemic breakthroughs.

photo credit: brian.chu / CC BY-ND 2.0

Three Tactics to Keep Project Activities Moving

2010-09-21T14:45:00.001-04:00

Regardless of the Project Management system, activities sometimes sit in the queue or in-process for extended periods of time. A few keys to keeping tasks moving to accelerate accomplishment are:

Break up larger activities into smaller subtasks. For example: break “resolve content management system issue” into “investigate CMS issue”, “identify possible fix”, “apply fix”, “verify the problem is resolved”.
Make the system more visible. The advantage of whiteboard systems is they are in line of sight more than electronic systems that are multiple clicks away. What gets watched often gets improved. The down side of physical systems, is they may not be portable and visible from other locations or by other people at a distance.
Collaborate with or solicit help from other people with more expertise or knowledge about the subject matter. Often technical people feel they are responsible for resolving issues themselves. Don’t be an Answer-Man Super Hero.

Lean Project Management is a comprehensive methodology based on Lean principles to minimize Work in Process (WIP) while maximizing valuable project completion.

There are a variety of tools that can help facilitate a Lean Project Management process. You can use spreadsheets, databases, Personal Kanban white boards, or any of the commercial or open source software based systems. Recently I have been experimenting with flow.io because of its simplicity. Cautionary note: Lean Project Management is about much more than a tool or software product.

No Lean system or process is perfect right out of the box. It is important to start simple and jump in and start learning your way to a system that meets your needs and the needs of your stakeholders.

Using Lighting Systems to Guide Standard Work

2010-09-03T15:50:00.001-04:00

Several years ago I was working with a supplier to help them reduce the rate of defects to their customer. One of the specific defects was the parts packed on the pallet out of sequence. Their customer assembles products on a line where each product on the line is a different part number. The supplier’s objective was to pack the subassemblies on pallets in a sequence synchronized with the order their customer was building their product.

To make matters worse, each of the supplier’s customers worked in a different sequenced order when taking the components out of the pallets. Some customers took the subassemblies off the pallet in a counter-clockwise direction, others clockwise, or in a z-pattern. This made it too easy for the supplier line workers to accidentally pack the parts out of sequence. One misplaced part could cause a lot of expensive downtime to investigate and resolve.

I proposed a process at the supplier’s packing station that projected light into the correct position in the pallet to place the next subassembly (based each customer’s specifications) in the correct sequence order. It was a system similar to the one in the video - but they weren’t making mixed drinks.

Motivating Metrics

2010-07-26T10:07:00.001-04:00

If your employees are are not motivated to stay committed to contributing to the long term execution of a strategy that promises to have significant long term benefits, maybe they are looking at the wrong metrics.

Often the charts and dashboards that are displayed or presented publically are the ones the executive wants to see, however sometimes those are final output measures or lagging indicators. Lagging indicators often don’t work well as a motivating force. We are a society that favors instant gratification so motivation to continue on a given path is more likely to be positive when looking at leading indicators. Leading indicators are measures that are generally (and hopefully statistically) a short term predictor of the end result.

photo attribution http://www.flickr.com/photos/emi_photoart/3434442477/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Guest Post: What to Do when there is More than One Boss to Please

2010-07-09T13:12:00.001-04:00

Connecting People to Projects through Social Authority

Dean’s note: This guest post is written by Craig Henderson, President of Systemental and a Thought Leader that blogs about Hoshin Kanri/Policy Deployment

You just took the handoff from the boss to start a new project. You know you’ll need cooperation from a key stakeholder outside your function area who has already expressed a key concern. How can you approach your conversation with the stakeholder to ensure you get the cooperation you need?

Leverage the boss’s connection to the stakeholder in the right way:
- If their relationship is good, start by saying so
- If the relationship is neutral or rocky, start by saying you want to make this work for the stakeholder (note: you should sincerely want to do this)
Get straight to the “heart of the matter,” don’t beat around the bush
Discover the stakeholder’s point of view by asking questions and listening closely
Tailor the description of how you can solve the problem to stakeholder’s preference
Explain a high value, low risk, and low hassle first step to get off to a good start
Assure the stake holder that it won’t be difficult, expensive, or time consuming to deliver the project so it meets the stakeholder’s needs

If you are naturally good at this kind of thing, then the above can serve as a guideline to keep your thoughts straight. On the other hand, if you feel uncomfortable, seek the advice of someone who will be friendly to you and also knows the stakeholder in question well. They should be able to help you think of objections the stakeholder may raise so you can think and plan ahead of time.

Lastly, make sure you keep your boss informed of what you are doing, whether it’s going well or not. Bosses like to know you are diligently working on their behalf and they don’t like surprises.

For a technique used to manage this same situation with an entire group, see Nemawashi

“Executizing” Academic Sounding Terms – Gaining Social Authority is a short story demonstrating how the language you use impacts your ability to gain social authority.

Photo attribution http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwl/4493219149/in/set-72157623544311963 / CC BY 2.0

Open and Honest Feedback after a Scolding

2010-07-09T09:11:00.001-04:00

A friend, Jaime*, recently sold his successful business to a similar, but larger corporation, ACME*. During the transition, he is helping them transfer and integrate the assets and processes into their existing business and support the retention of Jaime’s previous customers.

During a periodic review with ACME’s management, Jaime noted several practices that their employees were using that he offered to help them improve. A manager at ACME proceeded to scold the employees about their lack of process adherence and mistakes (mischaracterizing the suggestion). Jaime was disappointed about the way ACME handled the interaction. Jaime and I were reflecting on his frustration about the damage that behavior does to employee motivation, cooperation, and morale. After that incident, Jaime will get very little open and honest feedback from the front line workers about their challenges and opportunities when he visits.

Jaime isn’t continuing to help for his financial benefit; he wants the same thing the employees want. His interest is to see them take a previously successful business that was built over years of hard work and incorporate it smoothly and painlessly into their operation.

*Names have been changed to protect their identities.

photo attribution http://www.flickr.com/photos/tambako/4221228933/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Resistance to Change – Inevitable or Preventable?

2010-06-21T16:29:00.001-04:00

I hear and read about resistance to change frequently. Most of the time it is referred to in a negative light or as an inherent human weakness. Wouldn't it be more productive if we focused on the “Change” itself rather than the “Resistance”?

We have all been on the receiving end of change that didn’t work out well for us, so it is natural to be apprehensive. If we think back to one of those “bad” changes, can we think of ways the change could have been approached that would have made it a better experience for the both the leaders and the participants?

Resistance to change can often be prevented – and I don’t mean through the use of force, quite the opposite. Just a few ways to improve the adoption of change is through the application of:

betas
simplified learning tools
prototypes
pilot trials
demonstration
user experience observation and testing
involvement

The general expectation is that change should be “good”. A common experience is that it isn’t. If change wasn’t actually “good”, we wouldn’t constantly be trying to introduce it. We should probably put more effort into making sure everyone that is impacted by the change understands the benefits and agrees that it actually is “good”. If they did, we probably wouldn’t be experiencing so much resistance.

Other posts about keys to successful change implementation

Right-sizing the Vacuum – a Lean Machine

2010-05-11T12:44:00.001-04:00

Floors and carpets don’t wait to get dirty until the day you vacuum. They accumulate dirt, lint, and other debris every day at a reasonably constant rate. If you ran the vacuum daily the vacuum wouldn’t need to be as powerful or have a reservoir that holds a gallon of gunk.

But who has the time to vacuum every day? If the sweeping was automated by using a device like the Roomba, daily cleaning can become a reality.

Examples of Lean can be found in the most unusual places, like cleaning machines and processes.

5S Concepts

keep the most frequently used tools closest to the work
keep the area clean and free of slip and trip hazards – frequent sweeping and keeping wires and trip hazards off the floor
everything has a place – the charging station is like a shadow board

Lean Concepts

Quick changeover – traditional vacuums tend to be heavy and take up space so they are often put away in a closet or laundry room and require dragging out and winding/unwinding of long cords; smaller size can get in tight spaces without using optional attachments or moving furniture
right-sizing: enclosure, motor, debris reservoir, power source (battery) sized for the more frequent, but lighter workload
poka yoke – sensors to protect from injuring pets and children, tumbling off the stairs; virtual walls to restrict the cleaning area; works in the dark; dirt sensing; auto-charging of the battery
standardized work – Roomba follows a navigational algorithm; standard method to determine the necessity of special spot cleaning mode; some models have automatic schedulers
no defects passed to upstream processes – special spot cleaning mode enabled immediately when excessive dirt is detected

If the floors are vacuumed/swept daily, there is no worry about dust bunnies when a friend or neighbor stops by unannounced.

As the path highlighted in the above image shows, the Roomba might not be as efficient in the travelling path as a human operator, but the important thing is that all the surfaces are effortlessly covered at an acceptable quality within the Takt time.

Automated vacuum robots are not for everyone or everywhere, but they present a compelling argument for consideration. If nothing else, it might give you an excuse to justify buying that nifty robot you’ve had your eyes on.

Automated robots are gaining in popularity for other tasks as well:

mopping
garage sweeping
gutter cleaning
lawn mowing

Additional Benefit

They can keep the family pet company while you’re away.

Where do you see other interesting or unconventional examples of Lean concepts being applied? Comments welcome.

Disclaimer: I don’t own any iRobot products or receive any financial or other benefits from them.

Photo attribution

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13963375@N00 / CC BY-SA 2.0

Personal Kanban – More Done, Less Stress

2010-04-16T10:27:00.001-04:00

Life used to be simple:

Get up
Go to school/work
Relax
Go to bed

It didn’t require much planning for effective time management. As a result of the increasing hustle and bustle of our society or just the result of getting older (which I’m not ready to admit yet), increasing responsibilities and extra-curricular activities place demands on our time.

little league
professional associations
school functions
home maintenance
[insert your challenges here]

That is where a personal Kanban can help us work smarter and reduce our stress level by knowing we have a handle on our activities.

Anyone can do it

You can use a simple whiteboard (or even a sliding glass door) to help manage your time and activities visually and efficiently with a simple system of sticky notes in columns labeled similar to the following:

to do
in process
done
I find “awaiting decision” or some variation helpful also

How To

Jim Benson has a great Personal Kanban presentation that introduces, in detail, how you can improve your personal productivity using a personal kanban.

Home and Office

The process works equally well at the office for work activities/projects and at home. I use 24” X 36” whiteboards (Sam’s Club - $15) which has enough space for two types of projects being managed with separate spaces for each - and a little area left over for impromptu notes and sketches.

Addicting

If you are like me, once you try it out and realize the power of them, you start using them for everything... and try to convince everyone around you to use them also.

Technorati Tags: Personal Kanban,Personal Productivity,Lean,Visual Management,Lean Project Management

Teaching through Demonstration on Kitchen Nightmares

2010-03-29T09:34:00.001-04:00

A frequent tactic for improving restaurant quality on the TV show Kitchen Nightmares is to reduce the number of items on the menu. On the Anna Vincenzo’s episode the restaurant had an overwhelming 180 items. It might seem obvious that if you simply explained that to the owner the the point would be made, but often that isn’t the case. Gordon Ramsey went to the effort of having the kitchen staff prepare just one order of each item on the menu before the owner arrived for the day. When she showed up, every table and flat surface in the restaurant was completely covered with different entrees on it. There were dishes with food from wall to wall. It became immediately apparent to her that they had too many choices on the menu to be able to do an exceptional job for every customer order. No explanation necessary.

Keys to the Kingdom? No Thank You

2010-03-19T13:40:00.001-04:00

Who really wants the keys to the kingdom? Management often thinks the person that has them does so for the wrong reasons. That they want to hold the company hostage for selfish reasons. There are exceptions, but I generally believe they are victims of circumstance.

Why do they have the Keys in the first place?

It is not as common in processes that are widely understood. Typically it occurs in areas where one or more of the following are present:

complicated processes
process outputs have implications or dependencies in other areas or processes
process is not well defined
exception handling responses are non-existent or not well understood
long duration between repeat occurrences of an issue
many different issues - few obvious similarities
minimal direct control over inputs
lack appropriate preventative signals or controls

Sink or Swim Syndrome

One common reason a single person has all the information and control over a critical process is they were tasked with solving a complicated problem or cluster of problems in the area which required extensive research, experimentation, trials, and hard won learning.

Process Grandfathering

Some complicated processes are passed down from one person to the next via long term on-the-job training and mentoring that is time consuming and impractical to include multiple individuals.

If they are the experts, why don’t they fix the process?

The process roles people play can be generally characterized by the following:

problem solvers
designers
operators
protectors

All the roles are important to successful, repeatable processes, but might not be applied in the appropriate proportions. People often have the skills and play multiple roles, but depending on specifically which roles are in highest concentration, processes can lack the necessary detail and structure to prevent someone from having the Keys to the Kingdom.

High profile processes are frequently high profile because when a problem surfaces it has serious negative consequences that require quick resolution. The problem solvers are thrown at the problem to protect the organization. Problem solvers are valuable to the organization for their ability to root out causes and put interim corrective actions or workarounds in place. But, if the problem solvers are not also process designers, they may not have the skills or the time to put the necessary long term corrective actions, preventative process controls, and documentation in place.

How does your organization prevent Keys to the Kingdom? Thoughts?

Photo attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/memestate/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Ten Reasons to Join a Professional Organization

2010-02-26T14:23:00.001-05:00

Definition from Wikipedia:

A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional society) is a non-profit organization seeking to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals engaged in that profession, and the public interest.

Reasons to join one:

Meet great like-minded people!
Opportunity to showcase your experience through peer to peer discussions or public speaking.
Bullet item on your resume
See what opportunities and challenges are in the industry[ies]
Access to experts in the field – speakers, other members, sponsors
SWAG – discounts or free books, magazines, access to webinars, e-learning, certification exam vouchers
References other than your sister’s husband
Free or almost free training - most of the organizations have meetings focused on educational content
Meet your competition
Exclusive or early notification of job opportunities

As the President of a professional organization, fwPASS, I often hear about job opportunities directly from industry leaders and recruiters looking for their next technical Rock-star or leader. Note: this is not an invitation for head-hunters to spam me. They know that most of the people that regularly attend or participate in our meetings are passionate about their craft and are interested in staying at the front of the pack. In this economy, most organizations can afford to hold out for the best. Position yourself to be one of them!

Organizations that I am involved in or have had associations with:

Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME)
American Society for Quality (ASQ)
Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE)
Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS)
INETA
Association for Operations Management (APICS)
Project Management Institute (PMI)
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

A more complete list of Professional Associations

Find a local chapter and get involved. If you don’t have any chapters in your area, there is a growing trend toward virtual chapters that utilize technologies like Microsoft Live Meeting and GoToMeeting.

Successfully Working in a Role Outside of your Expertise

2010-02-25T12:52:00.001-05:00

In the current economic conditions (actually for the last couple of decades), organizations are trying to get more done with less resources. A common strategy is to assign additional responsibilities to their current workforce, often in a role that is unfamiliar to them. Some examples:

Engineers acting as Project Managers
Accountants with IT responsibilities
Students on their first job
[insert your occupation and extra roles here]

I once worked with a company with the mission statement of

What’s Required, What’s Expected, “And then some”

I think that is a practical sequential approach to developing an increasing understanding and proficiency in a new role. That approach has served me well in my transition through too many roles to list - while keeping stress at a manageable level. Most of the time you won’t be expected to be the Rockstar of the new role immediately, but you will likely be expected to show ongoing improvement on the road to mastery. You can effectively apply the following simple process to most objectives, roles, or projects*.

Gain some basic understanding of the subject matter or responsibilities through research, asking questions, observing others, benchmarking, or other methods.
Look for or create an opportunity you are comfortable with to incorporate some of what you learned into the daily work or activity.
Review what worked and didn’t and plan action steps to increase the understanding or improve on the process.
Wash, rinse, repeat indefinitely.

I liberally and deliberately used the word “some” in the steps above. You will maximize your learning and execution if you don’t bite off more than you can chew. Each application of a process-based approach to improvement will increase your effectiveness and confidence in making your next transition.

* Disclaimer: This approach may not be feasible for certain conditions where human safety could be at risk (directly or indirectly).