We’re Special - You Can’t Systemise us! (1)

Why it’s Important

A lot of people thrive on the creative ‘buzz’ of their workplace. Every day represents new challenges, full of opportunities to learn. There’s never a dull moment, and although to an outsider, it could look like disorganised chaos, that’s just because outsiders don’t understand ‘the system’. Things like . . .

• The little pile of project files that everyone has on their desk - because they work on several different jobs at once
• The Post-Its™ that everyone has around their monitor - as reminders of important information and a means of communicating things like phone messages
• The independently managed address books everyone keeps. The business is about client relationships, so individual contacts matter!

But look below the surface at each of these. People can only work on one job at a time, so the pile of files is a distraction from what you should be doing, and a place to lose files other people need. Post-Its™ around the monitor are a visual distraction from what you should be concentrating on, and the fact that they’ve been left there doesn’t mean they’ve been read! Those personal address books mean that when someone moves, you have multiple ‘databases’ to update - its easy to forget one of these, like the billing address!

Dealing with all this means you spend more and more time on things that just don’t add value. Worse still, it means that dealing with all this other stuff could actually get in the way of adding value, meaning that you never actually get to do the things the customer’s paying for.

With a system to take care of all this ‘stuff’, you could be free to concentrate on what matters. Like the things that customers would be willing to pay for if you listed them as separate line items on an invoice.

Next: Seven Tips

We’re Special - You Can’t Systemise us! (2)

Seven Tips

1. What DO Customers Buy From Us?
As a first step, ask yourself, the team, management (and even the customers themselves) what it is that your organisation ‘DOES’. When seen from an outside perspective, why does your organisation exist at all?

2. What Else Do We Do?
If you were perfectly efficient, you’d just do what the customers want, and it would take no time at all, and cost almost nothing. So what else happens? What enabling activities need to take place before you can create the value? What accounting & recording activities take place after?

3. See Any Patterns In The ‘Other’ Stuff?
Now think about those ‘other’ activities. Does every job seem to need the same type of preparation doing, and the same information analysed afterwards?

4. Are There Patterns In the ‘Value’?
Often this is harder to see. But when you take a slightly more ‘wide angle’ view, you’ll see that most jobs which seem unique at the detail level, have the same series of activities performed.

5. Map The Patterns
Work with your team to draw process maps of how the patterns flow. Where a step needs a particular set of ‘things’ (either physical, or To-Do items ticked), make sure you list them as enablers.

6. Can You Simplify?
Look for duplicate or redundant steps. Can you combine or eliminate activities that don’t add value?

7. Systemising Needn’t Mean Computers
You can get big benefits from automating even small businesses with software like Mamut (and Jan Grieveson uses this as a cornerstone for business turnaround). But you can also get easy results from things like paper-based checklists, and clear, visual management techniques to improve the ease with which people can operate the workplace.

Next: Three Things To Do To Find Out More

We're Special - You Can't Systemise Us! (3)

What Next

This edition of TeamTips is concerned with efficiency & effectiveness. There are three things you can do if you’re interested in finding out more about this:

1. Read a Book
We recommend “The E-Myth” series by Michael Gerber. These are great, easy-reading books that can frankly change your outlook on business and the whole work:life balance thing.

2. Read Our In-Depth Management Briefing Papers
We publish a series of more detailed papers - just visit www.sevenrings.co.uk and click on the ‘free stuff’ button.

3. Call Sevenrings
We’ve helped scores of individuals and organisations improve their efficiency & effectiveness, and we’d be happy to talk to you about your particular situation at no initial charge.

We specialise in helping people to get better results by changing the way they work. We can provide training from 1/2 day taster sessions focusing on just one aspect of the Team leader’s role, up to comprehensive programmes over several months.

Our phone number is 0191 2522 335.

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Why It's Important

Quality is no-longer optional. When was the last time you bought a bad product? And have you noticed how service-sector companies which aren’t very good at customer service, don’t stay in business for long?

But it didn’t used to be this way. Back in the ‘bad old days’, simply having ‘Made in England / USA / The Empire’ was enough to sell your products to a willing queue of customers. Customers who could buy from you, or from really second-rate alternatives, or just plain go without.

It ain’t like that any more, is it?!

Through painstaking analysis of defects, errors and mistakes, quality has moved forward more than any other measure of companies’ effectiveness.

The problem is that even though quality is taken as a ‘given’ by customers and consumers, many companies just take it for granted. They’ve improved their performance on a rising tide, rather than pulling themselves up by the bootstraps.

And then you get a quality issue, just when the CEO attends a seminar on something called Six Sigma. This is a system that was designed in semiconductor plants, where one defect in a million is enough to stop all production. It uses advanced statistics and some great change management methods, all wrapped up in karate-style language (Black / Green Belts etc).

Six Sigma is NOT appropriate for most companies! If they’re not doing the basics to improve quality and control their business processes (this applies to service-sector firms too), Six Sigma is just too much, too fast, and far, far too expensive!

Most companies should use the seven basic quality improvement tools to exhaustion before they go anywhere near Six Sigma. Used properly, they’ll solve 90% of all problems.

And seeing as they’re ‘basic’, once you’ve learnt how to use them, you don’t need expensive consultants to apply them again, and again, and again.

Next: The Seven Tools Described.

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The Seven Tools:

1. Histograms
Make your process’ performance visible. You may know how it performs ‘on average’, but how good (and bad) does it get? Plot on a graph the frequency of different results to see the natural variation inherent in any process. Is the spread of results larger than customers really want? Is the process skewed?

2. Cause & Effect (‘Ishikawa’) Diagrams
Draw a horizontal arrow from left to right, pointing at your problem’s description, with four arrows labelled ‘Man’, ‘Machine’, ‘Materials’ and ‘Methods’ pointing diagonally onto the first to make a herringbone. Brainstorm causes of the problem, and attach these to the relevant ‘M’ arrow. Select the most likely ones for further investigation.

3. Scatter Diagrams
If a process’ input and outputs are variables (can be change on a sliding scale, rather than discrete steps), plot one against the other to see if they’re related. Can you change one input and get a predictable (-ish) change in the output?

4. Check Sheets
If you have a range of products / services, and a range of problems, draw a table with the products on the top, and problems down the side. Tally up each problem’s frequency for each product to identify the dominant factor.

5. Pareto Diagrams
Count the frequency of each problem type, and plot them on a bar chart, in order from worst to best. Tackle the worst ones first - typically 20% of the problems will be causing 80% of the pain.

6. Flowcharts
Having difficulty understanding what’s going on? Draw a picture of the process’ flow to see how each element is related, and how external factors can influence things.

7. Run Charts
Plot performance over time (hourly, daily, or weekly results), and look for patterns, cycles, and trends. Take corrective action before problems occur.

Next section of this article: What To Do Next

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What Next

This edition of TeamTips is concerned with the problem-solving side of Team Leadership. There are three things you can do if you’re interested in finding out more about this:

1. Read a Book
We recommend “Memory Jogger II”, by Michael Bassard. This is a fantastic little pocket-sized book that’s packed full of every problem solving technique you’ll ever need.

2. Read Our In-Depth Management Briefing Paper on the Seven Tools.
We publish a series of more detailed papers - just visit www.sevenrings.co.uk and click on the ‘free stuff’ button.

3. Call Sevenrings
We’ve helped scores of individuals and organisations improve their performance through improving their ability to analyse and solve business problems, and we’d be happy to talk to you about your particular situation at no initial charge.

We specialise in helping people to get better results by changing the way they work. We can provide training from 1/2 day taster sessions focusing on just one aspect of the Team leader’s role, up to comprehensive programmes over several months.

Our phone number is 0191 2522 335.

And finally . . . . If you want more information on the Seven Tools . . .
then for the next two weeks only, a copy of one of our training presentations is available as a special bonus to this article. Check out this special free bonus.

Seven Tools - Bonus Material - Presentation

The Seven Tools can look a bit daunting, when all seven are summarised in only a couple of hundred words. So for a limited time only, here's a movie of one of the presentations we use to teach this material in workshops. The Seven Tools section starts about 1/3 of the way through.

It's a clickable Quicktime movie - so it should play just like the presentation. To move to the next slide / animation step, just click on the movie.

SORRY - THIS FILE HAS NOW BEEN REMOVED (IT WAS A LIMITED OFFER ONLY!) FOR A COPY, PLEASE EMAIL KARLatSEVENRINGSdotCOdotUK

You'll need Quicktime to view this movie - available free from Apple for Windows and Mac.

This movie will be available only until 17th October 2006, and is copyrighted by sevenrings. Please feel free to use it within your company, but don't sell, or distribute it outside your organisation!