Posted on July 26, 2010  Comments (1)

If you have customers that see you as adequate you will keep customers based on inertia.

But you have several big problems awaiting you. Those trying to win your customers business only have to overcome inertia – which can be very low hurdle (saving a small bit of money, some minor additional feature). If your customers are delighted they won’t leave (by and large) without significant reasons to.

Also your attempts to increase price are very likely to lead to increased customer losses (than if customers are delighted). Delighted customers are willing to pay a premium which helps profits enormously (Apple has done this quite well).

Delighted customers will refer others to you – great free marketing.

Satisfied customers leave you very little leeway for error. If you cause satisfied customers some problem (which granted, hopefully you won’t but if you do) they are not likely to be forgiving. If they are delighted they may well stay even if you have a delay, provide less than stellar customer service for some request…

There are many ways to attempt to delight customers. One of the simplest powerful tools is to ask a very simple question: What Could we do Better?

Related: What Job Does Your Product Do? – It Just Works – Kano Model of customer satisfaction – customer focus resources

Posted on July 22, 2010  Comments (1)

Metrics are valuable when they are actionable. Think about what will be done if certain results are shown by the data. If you can’t think of actions you would take, it may be that metric is not worth tracking.

Metrics should be operationally defined so that the data is collected properly. Without operationally definitions data collected by more than one person will often include measurement error (in this case, the resulting data showing the results of different people measuring different things but calling the result the same thing).

And without operational definitions those using the resulting data may well mis-interpret what it is saying. Often data is presented without an operational definition and people think the data is saying something that it is not. I find most often when people say statistics lie it is really that they made an incorrect assumption about what the data said – which most often was because they didn’t understand the operational definition of the data. Data can’t lie. People can. And people can intentionally mislead with data. But far more often people unintentionally mislead with data that is misunderstood (often this is due to failure to operationally define the data).

In response to: Metrics Manifesto: Raising the Standard for Metrics

Related: Outcome Measures – Evidence-based Management – Metrics and Software Development – Distorting the System (due to misunderstanding metrics) – Manage what you can’t measure

Posted on July 21, 2010  Comments (0)

Wally Bock hosts his first carnival for us, Management Improvement Carnival #104, on the Three Star Leadership Blog. He has long posted his Leadership Reading to Start Your Week and Midweek Look at the Independent Business Blogs that also highlight great posts. Highlights for this carnival include:

• From Mary Jo Asmus: Coaching Others: Short Term Pain for Long Term Gain
  “One of the biggest pushbacks I get from those I teach almost always has to do with the time that coaching takes. Admittedly, it can take longer to coach others than to either ignore them or to bark orders. Coaching is a methodology to help people figure things out for themselves, so you can see why it might require more time and effort than other methods a manager could use.”

  Wally’s Comment: Mary Jo Asmus is an executive coach who has actually been an executive. How cool is that? She also shares powerfully simple observations and suggestions. In this post, Mary Jo points out why spending time to coach your people is really an investment.

• From QAspire: 5 Ideas To Ensure That Lessons are ‘Really’ Learned
  “All improvement depends on lessons you document and what you, as a leader, do about it. If you are a business leader, project leader or an improvement expert, here are five practical things you can do to ensure that lessons are really learned.”

  Wally’s Comment: Tanmay Vora says that his QAspire blog is about “practical insights on quality, leadership and improvement. This post is a fine example of his work.

Related: Curious Cat Management Improvement Connections – Management Reddit – Curious Cat Management Improvement Glossary

Posted on July 19, 2010  Comments (2)

I believe the problem is likely not the person pointing out the problem. Now granted I have often been that person. Part of what I have been tasked with doing in various jobs is finding ways to improve the performance of the organization. I was told the managers wanted to hear about problems from someone working there, so I was asked to do so. What it often meant was they wanted someone to fix the problems they thought existed not point out the problem was the systems, not the people forced to deal with the systems.

I have learned managers are a lot happier if I just shut up about all the problems that should be addressed. There are happy if I can fix what I can (though really they seem to care much more about not being negative than any actually improving) and just be quiet about anything else – otherwise you are seen as “negative.”

How to Manage Whining with no Problem Solving

I think it is right to focus the effort on problem solving to improve the situation. I fear that far too often though “As individuals begin to focus on the negative and don’t engage in problem solving, this behavior is unacceptable.” turns into ignore problems. Yes, I know that isn’t what the post is suggesting. I am just saying that the easy “solution” that is taken far too often is to focus on the words “negative” and “unacceptable.”

I believe the focus should be on “broken systems are unacceptable.” I would prefer problem solving to address the issues but a culture of ignoring issues and seeing those that don’t as being negative is often the real problem (not the person that points out the problems).

I have discussed this topic in some posts previously: Ignoring Unpleasant Truths is Often Encouraged and Bring Me Problems, and Solutions if You Have Them. Once I am given those problems I agree with you completely. Use them as an opportunity to coach effective problem solving and process improvement strategies to improve the situation. And to develop people.

Often the problem is not the person at all. The organization never adopts fixes. People have learned that they can bang their head against the wall and then never get approval for the fix or they can just whine. Blaming them for choosing whining is not useful. I don’t see how Asking 5 whys you get to blaming the employee, except in very rare cases for not problem solving. It seems to me the issue is almost always going to lay with management: for why people are frustrated with system results and are not problem solving.
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Posted on July 13, 2010  Comments (3)

Do ‘Quick Wins’ Hurt Lean Initiatives?

If you don’t change how people think, the quick improvement can end up not helping much. I think quick wins help. But managing how those quick wins happen is important. Creating a maintaining a dialogue that while quick wins are possible, much bigger wins are possible by building on the gains to adopt more critical improvement (and often more complex and requiring more effort) .

As quick wins are achieved try and be sure they are building capacity at the same time. Get people to think in new ways and see improvement opportunities. Also have people learn new tools to attack more problems with. I firmly believe you learn lean best by doing lean. So getting quick successes is great training – better than classroom training. But in doing so, you do want to focus on making sure people understand how the quick fix is a process they can repeat to improve other areas.

And one of the skills you have to practice in the example mentioned in the post mentioned above is managing up. It is tricky but part of what you need to do is coach your bosses to understand lean so that you can expand the adoption of more lean thinking in your organization.

Related: How to Improve – Building a Great Workforce – Flaws in Understanding Psychology Lead to Flawed Management – Leadership

Posted on July 10, 2010  Comments (0)

Jamie Flinchbaugh hosts the Management Improvement Carnival #103 on his blog, highlights include:

• How do you change a culture? – Obviously a big question and one I spend considerable time on, but LeanRI.org throws in on a challenging and important question.
• Spot the Northwest Flight Attendant – Simon Sinek demonstrates how pervasive culture can be and how it impacts customer service, and even customer culture.
• UK Government Wants Lean and Six Sigma or Just Cost Cutting – Mark Graban takes on simultaneously the misunderstanding of lean by the press and the misapplication of lean by the UK Government.
• Lean Consumption: A Summary – since Womack and Jones Lean Solutions book, there still hasn’t been much written about lean consumption but Pete Abilla take it on here.

Related: 2009 Annual Management Blog Review Part 1 – management improvement articles – Curious Cat Management Improvement Search

Posted on July 6, 2010  Comments (5)

I started out basically working on management improvement from the start of my career. My makeup (I am never satisfied and figure things should always be better) along with a few traits, experiences and probably even genes made this a natural fit for me. I tend to take the long view and find fire fighting a waste of time. Why fix some symptom, I want to fix the system so that problem doesn’t happen again. My father worked in statistics, engineering and business improvement and as I was growing up I had plenty of experience with process improvement, understanding variation, experimenting, measuring results…

I came into the IT world as I had needs and found the best solution was to write some software to help me accomplish what I wanted to. One thing that better software tools allowed is this type of thing when organizations failed to use technology well, individuals could just do so themselves. Without these tools people had to rely on the organization, but today atrophied IT organizations can often be circumvented. Though the IT organizations often try to avoid this largely by bans (instead of by providing the tools people need), which is not a good sign, in my opinion.

I then spent more and more of my time working with technology but I always retained my focus on improving the management of the organization, with technology playing a supporting role in that effort. That is true even as where I sat changed. And I have become more convinced organizations would be served well by using the information technology staff as business process experts.

At one point I sat in the Office of Secretary of Defense, Quality Management Office where I was able to focus on management improvement and using technology to aid that effort. Then I went to the White House Military Office, Customer Support and Organizational Development office and focused largely on how to using technology to meet the mission. Then I was moved into the White House Military Office, Office of Information Technology Management.

And now I work for the American Society for Engineering Education in the Information Technology department. My role started as partially program management and partially software development and as we have grown and hired more software developers I am now nearly completely a program manager.

I believe technology is a central component of understanding business processes today. But the truth is, many business people don’t have as complete an understanding as I feel they should. Now I believe, most anyone interested in planning their management career needs to develop a facility with technology and specifically how to use software applications to improve performance. You don’t need to be an expert programmer but you need to understand the strengths, weakness, limits of technical solutions. You need to understand how technology can be used (and the risks of options).

At the same time I just don’t think it is likely management everywhere will get a decent understanding of application software development. I also believe that in many cases organizations should do software development in house. This is a issue that certainly can be argued (but I won’t do it here). Basically I don’t think organizations should cram their processes into designs required by off the shelf software. Instead I believe they should design processes optimal for their organization and using off the shelf software often does the opposite (forces the process decisions around what software someone decided to buy). There is plenty of use for off the shelf software that doesn’t force you to make your processes fit into them (and sometimes even if it does that is the business decision that has to be made – I just think far too often organizations look at short term costs and not the overall best solutions for the system).
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Posted on July 3, 2010  Comments (3)

I have thought the recruiting process for hiring staff was very inefficient. I still think it is very inefficient. I mean that, not only do companies waste time or resources but that we do not do a good job systemically places the right people in the right jobs effectively. So their is waste is the process of hiring but a huge amount of waste in not doing well at finding the best fits for people and jobs. So we have lots of jobs filled with people that are less suited to them than others that would love to be doing the job (and who would do very well) if they had only known about it.

The webcast shows an interview with Gerry Crispin. Interesting statistic he mentioned: without an employee referral a candidate had chances of 200-500 to 1 of being hired, with employee referrals they are about 10-15 to 1. He also said about 30% have employee referrals. Honestly the video doesn’t help me too much but I am desperate to have us improve in this area and maybe others can get more than I can from it. If staff are important to your organization, doing a great job getting the best people for your company should be a process you are proud of. I don’t see many examples of organizations that do this well.

via: Recruitment is a Commodity. Make it an Experience!

Related: Job Listings Online Filled with Jargon – Interviewing and Hiring Programmers – IT Talent Shortage, or Management Failure? – Find management improvement jobs – The Software Developer Labor Market

Posted on July 1, 2010  Comments (3)

• 12 Things Good Bosses Believe by Robert I. Sutton – “My success – and that of my people – depends largely on being the master of obvious and mundane things, not on magical, obscure, or breakthrough ideas or methods.” [I think this is so true. Ever manager should repeat this over and over every day until they give the boring details the attention it deserves over the flashy stuff - John].
• Should You Use a Business/IT Liaison Person? No! by Harwell Thrasher – “Prioritize your business needs so that IT can focus its limited resources on the most important things. Many liaison positions are really just ways of coping with a lack of business priorities”
• 5 Ways to Improve Your Teaching Skills by Ron Pereira – “If you don’t have a deep understanding of the content you’re about to present I suggest you take the time to gain a deep understanding of the material. In other words, you should have some real life, practical experiences to share with the students.”
• A breadth of fresh error by Mark Anderson – “it’s vital that experts convey the possible variability in their findings if we are to gain a true picture of what may, indeed, transpire.”
• Shorten and Reduce Variability in Lead Times using Kanban by Dennis Stevens – “Reducing variability in lead time will allow you to consistently know and commit when something can be delivered. Delivering consistently will help to increase the trust within the system.”
• Customer Service: Showing You Care by Wally Bock – “Your team’s job is to improve the service you deliver to your customers, inside and outside the organization. Make it a point to get out, to call customers, to ask questions and then listen.”
• Thoughts on two months of pairing by Sarah Mei – “I don’t take shortcuts. I write the tests first. I refactor code that needs it. I focus on doing the simplest thing that could possibly work, without being sloppy. I make sure I understand what I’m doing before I do it.”
• Of Team Size, Social Loafing and Lack of Direction by Mark Hamel – “Well executed kaizen is an opportunity for folks to improve the business. It’s also equally about improving the worker’s PDCA skill-sets and developing a lean culture. When teams are too large and they suffer the above described dynamics, we end up squandering these transformative opportunities.”

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