Process Effectiveness

ID and Access Management

2005-06-22T01:20:00.000-05:00

Paraphrasing a friend of mine, it used to be called good business practice. Now it’s called “Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.”

The Sarbanes-Oxley law impacts public companies, companies that want to go public, and companies that have public debt. Basically, it says that the CEOs and CFOs of these companies must vouch for their quarterly financial statements. If the statements happen to be misstatements, these officers can be personally fined, and face jail time in extreme cases.

There’s more. Anything pervasive, that permeates the company and its functions, must be managed to an industry standard. This includes Information Technology (IT) for most companies, because of the prevalence of PCs, laptops, networks, and customer data that must be managed and protected. Unfortunately, Sarbanes-Oxley does not establish the standards. A company has to decide on a standard, such as COBIT, ISO or ITIL. The company then has to figure out what parts of the standard it will adopt, what parts it won’t, and be able to explain why such decisions were made.

When outside auditors look at a company’s IT department, IT’s security stance will be one of the first places they look for a material weakness—a flaw big enough to consider the company to be dangerously out of compliance. One of the easiest places to find a problem is in the area of ID and Access Management.

Many organizations have trouble controlling the development and deployment of ad hoc systems in their departments. It’s often easy for a department manager to decide they have a need, and implement an off the shelf solution—especially if IT has been relegated to merely supporting networks, phone systems, and desktop users.

What happens next is that there is no strong process or follow-up (control) to ensure that when personnel leave, their ID and access will be removed from the various applications they have access to. This leaves a large security risk if they happen to figure out how to get back on an application and create mayhem.

Sometimes there’s a process in place, but no reconciliation effort for when the process breaks down. Let’s imagine that there is some way the word gets around when an individual leaves, and usually their access is shut down. Is there any reconciliation process that compares current personnel with the lists of IDs on various applications on a regular basis? Probably not. It is more complicated by the fact that employees and temporaries may be tracked differently, and therefore there is no comprehensive list to compare to.

As a solution, the standard-bearers advocate a single function—in IT or a related department—to perform ID and Access Management from a central office and computer console. There are a number of consulting companies out there that specialize in helping clients find the right technology fit for the situation. One of the best ways to attack the problem is to use an independent consulting company to help determine the technical solution that fits your particular situation. If you go to Microsoft or Sunn, they'll sell you the Microsoft or Sunn solutions, respectively.

Since this is a relatively new field, don't be afraid to look at small boutique firms that specialize on this niche. Here in Dallas, I'm aware of at least two: Logic Trends and PathMaker.

© 2005 InterDimension Strategies Inc., M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas

The Beatings Will Continue until Morale Improves—the PMO conundrum

2003-09-19T23:23:00.000-05:00

Previously I've written about Enterprise-wide Program and Project Management Offices (EPMOs). As I'm sure you know, these corporate entities promote and enforce project methodologies, and provide program and project reporting to C-level management.

Motivating project managers to use best practices and honest reporting represents a huge challenge for most EPMOs. Management often unwittingly sets EPMOs up to fail by fostering an “us versus them” mentality. This unfortunate and unnecessary situation comes from management's need to control a lot of scary stuff: budget/resources, scope, and schedules. Add in the feared “million dollar surprise” and it's no wonder management is running scared.

The challenges compound when the fearful management team then aims scare tactics at the organization's lower echelons to get them to cooperate and conform. The reaction of these lower levels of personnel—the project managers—then becomes counter-productive to what the management team really wants.

I always ask, “what's in it for them?” when those project managers actually have to implement all of the methodology and reporting that the EPMO enforces.

“They get to keep their jobs,” I recently overheard an executive say. That may be true, but if you're going to take that approach to management, it's time to revisit Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Above I've shown one of the many representations of Maslow's famous hierarchical triangle. You remember how it goes. People have to fulfill the requirements of the lower levels of the triangle before they can move toward the top. If they're concerned about air, water and food, they certainly aren't going to be trying to reach “self-actualization.” Their needs are too basic at that point.

Back to the “you get to keep your job” comment. When you say that to project managers, they will immediately adopt a fear posture. Believe me, if you threaten someone with their livelihood, their first reaction is to hide mistakes, problems, issues and risks. They instinctively want to protect any shred of security they think they have left. In order to overcome the instinctive fears that drag them to the bottom of the triangle, your managers will have to expend a tremendous amount of personal energy and exercise a lot of self-discipline. Wouldn't it be better if all that energy went into managing projects and dealing with life's normal ups and downs?

Where do you want people's heads to be? For my money, I want my people up in the white-zone of self-actualization: solving problems, collaborating with peers and superiors. To achieve that result, they have to be secure in the knowledge that everyone is there to assess the dangers, share the decisions, make adjustments, and help to keep projects from failing.

So how do you motivate project managers to cooperate with an EPMO? You work to convince them that the benefit is mutual to the company and the project manager.

When a project manager hides their project status and risks from their bosses, they're simply saying “trust me. ” Management will hold that same project manager completely responsible if the project fails.

If, however, the project manager complies with the typical methodologies of an EPMO, everything is out in the open. Upper-level management stays aware of what occurs inside the project, and helps make the go/no go decisions. It's hard to blame just the project manager when things go wrong in this kind of environment. Since everyone up to the C-level helps make the decisions and manage the risks, they share in the blame when things go wrong. At this point, the project manager knows there is “safety in numbers.” We can all expend our energies on removing roadblocks, problem solving, and collaborating instead of hiding all of the problems and hoping they go away.

We have even more reasons to seek a collaborative atmosphere in our organizations. We're quickly approaching a period when, once again, there won't be enough people to do the work—including project managers. This time, however, it's serious. Baby-boomers are already going into various stages of retirement, and we will soon have a very small labor pool. It's already happening in Europe, where experts say there is a worker shortage of 10%. We'll have no option other than to adopt a kinder, gentler approach.

In the short run, if the “beatings continue,” morale won't improve; it will crater and we'll get the worst out of everyone. If the job market behaves as expected, people will ultimately have the option to leave. “We're in this together” works better on so many levels. Maybe we can stop the beatings all together.

© 2003 M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas
InterDimension Strategies Inc.

Replicating the Magic—over and over again

2003-06-20T10:11:00.000-05:00

I am currently consulting with two very different organizations that have similar agendas. One is a restaurant, the other a statewide nonprofit. Both are classic examples of how processes-once proven and documented-can be used successfully again and again.

You can call this approach “The Franchise Model,” even if the organizations aren't franchising in any way, shape or form. Think of McDonald's old concept. The company devised a system to start a location, a system to run a location, and a system to constantly update a location. There is nothing particularly high-tech about these systems, they're mostly on paper. But, they set the framework for how things will work and they support the never-wavering delivery of consistent goods and services. The “quality” of the goods and services may not be particularly high. It's the quality of the process and the consistency of the product that breeds success-the customer always knows what to expect. The fact is that each site is fairly similar in quality from one to the next, with only an occasional exception.

So what does a nonprofit and a fledgling restaurant chain have in common? The desire to support consistent implementation of their organization.

The nonprofit has hundreds of chapters throughout the state of Texas. Volunteers lead the chapters, rotating out every one or two years (depending on what they can stand). Training hundreds of new chapter leaders every year is completely cost prohibitive. So is receiving hundreds of calls to support those leaders on a regular basis.

The restaurant has one smooth-running location that is making money. The owners have a desire to open up more locations. The General Manager fears that multiple locations will result in a reduction in quality-he'll have to be in two places at once to teach and mentor staff, and to make sure each location maintains its look and feel. How will the staff implement his vision of how the food and drinks look and feel?

The nonprofit will solve the problem by creating an operations handbook. They actually have most of the information compiled, but it's impossible to find anything. We will exponentially improve the usability of the document by cutting down the number of pages (tighter writing; use of decision tables), and devising a comprehensive document structure (table of contents, index, logical division of information). Finally, when it's all said and done, we will automate the document and place it on a CD, complete with keyword search. We'll give users a choice of paper, disk or both-meeting the needs of the technologically advanced volunteers, while still addressing those that want a book to hold onto.

The restaurant will also create an operations manual, but with a difference. This will be a paper document, also impeccably organized. Tabs will separate food prep, accounting, bar set-up, customer service, open and close procedures, etc., along with daily checklists for maintaining stock and a clean environment. The book will be printed on sturdy paper that resists the destructive forces of the kitchen. The manager will be able to separate the book, so the kitchen and bar staff can have their own references. Much of the kitchen staff is only semi-literate, so pictures and numbers will be used to show “how-to” information, and the sequence of the processes. Kitchen and bar staff will also have photographic examples of food and drink presentation, so the products look good every time.

If you can't be two (or more) places at once, perhaps your influence can be. It doesn't take a time machine or a worm-hole in the space-time continuum. Get what's in your brain-your vision, your processes, and your rules-into a reference-able form. Train your people how to implement, and train them how to look up what they forget. Consistency will abound-life and profits will be good.

© 2003 M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas
InterDimension Strategies Inc.

Innovation and processes

2003-05-20T23:17:00.000-05:00

What happens when you believe in processes, but you don't want to stifle innovation? When you're in search of excellence and thriving on chaos, where do processes fit in?
I often work with people who fear that establishing and measuring processes will quash their ability to invent, discover and grow. We usually think that we'll establish our processes and then execute them like robots until the end of time.

But in favor of processes, I ask you: how much time do you have to innovate when your business is running amok?

Do you have 15 fires to put out today? Are your subordinates, co-workers, and managers experiencing the same problem? How much time did you spend today on real innovation, exploiting new markets, developing new products and services, finding better ways of doing things? If you had better processes, you'd likely find that the fires don't happen as much. A smooth running organization is like money in the bank—or at least an investment in the future—because you can devote more energy to developing the next great idea or improving the old ones.

In actuality, good process allows innovation, by including components that actually increase the probability of innovation. How can that be?

Processes provide a way to do the mundane things without having to think so much about them. Processes provide a consistent activity and a consistent result. They also give you the opportunity to see how you're doing, by measuring their results. When you perform the activity the same each time, you get consistently good, bad or indifferent results. In looking at the results of a process-driven chain of events, you will compare apples-to-apples when looking at one result to the next. This means that problem analysis will almost always point to the same weak spots over-and-over. You can then fix those weak spots and greatly enhance the chance that you will improve results. That approach in itself spurs creativity and innovation—to fix the problems and make things better.

Establishing processes also saves an incredible amount of time. When the mundane day-to-day production of your business is "handled" and everyone knows how to do it, it frees up massive mindshare to work on growth and not just maintenance.

We are at a difficult time in our planet's development. We're having to do more with less. Those who will survive and thrive will find the time innovate and do the work better, faster and cheaper. Computing can help us with some of that productivity, but we often forget the businesses and people who use the computers. A business process is a business process, whether you involve a computer or not. The processes matter, and if we don't pay attention to that fact, our businesses will never fully reap the rewards—more revenue, lower costs, and the time and energy to innovate yet again.

© 2003 M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas
InterDimension Strategies Inc.

Process Mapping Tactics— Secrets to supporting the strategy

2003-04-16T23:01:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine has a growing recruiting company. A few weeks ago, he asked his Office Manager to call and ask me for some help.

“I've been asked to find a tool to map our processes with,” she said, “but Visio and ABC Flowcharter look like overkill.”

I offered to show her how to use PowerPoint for simple flowcharting, and we met the next day to go over it. My secret agenda was to find out what the real process mapping need was, because she let slip that they were having all kinds of confusion.

I took a look at an example of what they'd been using, and I knew instantly what the problem was. There before me was a simple flowchart. It was frightening enough that it didn't have any decision-points, which we usually represent as diamonds. It also had a key at the bottom that contained a big clue to what was going wrong. Green boxes represented tasks that were performed by Sales, blue boxes were performed by Recruiting, and yellow boxes were performed by both.

I had a real problem with that key, so I decided to show her how “swim-lane” or “river-channel” flowcharts work. I drew a column for each of the entities (Sales and Recruiting) and then added two more: Customer and Management. I started to draw the same flowchart, but put the process box for each task under the column of who was responsible for getting it done. Her eyes lit up at the simplicity of how it showed both process and responsibility without having to refer to a key. Then she asked the payoff question that I was leading her to: What happens when two different groups are responsible for the same task?

“That,” I said, “is your real problem.” I went on to explain that whenever you make two groups responsible for completing a task, there will always be a problem getting it done. No one will feel like they “own” it.
“But Sales and Recruiting meet together to help make their decisions,” she said. “How can we show that process?”
“Well,” I said, “are both entities doing the same thing in those meetings?”

“I guess,” she replied, “that Sales is really there to make sure the candidate is right for the client, and Recruiting is there to make sure the client is right for the candidate.”

“Then you can show these as simultaneous actions in different boxes under different swim-lanes,” I said.

As we worked through a little more of the flow, it quickly became obvious that there were a number of processes that had shared responsibility. The process-mapping tool was a very small issue in a much bigger problem.

I haven't checked back to find out how things are progressing, but I can guarantee that things have improved if she took my advice. What is the motivation for someone implementing a process when they won't be held accountable for getting it done?

Professionalism aside, we're all human, and as humans we tend to raise the priority of activities that our bosses' will “call us on.” Assign tasks and processes to one entity (if it is a department, then make the manager accountable). If you find yourself having to assign them to two entities at once, think a little harder. You will be able to break the task or process into the appropriate number of subtasks to get the responsibilities pinned down, and you'll find it a lot easier to manage.

© 2003 M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas
InterDimension Strategies Inc.

Step Six: Communication

2003-02-28T22:33:00.000-06:00

NOTE: And now, the final step in the Six Steps to High Performance.

—M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas, Process Effectiveness Consultant

“More than merely a step, it is really an all-encompassing function…”

—Skip Kapur

RY: Skip, you say that this is “more than merely a step.” Can you explain?

SK: Yes, communication begins in earnest toward the end of Step 1, which you may remember is to establish a management team. It continues as an all-encompassing function in parallel with the remaining steps.

RY: You might say that communication is the method for bringing about the changes created through the other five steps.

SK: Yes, that's part of it. The key thing to remember is that straightforward and consistent communication will develop the trust required to make everything work together. Most people will respond to being treated as adults. You involve them in figuring out what you're trying to do, enlist their help in doing it, get their commitment for specific contributions, and hold them responsible for their commitments.

RY: Actually, communication can be shown as a component of every one of the steps when you get right down to it.

SK: Yes, but it is so absolutely critical that you must single it out.

RY: What are there characteristics that apply to this kind of communication?

SK: Well, I can think of at least four:

Foremost, the communication has to be open and honest
It has to flow all directions, not just from the top down
Everyone must initiate it proactivelyIt must happen quickly
Relevant information must be captured and acted upon

RY: Why is open and honest communication so important?

SK: It is almost impossible to maintain silos in an organization if you are doing the communication piece well. I know this may be threatening to some, but a siloed organization can only reach a state of high performance by sheer luck. With everyone's goals aligned and their compensation tied together to reflect the team's success, openness and honesty are absolutely required to make the method work.

RY: How do you mean the communication must “flow in all directions”?

SK: Communication is both telling and hearing. There is an old saying that we were given one mouth and two ears. That was so we could listen twice as much as we talked. Yes, we must communicate downward through the organization, and outward to the customer, but we must have communication coming in from the customer and up through the organization as well. How else will the organization and the upper echelons know what the customer needs and how well we're doing?

RY: What do you mean that everyone must “initiate communication proactively”?

SK: Everyone in the organization is both empowered and required to communicate. Several things could trigger communication:

Formation or initiation of a plan
Discovery of a problem
Receiving complaints or determining dissatisfaction of a customer
Receiving ideas from a customer or an employee

The Six Steps methodology places mechanisms throughout the organization that support a communication-based response to each of these triggers. It is up to the leadership on all levels to further reinforce and reward proactive communication within the culture of the company.

RY: Why must communication happen quickly?

SK: Obviously, you don't want delay your response to a problem. Your customer needs it addressed, yesterday. In other areas it's a little more subtle. Why, for instance, would you want to respond quickly to an employee's idea? At least three reasons: 1) to take advantage of that good idea faster, 2) to reinforce that employee's enthusiasm, and 3) to encourage more ideas to come forth.

RY: Explain what you mean by “relevant information must be captured and acted upon.”

SK: It's one thing to hear a customer's complaint or an employee's idea. It is quite another to respond to it effectively. We need to hear the information, understand it from their point of view, know what would address the issue, see if we can improve on it, and take action.

RY: Anything you'd like to add?

SK: I'd just like to summarize that effective communication is what makes the Six Steps methodology work so well. This is a program that could be implemented by any organization, but it takes a leader with exceptional confidence and even-handedness to pull it off. Reaching organizational High Performance doesn't require advanced math or innovative logic. It does require the implementation of steps that reinforce the psychology of how people work in an origination. We've seen it work, haven't we?

RY: Yes we have, which leads me to something I'd like to share with our audience.

I have worked with Skip to implement the Six Steps methodology within several organizations since 1998, and have become completely convinced that the approach achieves remarkable results. Over that time, we have often talked about one of Skip's dreams, to write a book detailing the Six Steps methodology. Because I have actually helped to implement the methodology and seen the results, I was compelled to offer my collaboration to Skip to make his dream a reality.

Over the next two years, we will expand on these initial interviews. The end result may take several forms, perhaps a primer, a consulting service offering, a full-blown book, or all of the aforementioned. In all cases, I expect my association with Skip will continue to be rich and fulfilling. I invite you to travel with us on our journey.

© 2002 M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas and Sunil “Skip” Kapur
InterDimension Strategies Inc.

The Scoop on Network Security: EcoNet.com launches effective new weapon

2003-01-03T21:06:00.000-06:00

NOTE: If you thought your network was “secure,” you'd better learn what that doesn't mean. This one is a little techie in nature, but worth plowing through for what you'll learn. To my knowledge, this story hasn't broken in the general or industry press. I'm claiming a “scoop,” whether I can prove it or not.

—M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas, Process Effectiveness Consultant

EcoNet.com in Dallas, Texas, has launched a highly cost-effective intrusion prevention system/subscription service that detects and stops network intruders in their tracks, and doesn't let them back in for another try. It's called EcoNet Sentinel, and it is a new invention that actually looks at an incoming cyber-attack and shuts it off at the same time.

Fears about the safety of our networks have likely contributed to the stale economy. Money that would be directed toward better utilization of the technology, has instead been diverted to beefing up security in an atmosphere of vulnerability. Many of us are spending a tremendous amount of energy and dollars to develop and implement Internet security solutions. For a mere two-hundred dollars a month, Sentinel offers a way to free that energy and money up-and use it to grow an organization and supporting infrastructure, instead of building fortifications.

Ask any CEO if their network is secure and they'll probably say, “Sure, my CIO has assured me we are secure.” What they don't know is that “secure” is a relative term, and that the average network is full of exploitable holes when it's hooked up to the Internet via a T1 line or other connection. Most networks have blocked outside traffic only later to find they must allow the traffic back in. If the network is connected to an Internet email server (port 25), allows the public access to webpages (port 80), allows FTP transactions (port 21), etc., those open ports mean it's no longer secure. In order for an organization to take advantage of the value of the Internet, it most certainly has to compromise security.

A hacker or cyber-terrorist can scan a system to see what ports are available to exploit, then take action to attack the network by either finding and downloading sensitive information, or by uploading and implanting viruses or Trojan code, among many other options. Other attacks can be made through email by individuals purposely or unwittingly sending Trojans and viruses via attachments.

Sentinel monitors the behavior of incoming traffic (e.g., someone conducting a scan for open ports), as well as looking for all known virus and Trojan code. In the event it detects abnormal traffic or hostile code, it will cut all current and future contact with that offending TCP/IP address. Should it be a false alarm, or a “friendly” inadvertently sending hostile code, it is easy enough to open their connection again, once you've pinpointed the problem and resolved it.

I know there are other companies who are developing systems similar to Sentinel, especially on the high end. Right now it's the only game in town, and holds a great deal of promise. It has the added advantage of being developed and marketed by a “dot com” that has handily survived the downturn. This is a profitable and stable company, with a product that should have some legs. With a price tag of two hundred dollars a month, the typical T1 user should consider this kind of protection to be a steal.

In the U.S. economy, we aren't about making widgets anymore. Our money will be made in the management of information-developing, warehousing, and maintaining data. When we're forced to spend money on security, it takes away from the money we should be spending to grow our economy. Sentinel represents a smart and cost-effective way to get more of our investment pointed in the right direction-forward.

© 2002 M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas
InterDimension Strategies Inc.

Step Five: Foster Employee Loyalty

2002-12-23T10:19:00.000-06:00

NOTE: Skip Kapur and I got together recently to talk about the fifth of the Six Steps to High Performance. Here, things really start to connect.

—M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas, Process Effectiveness Consultant

In step 5, we directly link employee recognition to customer satisfaction.

—Skip Kapur

RY: What is Employee Loyalty?

SK: Employee Loyalty is a mindset. It means the employee always tries to do the right thing for the company. We believe that starts by doing the right thing for the customer.

RY: You place the customer ahead of the company?

SK: Yes, in a sense. Being as fair as possible with the customer means that customer will always be around. We're actually seeking a “win-win,” where the organization and the customer both benefit fairly. That usually means concentrating on what the customer needs first, and the employee has to have the authority to take care of the customer.

RY: So what kind of things do you do institutionally to reinforce this employee mindset?

SK: I'll give you an example. In my organizations past, I have implemented something I call “E3” awards. E3 stands for “Employees Excel Everywhere,” and is a program aimed at reinforcing the behavior that creates the desired results. In this case we look at customer satisfaction.

The way it works is that we put a survey process in place to proactively measure the results we deliver to the customer. When a customer responds they are satisfied that we've fully delivered what we've promised, the teams and employees responsible for that satisfaction get recognized. Please note that it is important that this customer satisfaction be achieved while meeting the financial targets of the company. It is easy to have high customer satisfaction while giving away the store!

RY: So you don't just have the process, you measure the results of the process, and then reward based on the results. None of these components work very well in isolation, do they?

SK: Well, as a matter of fact, I've seen the execution of the concept go very wrong when things haven't been put together well. With a previous employer, a division other than mine had heard we got great results by “listening to the customer.” So they started calling their customers. That's all, just calling and asking how the customer liked the service. They did not integrate this listening exercise with a reward system, and with a system to improve the process. They missed the point entirely, and they created few tangible results for their efforts.

RY: So the linking of process, results, and reward embeds the process into your culture. It highlights accountability in a very positive way. What is another way our readers can engender Employee Loyalty in their organizations?

SK: I'd say they should consider implementing programs through which employees can propose ideas for improvement and have their ideas reviewed in an open process. Wouldn't it be wonderful if ideas got to the top quickly? Of course, you should design recognition for this activity as well.

RY: Are there any other specific kinds of empowerment you would like to see organizations adopt?

SK: One program we tried with great success was called M3—Monday Meeting madness. In this implementation, we designated a meeting day, once a week, so that individual employees could raise concerns, improve processes, fix systematic problems, or seek management attention for projects in trouble. If you allow anyone to call a meeting on this designated day, it ensures empowerment. Of course, part of the process is an important business rule: Everyone has to keep their calendar free of other kinds of meetings that day, and no one can turn down an employee-requested meeting if the time slot is open.

I have seen this one technique produce amazing results in the attitudes and effectiveness of employees. As in everything else, it must be implemented consistently and the rules adhered to passionately. Most importantly, the M3 program allowed problems to be fixed way before senior managers were even aware of the problems.

RY: How could you ensure that individuals and teams within the organization don't become “siloed”—unable to share and collaborate?

SK: The compensation packages must be tied to the success of the organization. You have to assign a component of compensation to the results of the employee's immediate team for an individual to feel like they have an impact on the outcome. But you can assign a much larger percentage on the success of the larger organization and the progress toward key organizational goals. This fosters the kind of one-for-all and all-for-one spirit that the organization needs to succeed as a whole.

RY: Is just putting that in place going to be enough?

SK: No. The managers and leaders must constantly champion the organization's culture of customer orientation, open communication, no silos, “we're all in this together,” etc. Reinforce this in employee reviews, everyday conversations, monthly operations meetings, and in special all-hands meetings you call twice a year.

RY: To summarize, then, you foster Employee Loyalty by tying employee recognition to customer satisfaction, giving employees the power to raise concerns to management on a very regular basis, repeating a consistent message, and linking monetary reward to the results the company needs as a whole. Now we're coming up to the sixth and final step.

SK: Yes, next time we'll talk about Communication. Properly defined and executed, it is the glue that holds the entire process together.

© 2002 M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas and Sunil “Skip” Kapur
InterDimension Strategies Inc.

LONG post, Airlines and Customer Service 101—someone slept through the first class

2002-10-23T22:06:00.000-05:00

It never ceases to amaze me when I see poor customer service actually built into the way a large organization operates. Case-in-point: the abysmal customer service processes employed by airlines. Since January 7, 2002, I've flown almost every week on a commuter “service” owned by a major travel services company out of Dallas, Texas. If what I've experienced is typical, it's no wonder the industry is in trouble.

The airlines suffered a downturn even before 9/11. The resulting economy can certainly be blamed for part of the problem, but things were amiss even before the infamous 2001 attacks in New York and Washington. Have you ever experienced a flight delay of any magnitude when you're trying to use the airlines? Let me tell you, it's not getting any better—it's getting worse.

Scary Example—just in time for Halloween

On the afternoon/evening of Sunday, October 27, 2002, I saw some of the worst of what the airlines have to offer. Mechanical and weather problems put the gate staff in a position that they only made worse by the way they repeatedly set and fell short of the expectations of waiting passengers. By the time it was all over, almost five hours later, the crowd had turned into a rabble and security had to be called. Customers were literally shouting at the gate agents, sometimes even en masse, ala a 70s protest march. Gate agents were walking away from customers, saying “I don't have to take this…” and, “…I only make $11.00 an hour.”

The whole ugly scene could have been diffused by better internal communication between gate agents, operations, and maintenance, and—most of all—by a few very minor changes in setting customer expectations. The changes would not cost the airline anything, and would keep customers coming back. Instead, customers are chased into the waiting arms of better run airlines such as Southwest and Midwest Express whenever there is an option.

The Juicy Details

So what happened? How could an everyday situation go so completely awry?

First, the scenario. Our story begins at DFW Airport, where flights arrive and depart from a main terminal and a nearby satellite building. Most of these flights go to smaller markets such as Grand Rapids, Lubbock, Milwaukee, College Station, Shreveport, etc. When there is enough room, aircraft pull right up to one of the terminals. Other planes park somewhere on the tarmac and load/unload passengers that the airlines transport to and from the terminal by bus. This situation is decidedly messy because only experienced passengers know if they are getting directly onto the plane, on a bus to the plane, or a bus to the satellite terminal. The gate agents are already at a disadvantage because people in this situation feel like cattle, and resent it.

As I mentioned earlier, this night two problems were deviling the staff: maintenance and weather delays. Those who travel infrequently can get pretty upset by these problems alone, because they don't understand the airlines' limitations. At least weather delays are totally out of the hands of the airlines, and just simply can't be helped. Maintenance problems are a less cut-and-dried. They can be caused by equipment manufacturers, old worn-out planes, new unproven planes, poorly managed maintenance programs, parts unavailability, and a host of other complications—up-to-and-including Airworthiness Directives from the FAA that can ground a whole fleet.

This particular day, a cadence appeared to be setting up:

Planes would arrive late, mostly due to weather
A boarding time would be announced to waiting passengers, now excited with anticipation
An announcement would then follow telling the passengers the plane had to go to the hangar for maintenance
Passengers would be informed that they would receive an update at a specified time and that no one should leave the gate area
The specified time would come and go with no announcement
Passengers would approach the gate agents for an update, only to be scolded with the terse statement “we're busy, we'll tell you when we know something, please sit down and wait”
Two to three infrequent announcements would be made promising new update times
Repeat steps 5, 6, and 7, until…
The flight would board or be cancelled

Several more incidents were thrown into the mix to make it even more interesting. In at least two cases, passengers were taken out to a plane on the tarmac, only to be brought back to the terminal because a maintenance problem was discovered during a “safety check.” At one point late in the repetition of the above sequence for my flight to Milwaukee, a gate agent got on the intercom and said, “Maintenance has told me not to call them back for another 15 minutes. I will dial them in exactly 14 minutes and 59 seconds, and I'll let you know what I find out.” In true form, the agent did not call maintenance and make an announcement when promised, and 10 minutes after the promised announcement time, almost five hours after the scheduled departure, the flight information disappeared from the gate television monitor.

“Our flight's been cancelled,” I said to my fellow would-be passengers.

“They wouldn't do that,” someone next to me said.

They would. And they did.

Every Mistake in the Book

At this point, anything agents could offer passengers would be too little, too late. What followed was a series of text-book examples of how to make a bad situation worse.

Angry people were offered hotel rooms and transport to their rooms. No one would be provided transport vouchers to get them back to their friends, relatives, or homes in the area.
Bags would not be retrieved—though everyone believed the plane was presumably still on the ramp and accessible.
One hundred dollar vouchers were offered to people, who now considered it an insult. By now it was like giving someone $20 for running over their dog.
Meal vouchers were offered that couldn't be used because restaurants in the area were now closed (everyone was now starving, because they were glued to the gate for nearly five hours).
Customers waiting in line at the gate for re-booking were redirected to another gate next door. The agents at that gate initially would not perform re-bookings because no official announcement had been made over the intercom (everyone else on the planet now knew the flight was cancelled).
When they were finally re-booked, passengers were placed on the first flight for the next day, which was already drastically overbooked. Many were told they had confirmed seats, but on checking later that night with reservations, I personally only had a confirmed ticket, not a confirmed seat. I got one then, but there were only two left on the entire plane.
For my own personal situation, I got out my “Platinum” frequent flyer card. On the back is listed a Platinum “Hot-Line.” Expecting to be able to turn to an advocate in my plight, I called the number and reached a person who could only handle reservations and could not take or pass-on a complaint. I was directed to hang up and call a number—not a toll-free number—where a customer care specialist could help me…except they were closed until the next morning.

Angry passengers literally stormed out of the area, screaming at gate agents. At least one gate agent told a woman, “I don't have to take this cr*p,” and left the desk to hide behind a pillar. Another agent said, “don't yell at me, I only make $11 an hour.”

Policy and Process Fixes

There are a few things that gate personnel could do, if they were trained and informed, that could help diffuse a scene like this before it even happens. First, they have to understand that every move they make is going to contribute to a snowball effect. There is no way to predict that they're going to have one of these nights, but they have to make sure their everyday actions are not going to help one come about.

Then,

Announcements concerning weather delays can be blamed on FAA regulations, which would be true in almost all cases. “The flight has been [delayed/cancelled] because conditions at the [destination/this] airport are unsafe for landings and take-offs, and have exceeded the limitations of FAA regulations. We apologize, as these are circumstances beyond our control.”
Every promised announcement must be made, and at the promised time, even if it is to say, “We promised to make an announcement at this time. Maintenance is still trying to fix the problem and has no further update for us. We'll make an announcement in 25 minutes to let you know if we've learned anything new.” This maintains the credibility of the gate agents, who at least don't lie about the coming announcement. This was the single biggest “running mistake” made by the agents on this particular night. When it was all over, the customers believed that everyone associated with the airline was a liar-an impossible situation when you now have to get everyone calmed down and rebooked. If agents can't keep track of the time, supply them with 5-10 kitchen timers at the gate desk. Give them a grease pencil to mark the flight number on the timer, then have them set the timer for each instance that they promise an announcement “25 minutes from now.” Give them authority to break away from a customer momentarily to make an announcement when the timer rings.
Make one person responsible for all announcements on a given flight. Make sure they are empowered to make this a priority, so they aren't away from the gate chasing down another problem when announcement times come. This helps customers feel that someone is responsible and tracking the problem closely.
If the plane's status remains indeterminate, give gate agents the authority to allow people to leave the gate while you hold the flight for a given time. If customers have been stranded at the gate for an hour-and-a-half or two hours (decide when a reasonable threshold time is), let them have an hour and 15 minutes to leave the gate for food and hold boarding until that time is up. Tell them the risk of returning late (missing the flight), pledge to have an announcement when they return and that you won't start boarding until that time. Require flight operations and gate agents to coordinate for departure “slots” in the flight schedules.

Summary

I am sure there are plenty of rules that would make the preceding difficult to implement. Sometimes the point arrives when a company-and perhaps a whole industry-needs to reassess. Perhaps the rules are stupid rules, and they need to be changed.

For certain, we airline patrons are desperate for something to change that will improve our plight. But then what do I know, I'm just a “pesky customer.”

As a parting word, I have come to one great realization that I think is important to share with you: God created airlines and teenagers just to remind us that, in life, we can't control everything.

© 2002 M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas
InterDimension Strategies Inc.

Step Four: Achieve Customer Loyalty

2002-09-29T03:36:00.000-05:00

NOTE: Skip Kapur and I continue our conversation about Six Steps to High Performance. Mr. Kapur’s methodology transforms a business to utilize his proven high-performance model. Step Four addresses Customer Satisfaction.

—M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas, Process Effectiveness Consultant

“We ask customers for their experiences. We respond to individual feedback and to the patterns we see in the overall data. We use statistically sound sampling techniques to collect feedback in a cost-effective manner. We also discuss and introduce customer-driven demand management. Who better to prioritize than the customer?”

—Skip Kapur

RY: What is Customer Satisfaction?

SK: In its simplest form, Customer Satisfaction is the result you achieve when you say what you’re going to do, and then do it. It can be as simple as meeting an implied promise, or as complex as fulfilling a well-articulated Service Level Agreement. The key is to set the customer’s expectation, then meet or exceed it.

It may, however, not be as simple as it sounds. For one thing, you have to spend a lot of time and energy making sure that the Customer expects what you think they expect.

RY: How do you measure Customer Satisfaction?

SK: First, you measure how well you meet the promise that you’ve made. Then you ask the customer if they’re satisfied with the results. You ask the customer to tell you how they feel, because they may not perceive that you have met your promise. You must ensure that they know how you’re doing against what you pledged to deliver. You have to make sure that the metrics you use will fully demonstrate what you need to show to the customer. To achieve Customer Satisfaction, they will have to have accepted what you’re telling them.

You measure Customer Satisfaction by a survey. You make sure the survey questions tie directly to what you have promised to deliver. It is advisable that the survey questions stay the same from measurement-period-to-measurement-period, so you can get a sense of progress or digress.

RY: Why is it so important to measure it?

SK: It’s easy to tell whether or not you made your “numbers”—the goal you set out to fulfill. It is not easy to understand the customer’s perception without listening to them. For one, they may not have the same understanding of fulfillment that you do. Additionally, there is always the possibility that you, your sales staff, or support people, didn’t understand the requirements of the customer. This kind of listening gives you an opportunity to either reset expectations or adjust your own performance to give the customer the results they need.

RY: When developing the customer survey, how do you know what to measure?

SK: You measure Customer Satisfaction for every core process that you’ve identified.

RY: If you measure Customer Satisfaction for every core process, then every core process must create results for the customer. Is this what they call “Customer Facing”?

SK: Yes, when your processes are oriented toward meeting your customer’s needs, you are a “Customer Facing Organization.” This is one of the most important characteristics of an organization that remains consistently successful, an organization that demonstrates high performance.

RY: How do you make the analysis process part of your monthly operations review?

SK: You make the results part of the organization’s Balanced Scorecard. In your monthly operations review, you place emphasis on how the organization is meeting Customers’ needs and how they are responding. You look for trouble-spots and you solicit assistance from your extended team to improve in these areas. You make action lists and you assign those actions with deadlines, on-the-spot.

RY: What are some examples of actions you could take to improve Customer Satisfaction?

SK: It would often come in response to a problem discovered in the Customer Satisfaction Survey that you implement on a regular basis.

Let’s say you’re delivering LAN/WAN services to a group of users. You notice no problems with “uptime,” but the Customer is complaining that the system goes down periodically. A little more investigation might show that you have planned downtime late at night, and some on the weekends, for maintenance purposes. This shouldn’t count against you, but for some reason the customer doesn’t understand the Service Level Agreement.

At this point, you have several choices. 1) You can make sure the Customer understands what they’re paying for, and that planned downtime is just what it says and should be expected, or 2) You can sell the customer a higher level of service to meet their higher level of need. Either way, you’ll help them understand that there is a cost associated with 100% uptime, and that they will have to weigh the benefits against the expenditure. In any case, this conversation should happen quickly, to keep it from dragging on and becoming worse.

RY: How do you build responsiveness into the Customer Satisfaction process?

SK: Among other things, you make Customer Satisfaction part of the compensation package—for everyone. It is one way to ensure that your people are going to try their best to quickly create good results for the Customer.

RY: How does Customer Satisfaction relate to Employee Satisfaction?

SK: It’s a two-way street. Satisfied employees tend to improve the chances that you have satisfied customers. In our next interview, I’ll show you how to make it work the other way around-how satisfied customers can breed satisfied employees.

© 2002 Sunil “Skip” Kapur and M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas
InterDimension Strategies Inc.

Step Three: Put Processes at the Center

2002-08-27T23:57:00.000-05:00

NOTE: We return to our conversation with Skip Kapur about the Six Steps to High Performance. Mr. Kapur's methodology transforms a business to utilize his proven high-performance model. Step three concentrates on process.

—M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas, Process Effectiveness Consultant

“Processes—define them, design them, document them, train people on them, measure them, and improve them. Make them part of your culture.”

—Skip Kapur

RY: What does it mean for an organization to be “process-centric”?

SK: To be process-centric is to put definition, design, support, execution and measurement of your processes and their results at the center of what you do.

RY: What are “core processes”?

SK: They are the repetitive activities that enable you to meet your customers' needs. They are what you do best, and are probably the reason customers keep coming back to you. They are proven, repeatable, and you support them as an organization.

RY: Why is process-centricity so crucial to your Six Steps methodology?

SK: Not only do processes support consistent delivery of services, but without them it's difficult to tell why you're performing well or not. It's like driving a car with gauges that aren't hooked up to anything. You can tell you're moving, but you don't know how far, how fast, or how healthy the vehicle is.

RY: So process is also central to getting results out of your methodology?

SK: Yes. Being process centric minimizes reorganizations. People focus on the work and the customer, rather than upwards. It leads to high business performance, reduces line organization conflict, and increases customer and employee satisfaction. It will make management's job easier.

RY: You're advertising a lot of benefits! How can processes make such a difference?

SK: So many companies employ a slew of people who go to the office every day and throw themselves at the work. They toil until they can work no more and go home exhausted. Neither they, nor their managers, ever take time to set the priorities of the work that has to be done. Are the right things getting taken care of first? Are we doing them in the most effective manner? Are we measuring our effectiveness in any way so we can make improvements?
Well designed processes help you set the priorities and approach the work more thoughtfully and effectively. Then they ensure the work is done consistently.

RY: Can you give an example?

SK: An example would be the most chaotic situation that I can think of: a hospital emergency room. Yet with all of that chaos, processes are absolutely at the core-starting with triage. Triage is the thoughtful consideration of the work that lies ahead of the surgical team. Before anything else, they answer the question “Who goes first?” After executing that process-setting their priorities-all of the other medical processes and procedures kick in. Everything is modularized and procedural-ized to orchestrate what happens, and the results are usually pretty good.

RY: You say that process-centricity should be part of your culture. What do you mean?

SK: The organization should talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk. Not only do you have processes, but you track the results. Then you reward based on the results, further reinforcing the processes. In the next two interviews, we'll talk about just how this kind of reinforcement impacts customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction.

© 2002 Sunil “Skip” Kapur and M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas
InterDimension Strategies Inc.

Step Two:Strategy and Execution—Using Balanced Scorecard Effectively

2002-07-20T01:51:00.000-05:00

NOTE: We continue our conversation with Skip Kapur about turning a business into a high performance organization. Mr. Kapur's methodology uses six steps to transform a business to use his proven high performance model. Step two ties measurement to results.

—M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas, Process Effectiveness Consultant

“In step 2, the management team develops a clear scorecard that defines success.”

—Skip Kapur

RY: This time we're going to talk about “executing with excellence.” In our first article about the Six Steps to High Performance, you talked about the Balanced Scorecard approach. Tell our readers what it is.

SK: A Balanced Scorecard is essentially a report card. It is a way to monitor multiple dimensions of your organization's operations and results—instead of just concentrating on financial performance. You use the Balanced Scorecard process to take a snapshot of your performance within a regular cycle, such as once-a-month. Then you use that information to influence the behavior within—and results produced by—the organization.

RY: So what dimensions should an organization monitor?

SK: There are five dimensions:

People
Processes
Customers
Finance
Innovation

You have to go through a process to determine what specifics you need to pay attention to in your own business. It is important that you pay attention to all of these dimensions and how they affect each other— otherwise, you may have a scorecard but it's not a Balanced Scorecard.

RY: What process would you use to determine the scoring categories within those five dimensions?

SK: I'd set aside one-and-a-half to three days for a Business Planning Session with the Management Team (see last month's article), and make sure that only the Management Team is in attendance. One member would act as facilitator—and this should never be the organization's leader. At this session, I'd work to develop consensus on fundamental principles:

The organization's purpose: Why does it exist? What is its competitive advantage?

The organization's business model: Do we sell time, products, or both? As an alternative, what products and services do we provide, and what is the pricing model for each.

The customers: Define who we serve. Segment them if appropriate.
Core processes: What is at the heart of why customers come to us, and not someone else?
Once I had laid the groundwork (using approximately 1/3 of the planned time for the session), I would determine the following:

The top seven (or so) goals that we would want to accomplish over the next year. We would specify the goal, describe the strategy we would use to attain the goal, and state what measurable result we seek to attain for the that goal.

RY: So what is the outcome of all that work?

SK: By the time we get through all of the steps above, we've essentially created the framework for our Balanced Scorecard. At this point, we would have between seven and 15 measures (I emphasize we seek to monitor results, not activities). There may be more measures than goals because there may be more than one measure for each goal.

RY: You can measure many things in a business. What makes this approach any more effective?

SK: In my experience, I've seen measurements misused more than I've seen them used properly. I cannot overstate the importance of defining the correct measurements by which you will judge business performance, make management decisions, and provide bonuses and other performance-based compensation.

RY: So you aren't just measuring performance, you are rewarding based on the measurements—based on results?

SK: Yes. If you use the right measurements, you direct the behavior, and achieve the results you desire. Use clear and correct measurements, tie them to compensation, and your organization will travel to success along the shortest possible path—a straight line.

RY: And when people see the results that they are being rewarded for, they'll probably do everything they can to ensure the results are good—like striving for customer satisfaction, more consistent uptime, etc.?

SK: Exactly. It becomes a feedback loop. When I measure my results, I will make decisions or work in ways to improve the results. When I see results improve, I know what it takes to make them better yet.

© 2002 Sunil “Skip” Kapur and M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas
InterDimension Strategies Inc.

Step One: Are we a management team?

2002-06-30T01:47:00.000-05:00

NOTE: Last month I published a conversation with Skip Kapur about turning a business into a high performance organization. This month we continue the discussion, but we're going further in-depth to explore more of the nuances. Mr. Kapur's methodology uses six steps to transform a business to use his proven high performance model. The first starts at the top—your leader and your management “team.” Read on…

—M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas, Process Effectiveness Consultant

“In step 1, you have to answer the question, ‘Are we a management team or are we a collection of department heads that report to the same person?’”—Skip Kapur

RY: I suppose a management team starts with its leadership. Where does a leader begin?

SK: First, they understand there is a difference between management and leadership. Management is concerned more with execution, paying attention to getting the work done. Leadership is more visionary and nurturing, helping to craft the long-term view and steering in that direction.
Excellent leaders have some fundamental responsibilities. The first is to build a management team that they can count on. From the very first day they have to build this team—not the best players, but the players who best play together. A management team, by its very definition, must be composed of people who all have input to developing the business solutions and decisions at hand.

RY: What is the difference between a management team, and a “bunch of department heads” that report to a single person?

SK: A team is a group of individuals focused on a common goal. An effective team is small—three to seven people—and is consensus driven. It has clear roles, and everyone on the team acknowledges those roles. The leader knows clearly that he or she is never the owner of initiatives, and ensures that the true owner of each initiative is established and recognized by all.

Your team must be carefully selected and must include a mixture of people with complementary strengths. Some are operational, some are strategic, and some are people oriented. True leaders strive to make sure that all significant decisions are made through consensus resulting from a shared input from the team members.

RY: What are some other signs of a good leader?

SK: When a leader recruits new members to their team, they won't just interview and select. They make sure that all existing members have a voice in the selection of the new member. Each new member changes the dynamics of an existing team, for better or for worse.

Maintaining a management team is a continuous affair. You have to make sure that the right people are on the team at all times. You have to have the guts to drop people from time to time. The number one reason for dropping a person is because of their inability to work as part of the team. The number two reason for dropping a person is because they're not carrying their weight. A good leader tries at all costs to define the roles on the management team based upon the competencies of the people, rather than trying to fit people in tightly pre-defined slots. These are tough and insightful decisions that a good leader can make.

RY: Where do Vision and Mission come in? What roles do these concepts play in this scenario?

SK: Vision really falls in the leader's realm. The leader must be enough of a visionary to articulate a vision, but also enough of a manager to carry it through to fruition. The Vision tells us where we ultimately want to be, and the leader must identify a clear owner for major initiatives, hold the owners accountable, and help remove obstacles.

The Mission focuses the organization more explicitly on what it is doing now. Being more tactical in nature, it directly involves the team in its initial formulation and execution.

RY: At the management team level, how does discipline play a role?

SK: If you really have a management team, getting people to participate is a non-issue. The team is a forum where they can get help from their peers and boss. The environment is safe and secure, not cutthroat. Meetings are typically short, held regularly (two or three times a week). The discipline of regular meetings, participation, etc., ensures that everyone gives input. This input is not passive or suggested, it is required to be a part of the team. It is not acceptable to have a team member who regularly misses their participation in the team.

RY: Is there a process to achieve “buy-in” and alignment within the management team? What do you do with holdouts?

SK: Buy-in to the management team philosophy is essential. But if a member of the team is not already bought into the concept, and the role they play within it, they have no business being there. Again, t he key is to construct the team of individuals who will take their role seriously. “Developing” buy-in is not a problem because the hold-outs are asked to leave, or are not hired in the first place.

RY: So, there is a difference between leadership and management, and the leader must be comfortable with both. The most effective team is a consensus-driven group of three to seven people, each with clear roles, operating in an environment of openness, customer focus, teamwork, and with a long term perspective. Did I sum that up right?

SK: Yes, and the leader must have the vision (leadership) to see the long term, and the discipline to carry it out (management)—the ability to continue to aim for the goal and not abandon it because something the team tried didn't work out. It takes time before the team reaches a point where it can excel.

RY: So what will we talk about next time?

SK: We've set the stage. Next time we' ll talk about how to execute in a very disciplined manner. Now that you have this great team—and a mindset—we' ll learn how to execute with excellence.

© 2002 Sunil “Skip” Kapur and M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas
InterDimension Strategies Inc.

Six Steps to High Performance

2002-05-11T21:44:00.000-05:00

NOTE: I have worked numerous consulting engagements with my colleague, Sunil “Skip” Kapur, collaborating with him on improving Business processes, implementing an organizational Balanced Scorecard, applying for an internal Malcolm Baldrige award and improving project performance by using the Enterprise Project Office concept. I want to share Skip's remarkable organizational paradigm with you. His approach takes the best lessons from Six Sigma, Total Quality Management and ISO9000, and applies them in a common sense way to get impressive results—results he's delivered for several large organizations in the U.S., Malaysia, Sweden, and Mexico. Here I present the high points of what he has to say about turning businesses into “high performance” organizations.

RY: As I've worked with you, we've often talked about how enterprises have to utilize IT effectively to meet the needs of the customer. Why doesn't IT do a better job in fulfilling this mission?

SK: As a senior IT executive, you always find yourself reacting to events, and you have the feeling that not everyone focuses on the right priorities. There's constant discord between applications and the infrastructure units, and their inability to serve the customer. The discord is caused by the fact that these entities are functionally designed organizations without any kind of “process centric” thinking that's focused on the customer. If they were asked, your customers would probably say your team is too slow, too expensive and too technical.

RY: You have developed a very effective methodology over the last ten years that uses six key steps to position IT to serve the customer and achieve sustained success. I see this as a breakthrough. Can you tell us about it?

SK: The Six Steps to High Performance methodology allows the management team of any IT unit to systematically transform itself into a high performance organization, creating dramatic results for the company. It is a rewarding journey that creates a winning team and makes life easier for all concerned.

RY: I know that it's challenging to distill things into a nutshell without oversimplifying, but can you give us a quick sketch of what the six steps are and what each achieves for the organization?

SK: Sure…let me give you an overview of each.

In step 1, you have to answer the question, “Are we a management team or are we a collection of department heads that report to the same person?” While each management team is unique, there is a set of characteristics that all great management teams possess. In this step you identify and overcome your team's shortcomings.

In step 2, the management team develops a clear scorecard that defines success. This scorecard covers all dimensions of the business (employees, processes, customers, and financial performance), where you clearly define measures and targets. The whole team ties its future together by agreeing to link its compensation plan directly to the team's success as defined in the scorecard. The scorecard is deployed at least three levels down through the organization. This allows the management team to build an aligned organization—it enables every team to see how they contribute to the organization's success. You will be surprised at how much your current lack of alignment costs you.

In step 3, we implement the core processes and consider instituting a project office. In this “process-centric organization,” core processes are designed and implemented cross-functionally, and continuously improved. Each process begins and ends with the customer. When you are process-centric, you focus on the customer, not the internal organization. It reduces pressures to constantly reorganize, and leads to the general feeling that “things work around here.” Your current function-driven organization causes great inefficiencies and conflict.

In step 4, we ask customers for their experiences. We respond to individual feedback and to the patterns we see in the overall data. We use statistically sound sampling techniques to collect feedback in a cost-effective manner. We also discuss and introduce customer-driven demand management. Who better to prioritize than the customer?

In step 5, we directly link employee recognition to customer satisfaction. When a project concludes and the customer experience has been positive, we feed recognition back to the employees who made the success possible. We also consider implementing programs through which employees can propose ideas for improvement and have their ideas reviewed in an open process. Wouldn't it be wonderful if ideas got to the top quickly?

Step 6 is communication. More than merely a step, it is really an all-encompassing function that starts toward the end of Step 1, and runs in parallel with all the remaining steps. From the very beginning, we inform our employees about where we are in our journey towards high performance. By communicating with them throughout the process, we build trust and commitment.

RY: I know you've gotten tremendous results with this approach under a variety of circumstances. I also know it takes a lot of commitment to make it happen. From a philosophical standpoint, what did you base your methodology on, how did you arrive at this way of doing things?

SK: First, I realized that there is no “magic bullet”—one place you can focus—that will solve all of your business problems. I took a holistic approach involving people, processes, and technology. Second, improving organizational performance means bringing about change. A lot of leaders want the benefits of change without going through the process of bringing it about. I have found that only leaders who understand change is involved, and that this change can actually be fun, are able to pull it off.

A methodology of this kind is best carried out by exceptional people at the top. Since implementation of the methodology is key, it requires leadership and vision. Then you only need the guidance of someone who has been there, and has seen that things can get better—much better!

RY: Does this approach apply to businesses other than IT and technology related organizations?

SK: IT is my expertise, but I know this can work for almost any organization that has the leadership to carry it out. The approach is based on fundamental principals that work everywhere.

© 2002 Sunil “Skip” Kapur and M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas
InterDimension Strategies Inc.

New Discovery in the World of Science (old discovery in the world of business)

2002-03-20T22:14:00.000-06:00

A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. This new element has been tentatively named “Administratium.”

Administratium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 111 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by a force called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since Administratium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Administratium causes one reaction to take over 4 days to complete when it would normally take only a few minutes.

Administratium has a normal half-life of 3 years; it does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganization, in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons and assistant deputy neutrons exchange places, and additional peons are added. In fact, Administratium's mass will actually increase over time, since eachreorganization causes some morons to become neutrons forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Administratium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration.

This hypothetical quantity is referred to as “Critical Morass.” You will know it when you see it.

—Annonymous

Projects and proven, repeatable processes

2002-02-25T21:58:00.000-06:00

The Project Management Institute (PMI) defines a project as an effort that happens once, not repetitively. So how can proven, repeatable processes be applied to something that only happens once? The answer is the project management process.

A project—from building a house, to building that new whiz-bang business application—takes place on at least two levels:

The actual work being done
The administration of the work

At the administration level, a number of activities take place throughout the project. Some can be cyclical, such as progress and status reporting. Reporting takes place on a regular basis to keep all of the stakeholders informed of how the project is going, and whether they need to take action to keep in on track. Some activities are triggered by events, including changes in scope, changes in design, or issues that arise. And speaking of issues, a project can live and die by how well the project manager tracks issues and revisits them on a cyclical basis.

Good project managers handle all of the aforementioned activities using predefined processes. These processes involve the implementers and stakeholders, get the right information communicated, and lead to effective decisions. Projects almost always involve groups of people that don’t “speak the same language.” I’m sure many of you have seen miscommunication between Business and Information Technology departments. The project manager must facilitate communication between these two entities, and most of the project management activities involve facilitation of information exchange, including Issue Tracking, Change Management, Scope Control, and Status Reporting.

In addition, there are “clusters of activities,” such as Planning, Design, Construction, Testing and Implementation. Each activity carries its own set of walk-throughs and sign-offs that the project manager must schedule and administer.

Project managers can gain some of their best experience in the consulting world. Because consulting companies go from client to client, they have to learn particularly strong project communication skills. Their methodologies stress communication between the client and the consulting teams at every point. When an internal Information Technologies department develops an application for another department in the same company, they would do well to employ the same kind of methodologies. I have seen even small projects become horribly expensive because no one took the time to even use the basics:

Write down and gain agreement on the business requirements
Hold the design to the original scope
Use change management
Track and resolve issues
Activities like those above keep the project from being like changing a tire on a moving car.

Any project will have its share of surprises and fire-fighting. Having pre-designed processes in place for projects has the same effect that it does for business in general: it frees people’s energy up for the really difficult problem-solving. The project manager and project management team won’t have to waste time inventing ways to administer the project because that part of the thinking is already done.

Project management isn’t about absolute control. It’s more like “herding butterflies.” Over the next few months, I will introduce more project management concepts. On the docket so far is the Project/Program Office and Rational Unified Process (RUP). My aim is to give you a few ideas to help you keep the herd “heading west.”

© 2002 M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas
InterDimension Strategies Inc.

New Year's Resolution—set yourself up for success

2002-01-03T12:37:00.000-06:00

When business picks back up for your industry, are you going to be ready? What can you do during slow times to maximize the inevitable better times that will come, someday.

This year we find ourselves in exceptionally uncertain times. For most of us, we always experience slow going in the last quarter, but 2001 was downright painful. Still, we can see hopeful signs. Jobless claims seem to leveling out, consumers are trying to spend money on new homes and holiday gifts, and travel is picking back up. In some cases, corporations are actually investing, but they’re investing in new places—such as network security and teleconferencing capabilities. Gas is inexpensive, money is cheap to borrow, and the stock market is presenting some good bargains. However long it takes to happen, we are poised for some good stuff.

What are you doing right now as an organizational leader? It’s fine to focus on strategy, but at some point strategy has to join up with tactics to make anything happen. Consider your business processes to make strategies and tactics connect. Right now is a good time to make sure that strategically you are working on the right things and that tactically you are doing those things effectively. For good measure you might even develop some plans for how your strategies and tactics will change depending on how our future develops. Shake off the shock; it’s time to get busy.

Here are just a few strategic areas to look at in your business, along with related tactical issues to consider. If you haven’t thought about these in a while, it’s time.

Management Processes

A lot of companies are managed from day-to-day. What is the fire we have to put out, what’s the big order, what’s the big crisis? In contrast, disciplined business put some tactical processes in place that set up scheduled, recurring activities to address things ahead of time. Are you, on a regular basis, working on the following with you teams?:

Strategic planning
Business planning
Market planning
Profit/loss review
Project planning

For each of these strategic areas, do you have a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or semi-annual review and/or reporting process, including holding meetings and developing action items? Who have you assigned to drive each of these areas? Do you have a process in place to ensure that decisions are communicated throughout the company? Does the echelon below you know your business goals for the year? Have they developed goals to support you? Has the echelon below them established supporting goals? Does this chain of supporting goals extend all the way from the top to the bottom of the organization?

Sales Processes

People don’t often think of sales as process driven, but they are. We all know that transaction-based sales is a numbers game, utilizing the famous funnel: x number of calls = y number of appointments = z number of sales, or something like that. Here are a few comments on sales processes:

Structured selling - How many calls does it take to generate a sale in your business? Are you tracking this? Do you know which sales reps are doing well and which need development? Processes combined with results tracking could help you figure it out.
Opportunity review - Are you trying to land every opportunity, even when it isn’t good business? What is the review process that helps your staff know what kinds of opportunities you want to go after? Maybe the business isn’t even worth bidding on, but if the sales process doesn’t require any management review at predefined stages of the sales process, you won’t know.
Opportunity tracking - Do you have anything in place to track hot opportunities? Is it centralized in any way? Can the sales manager put their hands on the information quickly? It could pay off handsomely to know when to put the push on a mature opportunity, if we knew it was a mature opportunity.
Compensation - Don’t mess around with this, because it can backfire. As soon as possible in the year, your sales staff needs to know how they will be compensated for sales. Further, how do you compensate for “team sales” where two reps accidentally work on the same client? You better have this plan worked out ahead of time, because it’s a bear to come up with it on the fly when everyone is angry.
Order processing - Is it an order for new business, an order to support something we already sold, the tip of an iceberg? When an order comes in, now does it get scrutinized, approved, assigned, and delivered (more about delivery later)?

Marketing Processes

Marketing? Isn’t that the same as sales? Not really. Marketing is more akin to advertising. It is putting your business in the place of being recognized in your field, so when people need services like yours they will naturally think of (or discover) you.

Leads generation - Do you have anything in place to help feed warm leads to your sales reps? Have you identified trade shows, society conventions, promotional events, etc., to gather names of people and businesses that are interested in your services? Can you set up a team with a process to run such efforts like a well-oiled machine, or will you and your marketing team be constantly reinventing the wheel?
Market positioning - Do you have any processes in place to constantly put yourself in front of your clients and prospective clients? This could include everything from expensive advertising on a weekly basis in newspaper, TV, and radio ads, to something as inexpensive as a regularly scheduled online newsletter broadcast to an email list. Whatever you use, make sure that your clients and prospects hear that you are the experts in your field, and that they hear it on a very regular basis. A steady, repetitive approach works better than catch-as-catch-can.
Benchmarking - This can mean a lot of things, but what I want you to find out here is how you compare to your competitors. “We don’t have any competitors,” is not a good answer. You are in an industry with other organizations that provide solutions to the same customers that you do. What do they do? How much do they charge? What is their level of quality? Who are you up against and in what clients? How can this be a process? Assign someone on your team to read the trade press and report on a weekly or monthly basis. Have them join related professional societies and trades groups. Get plugged in. The alternative is to get surprised when a player in your field figures out how to do a better job than you do for a lower price. The key here is to get the information in digestible form on a very predictable basis. Occasionally you’ll feed some of this information into your strategic business planning processes.

People Processes

If your organization has grown or collapsed in size, it’s probably important to take a hard look at this area.

Hiring/Firing - If you’ve grown much, your hiring and firing practices may now reach a new threshold of scrutiny. Larger businesses have to worry much more about discrimination, Americans with Disabilities Act, etc. If you crossed the line, make sure that your processes are in order and set up to mitigate risks. If you’ve gotten smaller and crossed the threshold the other way, you may want to streamline some of your processes—too much adherence to detail could be more expensive than you can afford, and simply not worth the effort. In either case, make sure the processes are fair—worthy of a review anytime.
Career building - Can people advance in your company? Is there a formal approach to advancement? Processes that establish a career path for employees may very well keep them around longer.
Complaint handling - How do you address grievances in your organization? A formalized and responsive grievance system can reduce the need for a union, alert you to time-bombs in the organization, and keep people more focused on work instead of anger.
Idea gathering/development - Some of the best ideas for your company can be the thousands of incremental and inexpensive ideas that come from employees. A formal recognition program can get more of these great ideas on the table. Make sure it includes a way to gather ideas, review, assign and develop them.
Organization building - Think of “team building,” but on a macro basis. I don’t mean a cheerleading effort. I am referring to a process that trains your people to work together more effectively. Standardized training that helps your people recognize diverse problem-solving and decision-making styles can redirect as much as 40% more energy to productivity. There are a number of effective psychometric tools that can be used for this purpose. One of the best I’ve seen is TimeTyping™ from TimeType Solutions. Their “Decision-making Wheel” does an amazing job of teaching people how to value and utilize each other’s talents.
Re-defining the company after layoffs - If you have collapsed the number of employees, you may have more work to do than your realize. I know several companies that are ready for meltdown as I write this, and the upper echelon doesn’t even know it. Not to keep bringing up TimeType Solutions, but their Rebound program is a process for getting an organization back on track after the massive layoffs we’ve seen.

Delivery Processes

Are you delivering customized services to clients? Make sure you have a process for the usual phases of delivery.

Needs assessment - How do you figure out what the client needs, or more importantly, what will meet their business needs?
Solution design - This can’t be a cookie cutter approach, but you can have checklists and checkpoints to make sure you consistently design winning solutions.
Solution development - Run this part according to Hoyle (“Hoyle” being the Project Management Body of Knowledge, or PMBOK). This is where you can actually schedule what you’re doing, keep the client in the loop, and manage the developers, engineers, programmers, etc., to a schedule. If you don’t have a good Project/Program Office and the Project Manager(s) to go with it, it is time to start looking around.
Customer approval - Do you have standardized documents for customer sign-offs. C’mon, even the local car repair shop does this.
Implementation - Do you have an implementation team that uses proven, repeatable processes in place? It’s time to develop them, or at least review them. Why set yourself up to trip right before the finish line?

It’s Quiet—Too Quiet

If you had been wondering what your team could be working on right now, I hope I’ve given you some ideas. Be keenly aware that we are in a calm, but it is a calm before a storm. We don’t know what kind of storm it will be, a “good” storm or a “bad” storm, but I can guarantee that at some point in the future you will be frantically busy again.

In case you’ve forgotten, you have a bazillion hatches to get battened down before it hits.

The right person for the job—make it a process

2001-10-29T00:31:00.000-06:00

Managers currently face an overwhelming number of applicants for their open positions. How does a person sift through an onslaught of candidates to find the right match? In this month’s article, I’ll introduce you to the concept of psychometrics and even tell you about approaches that can help in your quest to match the person to the job at hand.

In order for psychometrics to make sense, you must generally accept that people, though much the same in basic needs, all have important differences in how they fulfill them. Their orientation to the world drives their motivations, and there are many different orientations.

Some history

Since the early part of the 20th century, the budding sciences of psychiatry and psychology have spawned speculation about personalities. In 1920, Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Carl G. Jung laid much of the groundwork for analyzing personalities and behaviors in the form of temperaments. Jung’s contemporaries largely discarded these ideas and they lay dormant until the 1950s.

At that time, Isabel Myers teamed up with her mother, Katheryn Briggs to piece together the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) based on Jung's work. The MBTI uses a series of questions to determine that a person is one of 16 general personalities. Each of the 16 personality types comes with a description of personal preferences, likely behaviors, risk tendencies, and possible career interests.

How does that help me hire effectively?

In reading over the descriptions of the 16 personality types, you may find several that fit the job that you want to fill. You can then use the MBTI Type Sorter to test candidates for the position and use it as part of the hiring decision. Keep in mind that a successful business track record and other indicators may carry as much weight, or more, than personality type. But the personality type gives you great insight into how the individual will work with other team members and how they will perform over the long haul. In short, you may find out who is a “natural” for the position.

In another approach, you could test employees that currently enjoy great success in their positions. You’ll then know some of the personality types that do well in your environment and you can look for similar personalities when hiring. You’ll find this especially effective when staffing various types of phone banks, help desks, or sales functions—multiple openings for essentially the same job description.

The MBTI is certainly one of the first systems in the field of psychometrics, and is well regarded throughout the world. Other systems have appeared over the years, each with significant validity. These include such tools as Time Typing, Personalysis, SPQ Gold, Salesmax, Customer Contact Styles, HRProfessional, Enneagram Profiler, DISC and DISCUS. Each will tell you about personality, but each looks at the personality from a different viewpoint. Imagine cutting all the way through an orange at different angles and opening it up after each slice—each dissection would show you a different cross-section, but they would all reflect reality.

Click for SIDEBAR: How does a psychometric system work? Time Typing by HumanAge, Inc., explained.

Okay, what’s this got to do with Process Effectiveness?

Not long ago, I asked an acquaintance what he owed his business success to. Not that his business was a success, mind you, but I was playing dumb. His answer: “great people.” That answer always gives me pause, because it indicates no processes. Without process, the business has to have exceptionally smart and personable (expensive) people to survive.

“Okay,” I said, “Do you use a process to ensure that you hire great people?” Sure he did. He told me that he just made sure that three people whose opinion he trusted interviewed the candidate and if they all gave a thumbs-up, it was a hire.

In the ensuing weeks, one of his “great people” badly fumbled some business with me and our joint client. It made me take a look at the qualities and consistency of the people in his office, only to realize that their effectiveness was “iffy” at best. This wasn’t a process, it was a crapshoot.

Seize the Day

At this very moment, businesses can take advantage of the “buyers” market when hiring new employees, and try to get the best fit they can. The current tendency is to concentrate on the candidate’s technical skills, without realizing that success relies on the personality/position profile match just as much as other qualifications, if not more so. Take the whole picture into account, including skills, experience, references, and don’t forget the personality.

A personality profile is not something you can easily determine by intuition or “feel.” A consistent process of measuring a person’s attributes will give you more consistent results in hires that fit their assigned roles and missions. Use one of the aforementioned tools to make sure you have a proven, repeatable process.

The Sapling

John Furey, inventor of Time Typing, illustrates it this way. “About 15 miles inland from the Oregon coast grows a sapling, surrounded by its mother, father, siblings and cousins, each of which has a similar chance of growing into a mighty tree. If we were to take that sapling, uproot it, and plant on a ledge overlooking the sea, it would be destroyed by the first big storm that rolled in. Whose failure would that represent? Would the sapling have failed to thrive, or would we have failed it in planting it in exactly the wrong place to succeed?” This is how most of us unwittingly staff our companies.

© 2001 M. A. "Ryan" Yuhas

Automating Business Processes

2001-09-29T17:25:00.000-05:00

As you know, I’ve devoted a whole book to the many reasons for capturing and analyzing business processes. Certainly one of the most important reasons is to determine which functions within your organization can be effectively computerized and automated.

With the web’s coming of age, opportunities for automation abound. But it takes some savvy to know which processes will bring more money to the bottom line when they’re turned into computer applications.

I recently discovered EcoNet.com, a company that specializes in converting business processes into web-based applications. They also ensure that their level of quality stays consistent by employing a methodology—proven and repeatable processes—a company after my own heart!

According to their website, they were founded in February of 1995 and help clients “exploit web-centric technologies, and acquire competitive advantage in a changing technological marketplace.” The copy goes on, “By integrating service, technology, proprietary software, and confidential business methods, EcoNet.com provides a complete suite of Internet products and services that growing companies must have to compete in ‘The New Economy.’” Among other things, EcoNet.com is also building a reservoir of patentable business methods that differentiate the company.

EcoNet.com serves over 100 clients in a broad range of industries, including The Texas Society of CPAs, VHA On-Line Publications, Muzak, Anadarko (formerly Union Pacific Resources), and UT/Southwestern Medical.

I spoke to EcoNet.com president, David Lissberger. I had first envisioned that they simply placed flowcharts and procedures on websites. No, I quickly understood that they actually convert processes such as billing, ordering, site content management, scheduling and other functions into interactive and automated processes managed through web-based applications.

Translating Your Business Model to the Web

Mr. Lissberger filled me in on the key to successful automation. “If we’re going to move a piece of a client’s business to web-based technology, we have to make sure that their business formula is effectively translated to their presence and applications on the web. We’re going to focus on functionalities that make them successful now, and try to make them even more successful.” To ensure that happens for every client, his team takes a process-driven approach in the form of “to.delta,” the company’s proprietary methodology. “We will make adjustments to the way we do business if our client needs us to, but we can never change the method that ensures our client’s success.”

The “to.delta,” methodology rests on three strategic precepts: Adaptation, Design, and Infrastructure.

Adaptation requires having an understanding of business processes, and which processes offer an opportunity for cost savings or more sales. An organization also has to understand the critical path of their processes—what absolutely has to happen in order for the right outcome to occur? Once these process factors have been analyzed, then you can determine which web-based tools or functionalities will have positive, measurable impacts on the organization.

Design is more than a pretty looking website. The design has to quickly direct the typical user to what they’re after when they visit. Site organization, supporting functionality, and usability combine to make a site design successful. If the user can’t interface with it and get the transaction done, you’ve failed.

Infrastructure has to do with the supporting technology: how your organization’s computers connect to each other and the Internet. From the EcoNet.com website: “Companies that have each of their computers connected on a LAN with a secure Internet connection have good infrastructure. As a company increases their interaction with customers and vendors through the Internet, their dependency on solid infrastructure grows, as well.” This means that the solution you arrive at must take the future into account. What happens if the number of transactions or users jumps from 50 a day to 10,000?

The methodology enables EcoNet.com to consistently develop and implement solutions, time-and-again, and has demonstrated an incredibly high success rate.

Preparing to Automate—Understand your real processes

I asked Mr. Lissberger to explain how a client could best prepare to take advantage of web-based process automation with EcoNet.com. “It isn’t enough to simply have processes documented.” He elaborated, “You have to know what your real processes are. Managers know what’s happening within their organizations on a macro level, but often don’t understand the contortions that their people go through on the front line in order to deliver. We consult with the client to understand what is happening on those front lines. We’ll go ride with a driver or spend time watching how a fax machine gets utilized, if it helps us understand the details of the business process. We have to know what it takes for the client to win, and we’ll ‘go deep’ to do that.”

Mr. Lissberger and I have both been in situations where we present management with a picture of what’s really going on within their processes. Typical reaction: “Oh my God, is that the way they’re doing it?” Followed by: “We’ll have to change that.” These process corrections have to occur before it can be translated to a web-based application-or any other application, for that matter.

It’s becoming cheaper and easier to realize an accelerated ROI when you automate key business processes. More money to the bottom line is always a good thing. An organization such as EcoNet.com can lead you through the issues and help you get the most out of such an initiative. Just be sure that whoever you use has a structured approach and has done this before. The novice will not understand interdependencies and pitfalls so you’ll want to take advantage of as much experience as you can afford. An inexperienced vendor may look less expensive on paper, but their likely mistakes will cost you dearly in the not-so-long run.

Next Steps

Under the current economy, we all have to do more work with less people, and the situation doesn’t look like it will change any time soon. It is an excellent time to tackle process issues such as these—it could spell survival for your organization.

If you’d like to discuss the advantages of web-based processes, as well as some of the most sophisticated web security products available, you can contact David Lissberger or Ginger Reid at (972) 991-5005 . As you may have figured out, their website is http://www.econet.com.

© 2001 M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas

“Now we have to Deliver”—A Call for Business Discipline

2001-08-20T13:31:00.000-05:00

Okay, quick recap: In October of 2000 we were still in the throes of the “Internet Revolution” and the “New Economy.” As we coasted through Q4 of the year 2000, things started to come unglued. Stocks plummeted and investment capital dried up. Not only was venture capital suddenly non-existent, but companies started trying to figure out how they were going to deliver what they had already promised to their customers. You know times are hard when money for both R&D and day-to-day business gets tight.

What we learned from the e-business shakeout

As a lesson to us all, we can observe a pronounced pattern in the e-business shakeout. The brick and mortar businesses that added Internet sites to their marketing strategy did far better as a whole than companies that started with the Internet and made it their only focus. Why? Because the brick and mortar businesses already had structure. They understood customer service, how the delivery channel worked, and how to develop and maintain good processes to support service and delivery.

We had easy times for a while, but easy times can obscure the need for discipline. You can waste a lot of energy doing frivolous and inefficient things when times are good—you'll still make a lot of money. When the economy tightens up, you don't have that option anymore. While companies now cut costs and people, and let their R&D go into the fetal position, they would do better to look at how to operate more effectively. Process and structure are at the core. It doesn't mean that you have to have such oppressive rules that your team can't think or innovate. But you have to have enough on paper that when your best people leave, your best practices don't leave with them. Furthermore, you have to have it organized well enough that you can find the information when you need it, and the means to keep it accurate. Finally, you have to anticipate how the structure of your organization will change in the face of more business, or less.

It all starts with process

As a business, once you've established a management team, defined your mission, and figured out who will do what, you will find plenty of systems—both literally and figuratively—to support a disciplined approach. You may select ISO9000, Total Quality Management (TQM), Six Sigma, Capability Maturity Model (CMM), SAP, Peoplesoft, or a host of others. But you can't take another step until you understand your processes. In fact, process (and the ability to measure process effectiveness) may be the most important component of all these disciplines as they relate to bottom line profits. Proven, repeatable processes reduce mistakes, rework, and overlap. They boost productivity, which means more work delivered for lower payroll expenditures. An added savings is the fact that new people will become productive faster, bringing even more money to the bottom line that would otherwise have been wasted.

Another supporting argument in favor of process is that the productivity game hasn't really changed. When business was booming, we couldn't find enough people to do the work, so a disciplined approach made sense. Now that business is slow, we still have the same problem. We've fired half of our staff, and we still don't have enough people for the work at hand. As a team, if we think through the correct ways to do things, write them all down, and continually reinforce them, we just might have a fighting chance to keep the customer satisfied.

It ends with process, too

The one constant in business is change, the old saying goes, and established processes can make that a bit easier too. Businesses seem to reorganize more often than not, and processes make it easier to rearrange things as if they were components. How much easier it is to pass a function from one team to the other, as needed, when the flows and work instructions are written down. And when, God forbid, you have to sell off a unit, you will be able to ask for more dollars if all of the business critical functions have been mapped and written down. People like to buy systems, instead of heaps of haphazard functions.

Time to make it happen

In case you haven't noticed, the next freight train is on the tracks and ready to run you over. The only question is “when?” Right now you're probably understaffed or about where you need to be. What happens when the next surge or cut comes. You will have to assimilate new people quickly, or you'll have to do more with even less. Get your processes down now while you have the chance—it won't get any better.
A whole genre of e-business TV ads flooded the airwaves during the second half of 2000. One of my favorites illustrates precisely what to avoid. It shows a team of people, presumably every employee of a new start-up. All have obviously been working themselves to death, and this is make-or-break-time. They are huddled around a man sitting at a PC who announces, as he hits a computer key, “Okay, our new site is open for business…[click]…now!”

Everyone looks at the counter on the screen that shows the number of incoming orders, and within a few seconds it shows an order or two filter in. A few seconds more elapse, and a few more orders come in. Everyone starts cheering and breathing a sigh of relief. Without a word, you know what everyone is thinking, “All right—our company is going to be a roaring success!”

Within a few seconds after that, orders start pouring in at an unbelievable rate. As the team looks at the order counter reaching the thousands, everyone turns white with fear. Once again, you can read their minds, "Oh no—our company is going to be a roaring success."

“Now we have to deliver.”

© 2001 Michael A. “Ryan” Yuhas