Three Business Strategies for Dealing with a Pandemic

July 8, 2020/in Uncategorized /by Jerry Timpson

The pandemic isn’t going away any time soon. Besides the reality of economic upheaval on a global and personal level, the risks to health and life is real. Safety and economics are inexorably linked now. Everyone wants to do something, but exactly what is often unclear. The three business strategies for dealing with a pandemic described in this post are a good start.

No one can afford to “wait this out”. Businesses that integrate a pandemic world view into their strategies are the most likely to survive and then thrive in a potentially less restrictive world. As we look to the future, things will be different because businesses are being driven by necessity to try new ways of working now. Major functions like workforce configuration, supply chains and how teams collaborate are changing and will remain changed.

For many, chaos is what we are living with now. Well, maybe not chaos defined as: Total disorder and confusion. But some days have surely felt like it. Without being insensitive to the devastating human toll, there are some things things organizations should be doing to respond to the chaos of a global event to help secure and ensure their future:

Re-vision processes
Team-based problem solving
Process discipline

None of these strategies are new. They’ve been around for a long time. However, the need to do them exceedingly well now is greater than ever. It’s not a matter of being more competitive in a market that everyone understands. At this moment, emerging market configurations are not well-understood and that is the opportunity. It’s about using the crisis as a catalyst for real change.

Urgency is driven by the fact that everyone is in the same situation. The playing field is leveled and the fastest actors win.

Re-vision Your Processes

Processes that once worked well enough no longer do. Some can be realigned with minor adjustments, while others need a complete overhaul. Have these categories even been identified where you are now? Those businesses that ignore the issue or try to force-fit old ways into the current situation without some proactive attention cannot compete.

To deconstruct processes and reconnect them in different and more flexible ways, develop a process strategy and evaluate the extended value streams. You might start with supply chains – the epicenter of this particular chaos. And, while this is a great place to focus energy, recognize that all of your business functions and processes are in a state of change now. Anything related to employee, customer and supplier safety is at the top of everyone’s list – or at least should be. Most everyone would rather work and do business where they feel safe.

Team-based Problem Solving

How we work together is different, but the need to work together is stronger than ever. Team-based problem solving is key to getting new processes defined and up and running. New ways of work designed in a vacuum and then foisted onto the organization don’t work. When there are a lot of unknowns, it’s tempting to do a sort of panic response. Some of it was necessary early on, but not anymore.

Solutions developed by those working inside the process are the only way to ensure that new processes are effective and implementable. You’ve got to do more than talk about these things. Take action! As solutions are developed, expand the team and do trials and pilots until you get things dialed in for full implementation.

A combination of remote collaboration and safe workshop environments (masks, social distance, etc.) now emerges as the new normal. Focus interviews, idea generation and data collection and analysis can be done remotely. Mapping and visualization can also be done remotely, but with the right precautions taken to ensure safety, tightly controlled and facilitated workshops are most productive.

As with all things, the pendulum swings with regard to remote versus in-person work. Some organizations will perceive new efficiencies based on remote work and turn hard in that direction. After a while though, the drawbacks will start to show and people begin to consider how to actually work safely in closer proximity (daily interviews, temperature checks, masks, washing and distancing). The only way to dial-in the best balance of risk and performance is to get users involved in the solutions.

Achieve Process Discipline

For any recovery, employee, customer and supplier safety must be in place. Face masks, distancing and other steps which vary by industry are here to stay. This means it’s ultra-important that people follow the rules. The most amazing thing about process discipline is that even when lives are at stake – and not just during a pandemic – people break the rules all the time. To get compliance you must:

Define the rules: Simple and clear. Describe how to deal with exceptions too.
Teach the rules: Everyone must understand them; what’s expected when and where.
Reinforce requirements: Constantly.

From the list above, steps one and two (define and teach) are the easier ones. They require process analysis, documentation and training. The biggest problem for most is step three – constant reinforcement. This requires a change in behaviors up and down the organization – something that does not happen without significant attention.

Even when processes are re-visioned and designed well, all three of the steps for process discipline are routinely ignored. At a time when so much depends on making people feel safe and comfortable with work and commerce, it will pay dividends to those who focus on achieving good process discipline in their workplace.

Conclusion

Businesses and the processes that drive them are in a state of upheaval that will not go away soon enough for anyone to ignore this new reality. If you want to safely and effectively adapt to the challenges brought by the pandemic, now is the time to take the steps described here with deliberate intention.

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Kaufman Global is expert at helping organizations navigate operational and cultural change. If you want help bringing focus to any of the topics outlined here, give us a call. We’re ready to help and we will be creative in finding safe ways to collaborate with you and your teams.

To learn more about process discipline and procedural adherence, read our White Paper on topic: Procedural Adherence and Risk

Sustaining Operational Excellence

December 5, 2016/in Uncategorized /by Jerry Timpson

Sustaining Operational Excellence: This is an excerpt from the Kaufman Global survey report. For the full report, follow the link at the bottom of this page.

We conducted a survey about sustaining operational excellence. For the survey, we contacted over 100 executives in our network who have deep experience leading operations and operational excellence efforts. Our goal was to examine how organizations are evolving in their construction, use of and thinking about OpEx today. 16 key topics were covered, with Sustainability being one of them. For this section, we wanted to find out how many of the respondents had experienced OpEx build-up and tear-down and, we wanted to learn something about why.

Q: How many times in your career have you seen OpEx efforts built up to a significant level, and then be killed off by the organization (that is, resources retracted, timing deferred, “overhead” cut, unit leaders subvert or ignore it, etc.)?

THE DATA: 78% of the population surveyed have seen OpEx fail at least once and a staggering 37% at least three times in their career.

KG POV: The data gives us an indication of how often OpEx fails. The answer is… a lot. It’s easy for organizations to get distracted. For those of you who have not experienced an OpEx failure, consider yourselves lucky. For those of you who have, you’ll appreciate the consistency of participant comments (subset below) from multiple enterprise types about the reasons why.

In looking at all the comments submitted around this question, four themes emerged as reasons for failure (see list to right of the pie chart). They are: Change in Leadership, System not Embedded, Value not Evident (Relevance) and Market Downturn. It’s interesting to note the fairly even distribution of reasons by category. When you pair that with the high rates of failure overall, it tells us that if the system is weak, almost anything can kill it.

If you would like to receive a copy of the full report that includes all 16 topic areas, register and download here: An Examination of Operational Excellence

Operational Excellence Can Save Millions (and Millions)

November 29, 2016/in Uncategorized /by Kaufman Global

Well… the exact number is not certain, but your organizations could get much more from their OpEx by shifting perspective.

Operational excellence is another way of saying “comprehensive process improvement.”

As an enterprise function it’s better than ever. Across business and industry (government, healthcare, services and manufacturing) it delivers year-over-year benefits. Yet, results could be much better. Many of the Operational Excellence (OpEx) programs we encounter are too narrowly defined and treat OpEx simply as deployed resources with some useful tools.

A broader definition recognizes operational excellence as a result and OpEx as a system that affects the entire enterprise. It’s not an overlay, but rather a cohesive network of people applying standard techniques to deliver and improve results.

The Operational Excellence Function Emerges

In the mid-90s, OpEx programs began to emerge from their automotive heritage, branching into other settings where they were perceived to offer a return on investment. Many of those efforts fell under the headings of Lean and Six Sigma. The basic concepts of process improvement have changed little over time but there has been such a proliferation of techniques and jargon that it can be a little confusing. Now we use terms like Continuous Improvement (CI) and Operational Excellence (OpEx) as a catch-all for anything related.

A few major themes are part of any OpEx endeavor, such as: what it works on, the techniques applied and how its organized. These attributes can be designed-in, or as is often the case, derived incrementally and ad hoc. This happens when one part of the business tries one approach, while another faction tries something different. Instead of resolving to a standard, the outcome is often the ‘tyranny of the OR’ where it’s hard to discern what is working and what is not. “Are we doing this, or are we doing that?”

Let’s look at these three themes in a little more detail.

The Focus of Operational Excellence

OpEx has two modes:

Reaction – Responding to the most pressing issues of the day in areas such as productivity, quality, service and customer satisfaction.
Prevention – Focusing on incremental improvements and sustaining; including process adherence and change management.

This is the right combination, but it’s pretty easy for organizations to get stuck in reactive mode and think of OpEx people as fire fighters whose main job is to put out fires instead of prevent them. This weakness can contribute to the downfall of OpEx when times get tough. Then, the biggest issue may be cutting cost and OpEx is often a cost that gets cut early. The up and down behavior makes it even tougher for the OpEx function to take off each time there is a restart.

Operational Excellence Techniques Applied

Tool kits includes things like: Lean, Six Sigma, manage change, coach, facilitate, deploy policy, map value streams, define standard work and conduct kaizen events and workshops, etc. That’s a pretty big list. Organizations often attempt to include too many tools and end up doing few of them well. Efforts can feel disjointed because they are. This is an area where the need for tool selectivity and standards guided by OpEx governance is obvious, but often lacking.

Differences in techniques applied across various industries have less to do with type of industry and more to do with the plethora of opinions, experiences, and competing priorities. For sure, a variety of techniques are expected and one size does not fit all. But wherever people and process come together, while the vocabulary and examples change, waste elimination and variation reduction methods don’t differ too much. Moreover, the methods and structures that deal with behaviors, engagement and change management are always the same.

OpEx Can Be Organized In Several Ways

Maybe the most obvious shift in recent years is the rise of OpEx as a legitimate internal function. This means that, at the very least, people are identified on an organization chart. Assigning resources is a good thing, but the amount of variability in how talent is applied suggests too much experimentation. Models include:

Corporate Owned – Resources are sponsored by headquarters and mostly directed from there
Operating Unit Owned – Resources are sponsored by and embedded within the operating units
“Spray and Pray” – Broad skilling of associates without requirements for immediate application
“Hammer and Nail” – Attack obvious problems with available resources, often with limited tools and experience

In practice it’s typically a combination of all of the above. The ratios shift over time as organizations learn and politics play out. Striking the right balance is essential for OpEx effectiveness. Articulating governance, communication and how people engage are all critically important.

A Systems View of Operational Excellence

The themes noted here – targets, techniques, organization – should be familiar to anyone who has worked on or inside of OpEx. It’s easy to get caught up in organization charts, tools and the “fires”. When this happens, focus narrows and we miss the opportunity to engage broadly across the entire enterprise.

Operational excellence is not a function. It is a RESULT that is best achieved by an OpEx SYSTEM that engages everyone.

Effective OpEx systems balance corporate and operating unit needs, target urgent problems and prevent others from ever occurring. They define, and then use, standard work to get things done. Reporting, capturing best practices, communication and sharing information is described, done and enforced. These are the things the OpEx function should be working on.

Broad organizational involvement and commitment is perhaps the most obvious benefit of a robust OpEx system. Leveraging the knowledge and input of those closest to their work shows respect for people and drives decision-making to the lowest possible level – a key tenant of an improvement culture. A fully engaged organization achieves relevant results, gains traction and becomes a sustainable continuous improvement engine. When the OpEx system is designed and defined, its performance can be evaluated and improved. A good OpEx system is:

Simple – The easier it is to understand, the easier it is to see if people are doing it
Engaging – Everyone participates. Ownership and expectations are articulated
Actively Managed – Leaders are hands-on in guiding the change process
Structured – The way the organization is expected to interact is clearly defined

Don’t over-complicate it. Too many rules lead to unwarranted bureaucracy and can kill beneficial creativity. If design and definition become the major focus, no one will ever get out of the blocks and actually start fixing things. Balancing standard requirements with creative and flexible problem-solving is one of the great challenges. Sorting that out creates a sense of ownership and develops the organization.

As people should be at the heart of any OpEx system, start by describing the critical few things that demonstrate personal participation and then link these elements to recognition and reward. This is just one of many small steps that the enlightened enterprise goes through to become operationally great. It can be done once leaders decide that operational excellence is a literal objective and OpEx is a system for engaging the organization instead of a check the box function or a quick-fix for the crisis du jour.

Want to read more on topics like this? Head over to our Knowledge Center to get access to our full catalog of white papers.

Another Meeting? Take a Lean Meeting Approach to Optimize Time and Resources

October 9, 2012/in Uncategorized /by Kaufman Global

If you’re spending too much time in meetings, crisp things up and apply some basic waste elimination techniques and start get better results by making it a Lean Meeting.

Whether you’re an executive, director or manager, recent studies have shown that it’s becoming more and more common to spend at least 40 percent of the workweek in meetings — leaving little time to actually get things done. With these conditions, how are organizations making progress? Most of them have adjusted their expectations of the “average work day,” making additional time mandatory. According to the Center for Talent Innovation (Coqual), the average professional workweek has expanded steadily over the last decade; with many averaging 60 to 70 hours per week. Under such circumstances, multi-tasking has taken on a whole new meaning, often requiring extreme measures to get things done. For example, it’s become far too common to find people catching up on email while driving, even though it’s illegal in most states.

If your organization is striving to be more conscious of time restraints, and is diligent about tracking and realizing productivity gains, you may want to reevaluate your meeting schedules. For starters, it’s important ask the simple question, “Are they worth the time?” According to 2015 Clarizen / Harrison Interactive survey completed by more than 2,000 adults, nearly 35 percent of employees believe status meetings are a waste of time, and 70 percent say they don’t help them get any work done. Furthermore, 60 percent of those surveyed say they spend over four hours per week getting ready for them.

But wait; let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater! Good meetings have their place and can enable the organization to take action with real time data and decision-making. Executive Steering Committee meetings and daily shift start-up meetings for intact workgroups are good examples of this. But regardless of the kind of meeting we’re talking about, whether it’s annual strategic planning sessions or weekly sales and / or operational meetings, improvement opportunities await. To evaluate the effectiveness of your current meetings and identify potential areas for improvement, here are four basic items (of many) that should be considered.

Do meeting attendees have defined roles and responsibilities? | If people are just showing up with no clear role to play, not only can this cause confusion, but it can also cause meetings to be long and unproductive. In these situations, RACI Charting can be done to help identify and clarify roles, responsibilities and individual levels of participation. When this technique is applied, it’s common to identify some individuals that no longer need to be present.

Do your meetings have strong agendas? | An agenda can be a powerful tool when leveraged appropriately. Providing a mechanism for order and control, a strong agenda includes clear objectives and deliverables, tells participants how to prepare and sets time limits. Agendas need to carefully thought out. For instance, if your agenda identifies an hour for the meeting, people will use the hour — regardless of whether it’s needed or not. Read more