There are really three keys to designing and developing solutions that improve capability

1. Understand the work
2. Understand the knowledge, skills, information, and traits needed to perform the work
3. Design effective strategies for enabling performers — in this case, effective means taking the shortest path to performance

Understanding the work is the most important and first step. There is no point doing anything else until you understand what people are doing now, what they are expected to be doing, the gap between those two things and why there is a gap in the first place. The good news is that this does not have to be a mysterious process. We have been analyzing processes, roles, tasks, and jobs for years and it comes down to clarifying the following. (Just to avoid entering the entire string every time, we will just use the word “process” to refer to both the process and the work or tasks.)

• Overall Mission: What is the process for? Why does it exist? What does it achieve?
• Output(s): What tangible output is generated?
• Criteria: How can you tell a good output from a poor one?
• Tasks or Steps: What do people have to do to produce the output?  If you have time, you can define criteria for tasks as well.
• Gaps and Causes: Where do outputs or tasks fall short of what the criteria specifies?  Why?
• What tools are used at what steps in the process? Note: This is not really the process anymore but tools, especially information tools, are used so frequently today that they are part of the environment in which the work is performed.

To improve capability, start looking for gaps with causes that can be fixed. Look for difficult tasks (i.e., those that require lots of skill or practice or even those that fall short of standard frequently). Then, look for effective ways to improve performance. Usually, there are three choices, listed below in order of preference

• Simplify the task. Take out some steps or decisions.
• Transfer capability to a tool. For example, move complicated or difficult calculations to a tool. Or create a quick-reference guide so performers rely less on memory.
• Train people.

Collecting and Documenting the Work Model

So if we are starting with the work, we need to capture that information so that we can see it and talk about ways of changing it. We use the format below for 98% of our analysis, whether the project is to build training or improve a process and whether we are facilitating a group meeting or working with an individual SME.  We like this model for several reasons.

1. It focuses on the work. Swimlane process maps are more popular but they can get confusing. They focus on the roles but we find that they can sometimes hide unnecessary steps. On the other hand, the horizontal flow seems to push you towards finding ways of simplifying or eliminating steps. And, in a lot of environments, roles can get fuzzy or shared between different job titles, but the steps are usually pretty constant.
2. Allows identification of trouble steps and tools. When you are thinking about a given task and the problems that can arise, it is a natural time to consider what to do to eliminate that problem. This extra information really doesn’t fit on a swimlane model.
3. Complex processes work fine using decision boxes. We once mapped an entire quality system (using eleven  teams and 84 separate processes in an eight-week period of time…it was a busy summer) for a large medical device company using this format. There were a lot of complex and interdependent tasks but the format held up. I would argue that this approach supports a work simplification mindset because you see the necessary sequence of steps or outputs needed to get something done (and you get rid of things that are not necessary).

Here is an overview of the format. (For larger view go to http://www.prhconsulting.com/resources/newsletters/downloads/ProcessDoc_prh_08-28-14.pdf .)

      Next issue, we will look at how to use this information to improve a process. Later, we will look at how to use it to identify supporting capabilities and tools.

Please note that this format is copyright PRH Consulting Inc. 2011 all rights reserved.  Many of our clients want to use this format in their own internal projects and we’ve always granted permission but ask that they keep the copyright notice intact. So, any readers that want to do this, please inquire and we will most likely  allow you to use it under the same conditions.

Everyone’s Favorite Health Drink

  Coffee can be indispensable in the workplace. We just read a study about how coffee really works. Kind of the reverse of the conventional wisdom. According to this study, in layman’s terms, coffee doesn’t really “wake you up” as much as it keeps you from getting sleepy. Here are the details. 

   This doesn’t entirely fit with experience if you think about that, actually unpleasant, sensation of being too wired from too much coffee. But, I’m not a scientist. Although, we once did a project at a lab with combinatorial chemists and they always had two pots going at all times…one had green tape wrapped around the handle to indicate that it was double-strength. (Ok, that was a gratuitous mention of “combinatorial chemistry” but the two handles thing is true.)

   The green handle is symptomatic of the problem of individual preference. In an office, it can be difficult to get agreement. In a doctor or dentist office, or in a one- or two-person office, it is even more difficult as the small volume of sporadic consumption makes entire pots of coffee potentially wasteful. Hence the popularity of the K-Cup.

   First of all, a few jobs ago (before anyone in the midwest had heard of Starbucks) several of us in our work group tried to engineer a satisfactory single-cup solution. We emptied out tea bags and put coffee in and tried steeping it. We put a scoop of coffee into a filter stuffed into a funnel and then did a pour-through. These methods were OK, if a little awkward from a labor and clean-up perspective. K-Cups excel at convenience. You buy an expensive hardware component and pretty expensive individual capsules but you can crank out good-tasting single-cups all day. But there are a couple of things to feel guilty about.

   There is a large waste to cup ratio. Many of the capsules are not too environmentally friendly, though some are biodegradeble. And, they are expensive. According to a New York times article, on a per pound basis, some K-cup coffee sells at approximately a whopping $50 per pound!  

   There are alternatives though. There are single-cup makers and there is even a commercially made version of the tea bag. My personal favorite is theAeroPress. It makes coffee as good as a French press but with way easier clean-up.

   Some people get their best work done at a coffee shop. The coffee probably helps but there are definitely other factors at play. One is probably getting away from the office where there are distractions (like the phone, co-workers, your boss) lying in wait. Personally, I like the white noise distractions at a coffee house…the conversation going on at the next table that you don’t care about, the banging they apparently have to do to dislodge used espresso grounds, the hissing of the milk steamer, and the background music. Even the fact that you know you aren’t going to be sitting there all day…you have an hour or two to get to a stopping point on what you are working on and then that’s it. (And if you have more time available, keep in mind that Starbucks furnishes their shops primarily with non-cushioned chairs, probably for a reason.) All of that forces you to boost your concentration level and put on your task blinders and crank away, head down and oblivious.

   A couple of app-makers must have noticed the benefits of background noise, probably while brainstorming ideas for apps while sitting in a coffee shop. So, if you want that vibe but don’t feel like actually leaving your desk, you can import the audio portion to your ear buds from one of the sources below.

In some situations, it is easy for organizations and professionals to lose focus on the bigger human performance or training picture in their business. Articles come out promoting the next trends in learning, like “m-learning,” social media, etc. Conferences and expos celebrate creative solutions. Vendors show off nifty interactions and interfaces. All that sounds like a lot more fun than building capability or improving the throughput of a process.

Except, in the context of the business it is serving, learning is really a support function. There is only one reason a business should be training employees and that is to build capability so employees can perform their tasks. And quite often, basic is just as effective as cutting edge (or even more so) and can be deployed faster. Sure it would be fun to make a computer animation and embed it into a web-based program. But it might get the job done if you just shot a video using readily available equipment and posted it imperfectly where people people can find it.  Or even if you had good diagrams showing key steps in the process. The 80% solution right away is often preferable to the 100% solution much later (and after spending much more money).

Keeping a focus on employee capability and work process improvement and away from technology and media requires working on the big picture and not getting trapped in the smaller picture.

Analysis and Architecture

The first key to avoid getting trapped in the small picture is understanding the work and then designing an architecture for solutions.

Understanding the work means figuring out roles, work outputs, criteria, and the process steps/tasks performed by those roles. It means understanding where errors are likely to occur, where tools exist (or could exist) to address those areas. It means understanding the knowledge, skills, and even traits needed to perform.

Another level to understanding the work is how it is allocated between various employees in the roles that perform it. Knowing what experienced performers do vs. less experienced performers. Knowing the previous roles (and likely incoming skills) new people bring into the role and how to address the gaps through coaching, training, and information. Figuring out solutions to ensure that the work gets done correctly over time, as employees enter and leave the job and as products and processes change. Development paths. Career paths.

Finally, you need an architecture for the solutions you will provide. If you are providing classroom or instructor-led training, what materials will be provided, how will they be kept current, how will you know the instructor is delivering the same course that was developed? Even better, can you track content at a granular enough level to find things that already exist and re-use them in future programs? Is there sufficient logic and rationale in your solution set that employees and supervisors can start from what they need and find what they are looking for quickly and accurately? Does the media fit the delivery requirements or are you forcing web-based training on people to save travel costs…even though they don’t bother to complete the training because there are too many distractions on the job?

The bigger picture is systematically building and sustaining capability. That is the way to truly become a business partner, instead of merely a training specialist.

Here is a model we have used for performance improvement efforts that works well as a group activity, leads to actionable, quick decisions, and is scalable to the resources you have available to build solutions. It starts by a detailed performance or process analysis. You need to identify outputs or deliverables, key criteria or measures, and typical gaps. Same for process steps and tasks.

Then, go through that data and put each gap and cause on a card. (We use an Access database but you can do it manually – it isn’t really difficult.) Then, convene a group of top performers and other relevant experts and look at each gap and cause. Determine if they are worth addressing (maybe rate them by impact and frequency). The goal is to come up with a recommendation to correct or eliminate the cause. Then estimate a rough level of effort and impact using a simple H-M-L scale.

Once you address all the gap/causes, go back and organize the cards. First, group the recommendations. We have noticed that quite often a single recommendation will address more than one gap or cause. So you might have a pile of gap/cause cards for the same recommendation. Below is an example that illustrates the cards with an assessment of each gap and cause (impact and frequency) and then relating them to a single recommendation, which is assessed by impact and level of effort.

Once you have organized the recommendations, separate them into four groups.

At this point you have a decision, based on the number of recommendations and your available resources. You might pick the “Top 10” or just the first priority. We have used a scale and recommended three or four per each of the following categories.

• “Low-hanging Fruit” or “Quick Hits”: Require little resource time or funds to implement. Some examples might be to add someone to an email distribution list or post a chart on the wall showing metrics we are already collecting.
• Longer-term Projects: Might require some time/effort, some additional study or analysis, and maybe some funding but can be accomplished within our scope or sphere of influence. An example might be to re-organize a work area to change the way work flows through an area. Or, changing how files are organized on our server.
• Ideas or Large Issues: Will require significant investment and longer cycle time to research and implement. Will require involvement of other organizations or upper-level leadership.  Examples might be purchasing expensive capital equipment or changing organizational roles or job categories.

To wrap this up, you need clear decisions and direction on how to proceed. Ideally, you have a steering team set up to review the recommendations and make the call on next steps. We suggest a one-page summary of each recommendation to make the decision clear for the leadership.  (Remember, they weren’t in on all the team discussion so you have to start at the beginning. Give them the following using clear, concise, and direct wording.

• Situation: Describe the work, the gap(s), cause(s), and impact. Answer the questions “What happens (that we don’t want to happen) and why should we care”?
• Opportunity: How the work would look if the problem(s) were solved.
• Recommendation: Specific steps you plan to take to address the above. It may be the final fix, but it might also be additional research to verify the problem/causes.
• Costs and Other Considerations: If you need funding, expertise, peoples’ time, use of an area, or anything else to move forward, explain it here.
• Benefits: Financial and other (such as reduced cycle time, customer satisfaction, reduced waste, etc.)

Years ago (more than five) I remember going into a meeting carrying a large easel, a large roll of paper, a box or two of handouts, and two briefcases loaded with a laptop, misc folders, paper tablets, and other stuff. My client started laughing as I struggled to drag everything to the front of the  room in one trip. Then he said “You know, the more important you are, the less you have to carry. I’m flying to Europe later this week and all I’m carrying is a thumb drive with my presentation…I’m not even bringing a laptop!” (All I could say was “I never said I was important.” More sad than funny.)

Even beyond the implied status issues, as information has become universally digitized and devices have become more mobile, it seems like many of us have been on a quest to achieve two conflicting goals: 1) Have everything we need available at any time wherever we are. 2) Continuously reduce what we have to carry.

I seriously thought of the iPhone years before it was built, though probably still after it was already patented and in development. It used to really bug me to bring a paperback book to read on the plane, a cassette player and later an MP3 player to listen to music, a laptop just to check email, plus a cellphone (to call people and somewhat more laboriously check email). I’d think “why can’t this all be on one big cellphone/mini-computer for short trips?”  Obviously, it could and now is.

Unfortunately, the technology to completely avoid the laptop is still not quite there — I have run meetings with just an iPad and even projected from my iPhone but for most work situations, you still need that laptop, especially if you (or your clients/co-workers) are using Microsoft Office. But there are at least ultra-portable laptops now. The first “portable” computer I had to use was the size of a sewing machine. (Look at that thing! The keyboard folded up to the screen to form the bottom of the case when carrying it. Yikes!)

On another note, many of our project deliverables are still a little more bulky than they strictly need to be. Most training projects and participants still expect a binder, or the training organization is uncomfortable with giving participants a PDF they could email to their co-workers. Meeting participants tend to expect a hand-out (though we have been using PDFs for that purpose more lately.) Deliverables tend to require the standard Word and PowerPoint. It is difficult to get people to consider moving away from more bulky, self-contained web-based training built with an authoring tool to leaner, more flexible, and more universally available HTML5 documents linked to whatever other online resources, documents, or media is appropriate. But we all know that is the direction things are going…we’ll keep getting  closer and maybe never quite arrive.

So what? In the last few weeks there have been more than a few articles on the web about thin wallets. The premise: pretty much all anyone needs to carry anymore are a couple of credit cards, drivers license, a membership or frequent buyer card or two, insurance card, and cash. There really is no need for the giant lump wallet of old.

Below are few links for those of you that want to reduce what you carry. After all, the more important you are, the less you have to carry. Keep in mind though that, just because you want to de-bulk doesn’t mean you get to spend less…some of these cost as much or more than a standard wallet.

• http://lifehacker.com/elephant-wallets-are-ultra-slim-cheap-organizers-for-y-1540858356
• https://www.evernote.com/market/feature/wallet
• http://humnwallet.com
• http://bellroy.com
• http://www.tightstore.com
• https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/victoria-wallet#english

Everybody Loves Analysis

When I first got involved with performance technology, I couldn’t help but notice the amount of emphasis placed on “Analysis.” The implication was that most consultants didn’t do enough (or any, or not the right kind) and that, as a result, often conducted training that was off-target or even unnecessary and, ultimately, an ineffective waste of time and money for all concerned. It might make someone feel like they did something but it wasn’t anything that should have been done.

As I looked at the various writings about this issue, it seems that there was almost an implied ideal model of the eccentric genius who wandered around the workplace poking at things, asking bemused questions, and then coming out with a brilliant but simple solution that everyone had overlooked but, once implemented, resulted in vastly improved performance. (If you are old enough, think “Columbo.” If not, maybe think “House.”)

The problem with this model might be that I just don’t know how to do it right. I admit to having asked questions trying to figure something out and then stumbling on something that others with more know-how have overlooked. It works like this though. It starts with people initially dismissing or ignoring your question because you aren’t the technical expert (and maybe at least partly because you didn’t ask the question clearly) but if you keep after that nagging suspicion and eventually find something, you are rewarded with satisfaction.  You might not get credit though, as the experts may intentionally or unintentionally lose track of where the thing started.  But, once you do this and it works, you actually risk becoming more of a menace to yourself and others because “hey, it worked once” and so you might learn that, no matter what anyone says, never give up…and sometimes, you might not actually have a point.

What is the Root Cause?

But I digress. The issue here is the assumption that there is one root cause to every performance situation. In practice, we often find that is really not the case. We tend to find a bunch of causes, all of which are important contributors and each of which needs a fix to get the improvement we want. But there is rarely a single root issue or one simple thing to fix that solves everything.

Or, in a way there might ultimately be a root cause but it is not manageable. For example, let’s say you have a cable company that uses technicians to install and service their systems.  And, let’s say they don’t define work processes or standards, don’t provide tools, don’t train the technicians, don’t perform quality assurance, and don’t pay particularly well. Let’s say those service people demonstrate poor performance – they often make mistakes, take too long, and irritate customers.  Lot’s of things to fix. If you want one root cause, it would eventually end up being either poor management, out of control business growth (resulting in management not being able to keep up), or greed. I would say any of those “root causes” are way out of reach for a solution.

But before you get to faulty human nature, you could stop earlier and decide to figure out some work processes and document them. You could provide training and reference tools for use on-the-job. You could measure performance and provide feedback and rewards for those that perform above standard and provide corrective feedback, coaching, and eventually discipline for those that don’t. There is a better sequence to undertaking these interventions – for example, defining the work and building the support before you start firing poor performers would be smarter – but there is no one easy thing to fix. You could try incentive and reward the top performers, but rewarding performance without providing the measures (or creating measures but then not using them) would be addressing only part of the problem and would almost certainly result in a failure. In fact, this performance framework (first defined by Tom Gilbert) works for every job and you can use it to find things to fix that will yield results reliably.

At the same time, if you identify the “biggest problem” by prioritizing you might make some progress on a specific issue but the first step would be to get the current process under control before going into focused improvement.

Key principles: Control before improvement. But, if you can’t get control, build the framework of systems, tools, and practices that will support performance.

OK…I have a pretty good level of familiarity with various time and task management methods and tools.

Still, I can’t seem to keep up. And no matter how close to keeping up I get, I still have a million things on “the list.” It seems like the only time management method that works is kind of like the old video game “Asteroids”…frantically try to knock things out before you get knocked out…you can never slow down, you can’t control the barrage, and you really never win. It isn’t pretty.

Ok, I’ll admit, that screenshot isn’t very intimidating but the screen fills up (and, let’s face it, it came out in 1979).

Here is what time management seems to really boil down to.

• Just start…minimize planning…and do your planning during “offline” times (like during breakfast)
• Do everything as fast as you possibly can
• Instead of breaks, just switch to a different type of task (e.g., if you are doing concentrated work like development, take a “break” and make phone calls)
• Work all the time
• Operate as if there are no “big blocks” of time…anyway, you can’t wait for them

There you have it…strap in or hire an assistant.

I just read an article that seems to indicate that “lean” may be starting to suffer the same type of fate as “TQM” and “re-engineering” and pretty much every other approach or solution that gets lots of attention, then gets widely implemented because everyone is doing it. Fads always die out. Great ideas become lame when they become fads. We all know this…Andy Warhol created the concept of everyone getting their “15 minutes of fame”…but still, we always seem to be ready to jump on the next trend as soon as it pops up.

Of course, “lean manufacturing,” or lean anything (as in, avoiding/eliminating waste)  is still a useful approach for certain situations, assuming it is implemented in a smart way. That is true with everything. The odd thing is that the “lessons learned” are the same every time no matter which trend you are dissecting.

• You need employee involvement/engagement
• You also need for leadership support and ownership
• Always tailor the <insert technique or method name here> to your situation — don’t use a cookie-cutter approach
• Don’t expect the new thing to solve all your problems while requiring no work or discipline to implement it.

This is all common sense though. Why do we not learn it?  I am pretty sure that if I went on the speaker’s circuit with the above message, I would gain exactly zero traction…why not? (I once had an article for publication rejected because the reviewer thought that “everyone knows this already. We don’t necessarily do though…you are right about that.” I don’t know what to say about that. It may be that as simple as “common sense and thinking are hard to do…so we want a magic bullet…even if we know there is no such thing, do you have one”?

Or is it just different people learning these same lessons every time? Do we just not know how to pass on this kind of wisdom? Does everyone get promoted during the initial hysteria and the next crop of people repeat the same process because they saw that it worked for the previous person in their role?

On the other hand, maybe we need a new thing every now and then to get excited about and recharge our organizations. Once it is implemented and the benefits are gained, maybe it is reasonable at that point to start looking around for the next thing. The article on lean (mentioned above) indicated that many organizations did have initial gains but then plateaued.

I think one aspect is that people often want to make a career out of a specific technique. Whether that is Six Sigma, Lean, or something else, this allows you to differentiate yourself in the market (whether inside or outside a company). It provides opportunity for visibility and advancement. So if you are a line manager and you get efficient with your process you get some recognition/reward. If you have a swat team that comes in and “fixes” lots of peoples’ processes, you get even more recognition/rewards. But then the “thing” has become the primary focus, rather than the business.

Oh well, it seems unlikely that any of our services are at risk of becoming a fad in the near future (but if one did, I’d be OK with that). In fact, our entire approach is based on the assumption that we need to understand client/business needs first, then figure out how best to improve things, and then design and implement a solution. It’s a lot like that unpopular common sense approach described above. Wait…maybe that could become the next new thing after all. If I could just come up with a catchy name for it…