Category Archives: Working on the Right Things

Continuous Improvement, Defining Problems, Working on the Right Things

How to gather input

gathering data

To optimize the effectiveness of our Improvement efforts, it’s important that we begin with a thorough understanding of both the situations we’re trying to improve as well as our own thinking and decision-making processes.

But these tasks are not always easy.

The quality of the output of any process is determined by two things:

  • The quality of the input to the process
  • The quality and reliability of the process of converting the input to the desired output.

Shortcomings in either of these will result in poor quality output. In this regard, the Continuous Improvement process is like any other process: the desired output, i.e., meaningful and lasting improvements, is produced when high quality information about the current reality is studied and analyzed by a systematic thinking process unencumbered by preconceptions, untested assumptions, and biases.

The Foundational Step
Gathering the right input about the current situation is the foundational step. If we overlook important information at this step, we are unlikely to achieve a meaningful and lasting solution.

We suggest the following four major types of input to produce high quality Continuous Improvement:

  1. Quantitative data about the current situation: How frequently does the process deliver high quality? When it fails to deliver high quality, where and how does it fail, what types of failures occur, what are the impacts of those types of failures, what factors seem highly correlated with the failures? Quantitative data about the process provides important information about how and where the process succeeds and fails.
  2. Observations and insights from people closest to the work: This includes the people actually doing the work and the customers and the suppliers of the work. Members of all these groups can bring unique and important perspectives about how the system is working and some ideas about how it might work better. Recipients of the output of the process (internal or external customers) can also provide a great deal of insight: what are their pain points and what do they value? Taken together, observations from people close to the work provide valuable input to the improvement process.
  3. Documentation of process flow charts or value stream maps: Gather a team of knowledgeable participants to compile a step-by-step understanding of how the process works, where the bottlenecks and opportunities for error take place, where the work sits waiting, where and how the work is inspected and reworked.
  4. Direct observation with new eyes: An outsider watching the process will often notice an aspect of the work or work environment that is so familiar to the people closest to the work, they no longer see or notice it. This information will not surface in interviews with people close to the work nor in process mapping. The only way to surface a full understanding of the factors influencing quality and productivity is to spend time directly observing the work.
Continuous Improvement, Working on the Right Things

It’s All About the Work: 10 Questions

Continuous Improvement is all about the Work

One of Bill Conway’s favorite sayings has always been, “The most important business decision people make every day, is deciding what to work on.”

In fact, we’ve found that half of Continuous Improvement involves working on the right things!

Once people know what to work on, there are ten critical questions to consider, the answers to which will lead the way toward building a high-performance culture of continuous improvement:

  1. What processes should we use to identify the best opportunities for improvement?
  2. How will we prioritize the opportunities?
  3. How can we ensure or increase alignment?
  4. How will we identify what ‘could or should be’ if everything were right?
  5. What specific improvement goals shall we set?
  6. How can we involve the people closest to the work?
  7. What tools will we use to find fundamental solutions?
  8. How will we measure progress?
  9. How will we recognize and communicate progress and achievement?
  10. What is our follow-up system to assure that the processes, once fixed, stay fixed?
Continuous Improvement, Identifying Waste, Process Improvement, Project Management, Working on the Right Things

Why An 8-Step Improvement Plan?

While organizations in most sectors work at making at least some ongoing improvements to their work and work processes, most industries or vertical markets consist of leaders and followers.

People often ask about what makes the difference between the industry leaders and the follow-behinds.  In our experience, there are two things:

  1. What they work to improve
  2. How they go about the improvement

Industry leaders tend to “work on the right things,” which, as we’ve noted numerous times in this blog, is the most important decision we all must make every day. They also go about making improvements in an effective way. By working on the right things and following a proven effective improvement process, an organization can get further faster.

We recommend an 8-step process for studying and improving the work. While it is possible to make improvements in fewer steps, the more comprehensive eight-step process helps to ensure people are working on the “right” things, and also that the improvements will “stick.”

These steps are:

  1. Identify and quantify the waste you want to eliminate
  2. Clearly define what you want to do (including problem statement, objective, measurements, scope, team, and plan)
  3. Study and measure the current situation
  4. Analyze the root causes and evaluate and plan solutions
  5. Implement
  6. Study the results and take appropriate action until objectives are met
  7. Stabilize and standardize the improvement so that it stays in place and is used throughout
  8. Evaluate and learn from this improvement effort and plan the next

As noted above, some people think this seems like a lot of steps and wherever we go we meet people who want to “streamline” this process . We call them the “two-fivers” because the improvement process they follow is simply:

  • think of something they believe will improve things
  • implement it

Two-fivers eliminate 3/4 of the steps we recommend! Possibly a good, or at least workable idea… but the whole point of the eight steps is to make sure people are working on the right thing, that they get to the right solution, and that it sticks. If you can do without that, by all means, be a two-fiver.

Change, Leadership, Process Improvement, Working on the Right Things

Workforce Capability, Management & Change

While identifying the right things to work on is a critical decision we must make each day, it’s important to also have the right people working on the right things if we hope to truly achieve breakthrough solutions. In other words, it is imperative to have a solid grasp of the team’s capabilities, strengths and  developmental  needs.

We’ve discovered that workforce assessments need to be done in an organized, comprehensive way that includes a strategic mixture of observation, one-on-one and small group interviews to cover a diagonal cross-section of an organization. Key activities include an analysis of layout, work flow, bottlenecks and yield, and also an assessment of people’s understanding of tools as well as how their work impacts the total organization.

It is also important to ask questions about the organization, how people feel they are treated and valued, and, in so doing, it’s important to assess their level of engagement.

Based on discovering the best opportunities for improvement, an improvement plan can then be implemented, which will involve making key changes in processes and behaviors.

Finally, it’s also necessary to review how people are being managed, as without engaged, effective leadership it is difficult to implement the changes that are necessary for achieving a culture of continuous improvement.

Continuous Improvement, Decision Making, Leadership, Process Improvement, Working on the Right Things

“Classified” Decisions

A past post focused on how we make decisions, and noted that while people often think they could make better decisions if they had more facts and data, in practice the presence of “too much information” often complicates decision-making.

In fact, behavioral economists report that “data driven” decisions tend to increase confidence in the decision far more than the quality of the decision.

While the above-mentioned post shares a five-step process for making critical or complex decisions, a simpler approach might be equally as good for certain decisions. Consequently, we might want to first consider the “type” of decision with which we’re faced. In other words, if we “classify” the decision first we can then proceed more strategically.

For example, in their book “A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making,” authors  David Snowden and Mary Boone explain that decisions can be categorized by context:

  • Known knowns: That is, we know what information we need in order to make a good decision and we can acquire that information. These decisions can be mapped out with simple decision-trees to reliably and quickly produce good outcomes. For example, a supplier selection process can be mapped out and reliably executed to produce good results.
  • Known unknowns: The problem is knowable, but not simple. We require an expert to gather and process the information to arrive at a reliably good decision. Decisions about how to design a website to maximize traffic or where to position a power plant relative to cooling sources are examples of “known unknowns.” Snowden and Boone refer to these as “complicated decisions — the domain of experts.”
  • Unknown unknowns: Complex decisions, in which we may not even know all the right questions, are increasing in frequency. Many strategic decisions organizations face today carry a great deal of uncertainty. Since best practices are by definition past practices, we have little to go on when faced with unknown unknowns. Thus the more detailed 5-step decision-making process outlined in the above-referenced post can help us achieve the best results.

 

 

 

 

Continuous Improvement, Identifying Waste, Process Improvement, Working on the Right Things

Sales Process Productivity – 20 Questions?

Our previous post focused on applying the fundamentals of CI to the sales process, and included some proven best practices that can help boost field-day efficiency.

But the sales process extends well-beyond a day in the field, as it encompasses everything from identifying a lead to delivering a solution.

Considering this broad spectrum, it is really not surprising that the largest waste in most commercial and industrial organizations is lost gross margin that results from sales not made, sub-optimal pricing, and excessive costs in sales-related processes.

The first step toward improvement — that is, moving from “where we are now to where we’d like to be if everything were right” — is to identify specific areas of waste, and a good way to start might be to answer the following 20 questions:

  1. What is our current market share?
  2. What are our customers’ requirements?
  3. How well are we meeting these requirements?
  4. What would it take to truly delight our customers?
  5. How long does the sales process take from lead to sale?
  6. What is our lead conversion ratio?
  7. What were the top 3 reasons for lost sales over the past quarter?
  8. How many calls do our sales people make, on average, each day?
  9. How much time do we spend talking with uninterested or unqualified leads?
  10. How do we continually improve our sales team’s skills and habits?
  11. What percentage of prospects contact us first?
  12. How does this percentage (#11) compare with industry data?
  13. Does the sales process take less time to complete for inbound leads? If so, how much less?
  14. What is our response time to customer or prospect inquiries?
  15. How many customer complaints do we receive?
  16. How much time do our sales people spend interceding or responding to complaints?
  17. What is done with the information associated with customer complaints?
  18. How do customer complaints or how does customer dissatisfaction impact our ability to make sales?
  19. How often are discounts extended, and what is the average discount?
  20. Are discounts offered due to competition or in response to dissatisfaction?

Clearly there are many more questions and steps associated with analyzing and improving an organization’s sales process, but these twenty questions are a good starting point.

Change, Continuous Improvement, Developing People, Working on the Right Things

Is Your Team Capable of Achieving Breakthrough Results?

While identifying the right things to work on  and using the right tools are critical decisions we must make each day, we must also have the right people with the knowledge and skills working on the right things if we are to truly achieve breakthrough solutions.

Taking an objective overview of employees’ capabilities, strengths and needs on a periodic basis can help us recognize both the strengths to build on and improvement areas for training and coaching.

As part of the employee capability assessment process, it’s best to use a strategic mixture of one-on-one and small group interviews to cover a diagonal cross-section of the organization.

Generally speaking, the objective is to talk with people about the organization, how they are treated and valued, and assess their level of engagement. Meeting with key people who manage and work in various areas is also crucial, as is seeking to understand how the organization’s strengths can form the basis for the creation of a systemic continuous improvement process.

Continuous Improvement, Engagement, Leadership, Working on the Right Things

4DX & Engagement Part 5: Accountability

Our previous few posts have focused on “The 4 Disciplines of Execution,” a book  by Sean Covey, Chris McChesney, and Jim Huling, and how the disciplines impact achieving goals as well as employee engagement.

These previous posts have shared perspectives on disciplines one, two and three. However, the fourth discipline ― accountability ― is the discipline that enables you to win.

Without a cadence of accountability, teams will have a much more difficult time and will tend to become less engaged. The threat, of course, is that the whirlwind of running the day-to-day business that will consume all the available time.

By ‘cadence’ the authors mean an inviolable regular schedule, commitments, and expectations.  Teams should meet every week, and it’s best to schedule the meetings at the same day and time each and every week. These meetings should never canceled ― they must be viewed as important and productive, thus promoting strong feelings of belonging, commitment, productivity, and accomplishment, which are all drivers of engagement.

At the end it is all about employee engagement; working on the right things in the right way and in a way that involves understanding and applying some paradoxical insights:

  • The fewer the goals, the more you get done.
  • Clarity of goals increases engagement, even when a vague goal seems safer.
  • Know your LAG measure, but find and act on LEAD measures to get the results you want.
  • People play differently when they are keeping score and they know if they are winning or losing; the commitment, consistency of focus, and the resulting sense of productivity are all key drivers of engagement.
  • Without a rhythm of accountability, the whirlwind will win.
Continuous Improvement, Engagement, Performance Management, Process Improvement, Workforce Engagement, Working on the Right Things

4DX & Engagement Part 4: The Scoreboard

As we’ve noted in recent posts, the effective execution of improvement and other strategic initiatives results in both goal achievement and workforce engagement. Thus it is to any organization’s advantage to promote and enable effective execution… as presented in “The Four Disciplines of Execution,” a book  by Sean Covey, Chris McChesney, and Jim Huling.

The first two disciplines are setting Wildly Important Goals (WIGs or lag measures) and Lead Measures (activities).

The third discipline, which has a strong impact on engaging people throughout the organization, is a scoreboard.

The scoreboard shows the lead measures and lag measure defined in the first two disciplines.  This scoreboard must be ‘a players’ scoreboard’ not a ‘coach’s scoreboard’. It must support, guide, and motivate the players to act effectively on the lead measures and influence the lag measures (WIG’s). It must have the feel of a game — people play the game differently when they are keeping score, and they play differently if they are keeping the score themselves!

In fact, the action of recording their own results has proved to have a strong effect on people ― fostering ownership, engagement, and a deeper appreciation of the impact of their effort.

However, as authors Covey, McChesney, and Huling point out, there are four important requirements to creating an effective scorecard that will truly promote execution and engagement:

  1. The scorecard must be visible. If it is out of sight, on your computer or on the back of the door, it is less effective at aligning the team to focus on moving those measurements.
  2. It must be simple, showing only the data required to ‘play the game’ ― to let the players know how they are doing day to day.
  3. It must show both lead and lag measures.
  4. It must show “at a glance” how the team or players are doing.

This scoreboard helps the team to both recognize their progress and also identify the next actions required to achieve the WIG’s; it also displays their achievement for all to see ― two critical components of engagement.

From a communication perspective, the scoreboard also plays a role in promoting a sense of accountability, which we’ll discuss in our next post.

Change, Continuous Improvement, Engagement, Process Improvement, Working on the Right Things

4DX & Engagement Part 3: Lead Measures

Continuing our theme of how effective execution of improvement and other strategic initiatives results in both goal achievement and workforce engagement, today’s focus is on the second of “The Four Disciplines of Execution,” as presented in a book  by Sean Covey, Chris McChesney, and Jim Huling.

Our previous post focused on the first discipline, the Wildly Important Goals (WIG’s).

The second key discipline is to focus on the lead measures, which are the activity or process measures that predict and influence the results measures (WIG’s).

We monitor the WIG’s or lag measures, but we must act on the lead measures to achieve the desired result goals (WIG’s).

People tend to focus their attention on the WIG’s ― sales goals, weight loss, yield, etc. ― because they are what matters most and because they are typically more easily measured.

But these are not directly “influenceable”.

For example, to influence your weight goal you must act on the lead measures: exercise (calories burned) and calories consumed.

In addition, determining the right lead measure(s) is essential to influencing the lag measures and achieving the WIG; and it is not always obvious what each lead measure should be and how we should measure it.

For example, if increasing sales ‘from x to y by mid year’ is your WIG, the most predictive and influencable lead measure might be the number of sales calls. The team could work on increasing the number of sales calls in order to increase the sales. But at another organization or a different time in that same organization, the best lead measure to influence might be quality of preparation for the sales calls or the messaging used by the sales team during the calls.

Similarly, at another place or time, prospect targeting or lead quality might be a better choice of lead measure.

Thus the team must understand enough about the process to choose a good lead measure to act on, one that both predicts and influences the lag measure. They must also constantly monitor their effect on the lag measure to ensure they are working on the right thing in the right way. The simple combination of being empowered to identify activities and being involved in measuring progress is a critical component of the engagement process. People tend to be more engaged when their goals as well as their contributions are clearly identified.

Notice the clarity of action we are building as we implement these disciplines. Instead of many vaguely measured goals, we have 1‒2 clearly defined ― ‘x to y by when’ ― goals (WIG’s). Instead of obsessing on the WIG’s, we focus all our efforts on the lead measures, which are more easily influencable or actionable.   This clarity is what enables us to carve time out of the busy day-to-day environment or whirlwind.

Our next step is to create a compelling scoreboard that will enable us to accurately measure  and recognize “activities,” which will be the subject of our next post.