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If you are like many organizations, your employees took advantage of the summer weather and the kids out of school to take time off.  Perhaps you felt like you had a skeleton crew at times, and most likely your employees felt the impact of a reduced staff from time to time.

You may have also noticed that some of those projects that had nice momentum going during the spring slowed down a bit in the summer months.  Now that things are getting back to a more normal state, do you wonder how to get those projects back on track?

While it may seem like the best thing to do is go forward full speed on the projects with people simply picking up where they left off a few months ago, I’d like to offer you the following suggestion: Step Back and Review the Project.

When people are getting back into the swing of things, and projects are ramping back up, it’s an opportune time to take a few moments of guided reflection with your project team to review the scope of the project, the deadlines, the milestones, the deliverables, and the resources needed for the project.

Scope: Has anything changed since the project was launched that could impact the scope of the project?  Have any new project team members been added who may not have a clear understanding of the project scope?  Does everybody understand the importance of the project?

Deadlines: Are they realistic?  Do they need to change?  Do people understand why they need to change?

Milestones: What milestones have been achieved?  What milestones are coming up?  Is there celebration and recognition planned when milestones are met?

Deliverables: What are the deliverables for the project?  Does everybody understand what these deliverables are?  Do they understand how their work contributes to the deliverables?

Resources: Consider the skills and interests of the people when looking at the needed resources.  How do the project deadlines work with the people’s current workload?  Are there conflicts that need to be discussed?  Do the team members know the priorities for their tasks?  Do the people have goals for the project?  Are the needed equipment resources available to the project team?  Is there any investment needed to complete the project?  Has this investment been approved?

Once you consider these areas, you may need to look at redistributing tasks and responsibilities to ensure a successful completion to the project.  If you have had changes on the project team, then you certainly should consider looking at roles and responsibilities for the entire group.

By bringing the project team together, you get everybody on the same page, get any concerns about the project on the table, and build a solid plan for moving forward as your project team works toward project completion.

Benefits of taking the pulse of a project:

1. Lower costs by reviewing projects that are in progress to make sure people aren’t working under old project guidelines when circumstances have changed

2. Increase productivity by making sure people are focused on the priorities and not wasting time on non-priority tasks

3. Improve morale by making sure people’s tasks, deadlines, and responsibilities are properly aligned

4. Develop management by giving them a vehicle for creating a culture where people can voice their concerns in a constructive manner

Best Practices for taking the pulse:

1. Conduct a prioritization activity periodically during projects to make sure people are on the same page

2. Bring out project changes in key areas when they impact the end results

3. Use a facilitator from outside the department (or organization) to bring fresh perspectives and unbiased suggestions to the group

4. Leverage the Conversation Framework PRIORITIZE when starting a project to get an initial distribution of tasks for the project.  When mid-project or when project members change, use the Conversation Framework HATS to assess how tasks need to be redistributed across the group.

For more information on Conversation Frameworks and HATS – Workload Distribution Activity, please watch these videos:

Conversation Frameworks: Understanding Conversation Frameworks - Innovative Management Tools

HATS – Workload Distribution Activity: HATS - Task Management Activity - Innovative Management Tools

In my next post we will tackle a topic that touches every organization: Employee Recognition.  While we all know it needs to happen, we often neglect doing it and this neglect can have consequences (some hidden) on the business.

Until next time.

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Business owners understand the need to introduce general improvement initiatives into their organization.  The payoff that some companies are experiencing is astounding.  Unfortunately, not every company has enjoyed that same success.  Subsequently, they give up somewhere in the middle of the journey with lots of money invested and little to show for the investment.  At the same time, the employees have chalked up the improvement initiative as another “program of the month.”

If this resembles your situation, there is a way to bring improvement initiatives back into your organization.  You must focus on the three Ps – the People, the Processes, and your Planning/Preparation routines.  In a previous post we talked about People, and now we will focus on Processes, specifically Process Analysis for an existing process.

A periodic review of your company’s significant processes (called Process Analysis) using a Conversation Framework includes:

• The people involved in each process,
• An understanding of how the process has changed since the last time it was analyzed,
• A collaborative effort to see how the process should be modified because of recent changes in your organization,
• Where your bottlenecks, pain points, and areas of waste exist in current processes,
• If there is a need to do a more radical update/revamp/re-engineer of the process, and
• What improvements could/should be made to improve productivity.

During the guided conversation, you give your staff a critical message: “I care about what you do, how effective you are in your job, and how you think things could be improved.”  Additionally, after the process analysis session, the company has more substantial reasons and justification for implementing process changes (the actual process improvement activity).

I have facilitated several process analysis sessions over the years.  Some situations I encountered follow.  Perhaps you have similar situations in your company.

1. Need for a Fresh Eye

Jody and Brenda were a husband/wife management team and had owned their framing shop for over ten years.  Their order fulfillment process had changed over the years, but always as a reaction to specific jobs and situations.  Jody’s sales were consistent, but his costs were rising, meaning less profit for the business.  He saw the need to streamline his order fulfillment process and remove bottlenecks so he could be more productive.  However, he wanted a fresh eye to look at the process since he was so close to it.

After mapping out the process and analyzing where it was working well, Jody realized that it was rather clumsy in other areas. He also saw where the bottlenecks existed (primarily because of a lack of discipline and workshop organization). Jody could see precisely where his problems were.

After the session, Jody revised his workshop’s layout to improve workflow, and he changed some inefficient procedures.  Ten years to create the situation, but only a few hours were needed to step back, give it a fresh set of eyes, visualize the current state, and define ways to improve the situation.

2. Defining a Process

Tim was a writer/editor who had recently started his own marketing consulting company. 

Tim felt he wasted time with potential prospects as they worked through the quoting process.  Those who didn’t ultimately take his services often ate up a substantial amount of his time before deciding.  Tim wanted to see how his process could be changed to minimize his time commitment during the quote phase while still answering the prospect’s questions – moving them toward a decision.

After a short process analysis session, Tim realized where his trouble spots were, and he came away with specific ways to correct the situations.  The reality was that his process didn’t have enough checkpoints and confirmation points.  He didn’t have enough feedback from the prospect early on in the process to know if the services/quotes offered were getting favorable reviews or not.  Until Tim stepped back and visualized the whole process, he had not realized how little feedback he had received. 

3. Unofficial, On-the-Fly Process

Nick worked for a plastics company.  They ran many jobs daily and diligently tried to meet the customers’ demands.  Their schedule was created one day before and then distributed to people in the plant.  Everything was fine until there was a schedule change – which would happen frequently, even several times a day.  The customer would call and need parts sooner; materials weren’t in-house when the job was scheduled to run, or materials came in for a job that should have been run the previous day.  Those changes called for constant set-up and scheduling adjustments and redistribution of staff.

Nick wanted help to formalize their scheduling process, specifically in the schedule changes area.  Schedule changes were part of their culture and showed customers their ability to be flexible and “go the extra mile,” but the aftermath of schedule changes was frustrating and inefficient.

After a process analysis session, they developed an official process for making the needed last-minute scheduling and production changes and communicating those changes to the workforce.  The process became an official process for the company and could then be measured for effectiveness.

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Process analysis sessions are an excellent way for organizations to open communication lines in an organization.  People want stable processes that allow them to work efficiently and effectively.  Employees prefer a stable workplace grounded in sensible, streamlined processes instead of chaotic settings and situations.  And people want to be included in the process analysis activities so their ideas are heard and considered.

Successful companies manage the exceptions and let the majority of the work flow through their documented, efficient processes. Without solid processes and regular reviews of their processes, everything becomes an exception and eats up valuable time across the organization.

This article covers one facet of Process: Process Analysis.  It is equally important to leverage tools that help map/document informal processes or those stored in somebody’s head.  The third process activity for manufacturing and non-manufacturing areas revolves around finding common forms of waste in our processes – often not even considered “waste” by the process players.  Feel free to reach out to discuss any of these three process Conversation Frameworks.

Next month will focus on the third P – Planning/Preparation.  Far too much work is redone in companies today.  We are so anxious to jump into a project and start “doing something” that we too often forego preliminary planning to ensure the project succeeds.

Benefits of Process Analysis (Organization process, Department process, or Employee process)

1. Lower costs by eliminating unnecessary steps and time from processes

2. Increase productivity by making sure that processes only include people who contribute to a process with value – allowing them more time to work on other tasks

3. Improve morale by opening communication lines, minimizing stress and frustration for those who are the process players, and validating employees’ contributions to the organization’s critical processes

4. Help management by giving them a vehicle for streamlining workflow so that resources are maximized, and productivity is improved

Best Practices

1. Conduct a process analysis session for processes every 6 to 9 months, especially in fast-moving, newly-created, or volatile areas

2. Make sure that the process champion and process sponsor participate in the session

3. Use a facilitator from outside the area (or organization) to bring fresh perspectives and unbiased suggestions to the group

4. Leverage Conversation Frameworks SNAPSHOT for Process Analysis, MAPPING for Process Development, and IDENTIFY for Waste Elimination in Processes. Here is a video about these frameworks:(67) Conversation Frameworks Trío on Processes, MAPPING, SNAPSHOT, and IDENTIFY - YouTube

Until next time.

The post Process Analysis is not Process Improvement. appeared first on Innovative Management Tools.

In another post I talked about How to Change People (7 Tips on How to Get People to Change).  In that post, I mentioned that the first thing to do when trying to change people is to let them change themselves.  The second bit of advice I gave was to focus on the processes so that people would truly understand what an upcoming change means to them and their daily workflow.

As managers, leaders, and agents of change, we possess the power to kindle willingness rather than compel change. Our role is to inspire individuals to embrace new mindsets and actions, fostering a path towards the promised rewards of improvement.  What we can do is inspire the people to want to adapt their mindset and actions to reach the goals and promises that come from an improvement.  We can provide a safe, open, communication-friendly, no-blame culture where people are encouraged to ask any and all questions they have about a change or improvement.

Most people react to change with very simple questions about how their work will be affected and how their world will be impacted.  While they don’t use these exact words, they really are most interested in knowing if their workspace is going to turn upside down, or not.  I view these types of questions as positive.  I would even go so far as to say that employees have a right to pose questions like this before they are expected to jump on the support bandwagon for a change.  Even those who have been burned again and again by poor change implementation are not mean-spirited.  They are simply very skeptical and need more convincing and information to counter their previous experiences.

There is a small percentage of people who will try to sabotage efforts and resist change efforts in a negative fashion.  Find these people and make sure they do not influence others in the department or company.  However, I caution you not to be too quick to judge people as negative unless you have ample information to come to this conclusion.

When I’ve come across change initiatives that have stagnated, I like to bring in the people responsible for effecting the change and have an open dialog with them.  I first review the current state of the situation.  Sometimes I’ll go back to a previous state and show the group how they have grown/changed to get to the current state.  I then flesh out the desired future state with the group.  Once I get everybody to agree on the benefits of the future state, understanding how their jobs will change, I then probe into the obstacles that are keeping them from reaching the future state.

Once the obstacles are identified, I ask the people to provide solutions for removing the obstacles.  Getting their ideas on how an obstacle is “removed” from their perspective and yours may be totally different.  Don’t assume your way is their way.  Embrace diverse perspectives.

Now I can tell you that if a future state involves downsizing people and those people are present, don’t expect them to jump on the bandwagon.  While you may not be able to change what will happen to them down the road, you can always coach them for the future and ask them if they want to be part of the change process, knowing their future state.

And if the proposed change will indeed make their life chaotic, unstable, and frustrating, then why would they support the initiative?  Your responsibility at that point is to work through the chaos, instability, and frustration to help them find a calm, stable, pleasing environment.  This may need to be done one-on-one.

So, let’s put this into perspective with a very simple example.  Let’s say you wanted to reorganize your office layout, and started that project three months ago.  Not a huge, life-shattering event to you, but the project has stagnated, and nobody has taken the initiative to start the shifting around process.  What could come out of a simple group barrier analysis session is that one key person in the chain of dominoes moving around is unhappy with his/her new location but wasn’t asked for input before the plans were finalized.  While in group session, if that person does not bring up his/her discontent with the new location, then shame on him/her.  If he/she does, then find out what the solution is and see how the request can be accommodated.

The answer should not be to let the project stagnate.  Define the problems, generate solutions, and implement the solutions.

Yes, this was probably a simple example for you.  However, simple changes like this can get very emotional and personal for some people.  What’s a non-issue to you may be a huge issue to someone else.  Dig in, explore the reasons, and get people aligned to the goal as quickly as possible.

Benefits of running Barrier Analysis Sessions

1. Lower costs by accomplishing projects as quickly as possible with as few distractions and resistance as possible

2. Increase productivity by taking a stagnated initiative and breathing new life into it

3. Improve morale by opening communication lines to learn the real concerns people have about a change initiative

4. Develop management by giving them a vehicle for creating a culture where people can voice their concerns in a constructive manner

5. Proactively handle the situation early and avoid reactively solving the problem later

Best Practices

1. Conduct a barrier analysis session when initiatives become stagnated or derailed

2. Make sure that the project champion or department manager participates in the session

3. Use a facilitator from outside the department to bring fresh perspectives and unbiased suggestions to the group

4. If you don’t have a framework or structured way to run the barrier analysis session, consider using the Conversation Framework HURDLES, by Innovative Management Tools.  A collaborative activity that leverages the power of a specifically designed Miro interactive whiteboard on this topic.

Until next time!

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In this post, learn how to improve employee productivity dramatically via a Task Management session where all department employees or team members participate in a facilitated, digital group activity called a Conversation Framework.

Business owners understand the need to introduce long-term improvement initiatives into their organizations.  The pay-off that some organizations experience is astounding and certainly helps pave their path into the future with more success, flexibility, and stability. 

Unfortunately, not every organization has found that same success.  While organizations strive to be more efficient and effective through improvement initiatives, the changes can be overwhelming for the small organization that doesn’t have somebody on staff who can fill the crucial role of “Change Champion.”  This champion role is divided among several people or just one of many hats a single person wears.  The bottom line is that the initiative does not progress as hoped and lacks the momentum needed to change the organization meaningfully.  The end result?   Some organizations give up somewhere in the middle of the journey with money invested and little to show for the investment.  At the same time, the employees have chalked up the improvement initiative as another “program of the month” or are frustrated because something was tried, potentially upsetting their work, and they weren’t included in the change at any point—only recipients of the results from the initiatives started by others.

If this resembles your situation, there is a way to bring long-term improvement initiatives back into your organization.  You must focus on the three Ps – the People, the Processes, and your Planning / Preparation routines.  In this article, we will focus on People.

Focusing on the People is a great way to show your employees and staff that you care about them.  A periodic review of what your employees do in their jobs/roles at the task level (called Task Management) will highlight the following:

• How many “hats” are they wearing, and what kinds of “hats,”
• If the workload is balanced across the staff,
• Which tasks employees are completing without fail,
• Which tasks they are not able to complete,
• Which tasks are not needed anymore and can be dropped, freeing up time, and
• If it makes sense to move any tasks to others in the organization.

The above list is only a few outcomes that can be discovered during a Task Management session whereby all the department employees or team members participate in a facilitated, digital group activity called a Conversation Framework.  An important message you will give your staff is, “I care about what you do, how you feel about your job, and how you think things could be improved.”  We don’t spend enough time talking to our employees to know the nitty-gritty details of how they really feel about their jobs, what challenges they are facing, and what improvements they see as needed.  Task Management is the perfect way to open that dialog and find the pain points. 

Over the years, I have had many opportunities to facilitate Task Management conversations in various situations.  The results of a few of the sessions may interest you.  Emotional situations were diffused by focusing on the people and their issues through Task Management, and employees felt much better about their jobs.

1. Merging Two Companies

In this situation, two small companies of about 20 employees merged to form one.  Half of each staff was let go in the merger.  The people didn’t know each other too well, emotions were high, and communication lines were barely open.

Running a Task Management session with the group allowed the employees to get to know each other and opened the lines of communication as tasks were described.  Tasks were moved between people to best suit the employees’ skills and interests.  And possibly most importantly, people began to respect the employees who “took their friends’ jobs” as they learned what skills and talents the employees brought to the table.

2. New Supervisor Training

When “Nancy” was hired from outside the company to supervise a very fast-paced, dynamic department of seven people, there was an urgency to get her up to speed as quickly as possible.  In the Task Management session with the department staff, Nancy understood what each person did in the department in less than four hours.  The session also gave her a taste of her staff’s personalities, interests, and issues.  Finally, the session gave her a crash course on the terminology used in the department.

3. Overworked Employee

“Shelley” was an exceptional worker.  So much so that she was one of those people to whom management always gave special projects because they knew she could complete them without fail.  One problem was that many of those “special projects” eventually became department programs she had to organize, champion, and maintain herself.  She often commented that she felt she did the work of three people alone.  And she was correct.  After a Task Management session, her immediate manager realized how much Shelley had on her plate and how many programs were not getting the necessary time and attention because Shelley was pulled in too many directions.  The result was that the manager could justify an additional two people working with Shelley.  Shelley became the lead person and was then able to drive the programs to success with adequate staff attention.

4. Hiring Frenzy

I once worked with a company mandated to go from 12 employees to 24 in less than six months.  While the company management knew what each person did before the hiring frenzy, they had to carefully map out what tasks would be transferred to the new employees (with adequate training) as departments expanded.  With a clear understanding of what everybody did at the task level before the hiring started, coupled with a sense of what tasks would shift around, the company management had a much better handle on the workload redistribution process.

5. Legacy Task Issues

“Christine” transferred to a new department, eager to learn her new job.  Unfortunately, her replacement in her previous department was not hired when she transferred out.  Because some key activities needed to be done before the replacement could be employed, the two managers agreed that Christine would continue to do certain tasks until she could train her replacement.

Fast forward six months.  The replacement was in place, but somehow the managers never arranged for Christine to train the replacement on the legacy tasks.  Christine, from another department, continued to do work for her old department.  Her frustration escalated because she could not give all her time to her new job.  But everyone knew that she was sharing time, so why whine about it?

Fast forward another six months, and the story was still the same.  Christine is now very frustrated that nobody seems to care that she is doing work for another department, and only Christine seems to care.

During a Task Management session, these legacy tasks came out, and Christine’s manager questioned why she was still doing the work for the other department.  The manager fully realized the time Christine spent on the tasks and how that had impacted her productivity for their department.  The manager resolved the issue the next day by scheduling a time for Christine to transfer the jobs back to the appropriate department.

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Task management sessions are an excellent way for companies to open employee communication lines.  One session participant once told me – “We talk every day, but we are so busy with daily work that we never really have time to discuss our real issues.  In a Task Management session, we talk and resolve our issues.”

Task Management sessions should be run every six months with the same group of people to ensure that workloads are continuously balanced and aligned with department priorities and shifts in the work.  The sessions also ensure employees understand what tasks must be considered a priority to meet the department and organizational goals. An excellent book titled The Paradox Principles sums it up nicely: "Create a great organization one employee at a time.”  Task Management drills down to the issues that matter most to employees.  After addressing these issues, employees are more willing to support the organization’s long-term improvement initiatives.

In summary, what can an organization expect from using a Task Management Conversation Framework at the departmental level?

Benefits

1. Lower costs by balancing workloads, minimizing OT, and eliminating duplicated or unnecessary tasks

2. Increase productivity by defining clear roles and responsibilities, realigning tasks to employees with better skills or more interest in the functions, and immediately looking at how changes impact the employees at the task level

3. Improve morale by opening communication lines, minimizing stress and frustration for those who handle more tasks than others, and validating employees’ contributions to the organization’s goals

4. Develop management by giving them a vehicle for “getting the right people on the bus and in the right seat,” as well as allowing them to dig deep with their staff to learn the issues that mean the most to them

Best Practices

1. Conduct a Task Management session in each department every 6 to 9 months (contact me for information on my Task Management Conversation Framework)

2. Make sure that the department supervisor or manager participates in the session

3. Use a facilitator from outside the department to bring fresh perspectives and unbiased suggestions to the group to keep the supervisor, or manager focused on the session

4. Leverage the HATS Workload Distribution Conversation Framework for a structured approach to the topic of departmental roles and responsibilities.

My next article will focus on the second P – Processes.  Processes are the backbone of any organization, creating stability and efficiencies, and process analysis are also key to successful improvement initiatives.

Any questions or comments? Please share them below.

Until next time!

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QUADRANTS is a short, 5-minute assessment that identifies how a person naturally and with the least amount of effort processes information when not given a specific way to think about the message. This awareness tool provides an incredible amount of personal insight and opens the door for better communication when interacting with others. Available in both English and Spanish.

The English link: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=DQSIkWdsW0yxEjajBLZtrQAAAAAAAAAAAAO__ZV-FmxUNkhGTzRNSVg1RVhES0IzWE0yUUNONERNUC4u

The Spanish link: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=DQSIkWdsW0yxEjajBLZtrQAAAAAAAAAAAAO__ZV-FmxUOVBOUzIzTjVKRk45RzdFT1BNTURVSEg4Ry4u

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