Gratitude

As this year finally draws to a close, rather than focus on what was lost or never happened in 2020, it seems time to note what I am grateful for.

Family and Friends

My family

I’m so grateful for my family. They keep me grounded. Though sad to lose my mom this year, at least I know she was really ready to leave this world and never had to grapple with the idea that were were having a pandemic.

Friends

I am so fortunate to have a wide array of friends. While many started from a shared outdoor activity, most are so much more than that, helping me navigate an issue or see some perspective on the challenge of the time. Or we just have fun!

Socially Distanced Mountain Biking

Business Connections

In March, I thought my work would completely dry up, but it turned out that many of the connections I had been trying to make became great working relationships due to the CARES act funding and the need for “Technical Assistance” for businesses small and large (and everything in between). For this I am so grateful!

I served as a Recovery Navigator for Montpelier Alive!, providing downtown Montpelier VT businesses with information and/or connections on a wide variety of topics including COVID guidelines/safety, grants/loans, and/or transforming their business with eCommerce or online initiatives. With the Center for Women and Enterprise (CWE) as well as the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund (VSJF), I provided technical (business) assistance, coaching, as well as just a friendly face on Zoom - all of which were needed through the course of the year.

So work transitioned to remote, largely on Zoom. No travel!

In addition, I worked with a new group of Project Managers (PM Response) who were focused on providing pro bono Covid-19 response to organizations in need of help. Through that I made more great connections, and supported Vermont Manufacturing Extension Center’s new web based collaboration tool, MXVT.

While there was initial shock and often difficultly in knowing how to react to the pandemic, it was truly amazing to see how businesses repositioned themselves, tried new things and thought out of the box. Many have had to cut their businesses to the bare bones, but they will survive! We will all be grateful to these businesses who do make it out on the other end - we will need to support them not only as we can now, but through the next years as they crawl out of their pandemic caused holes.

During the initial lock down, Edelweiss in Stowe became our go-to place. When their normal business dried up, they “pivoted” early on to provide take out meals for first responders (and others). Here we could get missing food supplies or comfort food take out when we were sick of cooking, and more importantly, always find a friendly but masked face to chat with.

The restaurants have been so hard hit. While we did do a fair bit of take-out, we only did indoor dining on a few rare occasions (try 4PM on a Tuesday night to have the whole dining room to yourself. ) Sitting at the bar and talking to the bartender made us realize what we were missing.. that comradery and fun discussion with whoever is at the bar. We hope it will be coming back for us in 2021!

Nature

I’m so grateful for where I live - Gardening was such a comfort in the spring & summer. Lot of room to roam & Mt. bike

And there is such beauty in Vermont no matter what the season! My dog Bodie & I found some great new glades to explore this winter.

While travel was largely within Vermont, it was wonderful to have George’s mom’s house on Cape Cod to escape to - even recently when hiking sand dunes was a great adventure (and welcome alternative to a largely snow-less Vermont).

And so this was my 2020… a year we may not be so fond of but will never forget.

Here’s to a December 2020 sunrise - Let’s hope 2021 brings the end to this pandemic. Meanwhile, today, tomorrow and every day of your life, take advantage of what you can do and be grateful for all the family, friends, connections and experiences you have!

Our New COVID-19 World and Operational Excellence

SInce our world got turned upside down with the impacts of COVID-19, I’ve been fascinated by how this has unfolded, and how it highlights some of the key drivers that affect the achievement of operational excellence.

DATA

Data Driven Decision Making:

The mantra of “Flattening the Curve” is a excellent case study of data driven management. With just a relatively few key data points - Number of Tests, Number of New Cases (positives) Hospitalizations, Deaths, and New Case based projections of supplies needed, epidemiological statisticians created a variety of models to project “worst case” and “best case” models for countries and states, subsequently updating those models with actual data.

Initially, these models drove huge estimates for personal protective equipment (PPE), such as shields and masks, as well as ventilators, a specific COVID-19 driven need. These estimates, in turn, drove huge purchase requests from a variety of uncoordinated local, state and national organizations, sometime duplicating needs and in worst case, hoarding of PPE. In the good news category, once actual data was added, and the “flattening the curve” efforts were more or less effective, the supply demand came way down, and improving coordination between the various supply chain organizations changed the PPE needs from being a huge deficient to a manageable supply if coordinated for “hot spot” needs. Even New York City, the country’s largest “hot spot” ended up with a lightly filled Federal hospitals (Javit’s convention center and the hospital ship Comfort)

Lack of Complete Data

One obvious flaw with the models is that the extent of testing between countries, states and regions has been highly variable, so any conclusion made from them is subject to error if testing is under or over average. As the relationship between testing is particular area to hospitalizations became more clear, each region had a more accurate model of what new positive results will result in. Latest rule of thumb figures I’ve heard is that about 20% of people testing positive will need to be hospitalized and 2% of those will die. Because underlying risk factors and age are more likely to die, again the data can become skewed if the population deviates much from the average. Italy, for example, has the oldest population in Europe; the State of Vermont as well as Washington’s death statistics are higher than average on per capita view because the deaths are more concentrated from elder care facility which densely house high risk individuals. Bottom line, while the data is useful in some ways, data is not always consistent or complete enough to draw a solid line to a conclusion, but you can use it see trends and eventually establish relationships.

Data Driven Decision Making makes choices easier, but the accuracy of the data (as well as the context it exists in) needs to be well understood.

SUPPLY CHAIN

Coordination

The lack of coordination between local, regional, state and federal organizations led to inflated figures for demand, hoarding of supplies, lack of supplies in “hot spot” areas and now, with “flattening of the curve”, oversupply in the some areas. As demand was better aggregated by regional and state organizations, and as FEMA has learned to play their role in supplying “hot spot” areas with supplies they have been able to obtain, the coordination improved but was could not be called an efficient, coordinated effort.

Supply Chain Frameworks

While the list of supplies needed for COVID-19 response is not that large, the lack of a global or national supply chain framework has created a situation where local, regional, state, national and global entities have been working against instead of with each other to solve shortages. Public Health officials have conducted simulations of pandemics over the years. A recent one, Event 201 in 2019, that sounded eerily like our current situation. Their recommendations included:

1. Governments, international organizations, and businesses should plan now for how now for how essential corporate capabilities will be utilized during a large-scale pandemic.

2. Industry, national governments, and international organizations should work together to enhance internationally held stockpiles of medical countermeasures (MCMs) to enable rapid and equitable distribution during a severe pandemic.

3. Governments should provide more resources and support for the development and surge manufacturing of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics that will be needed during a severe pandemic.

Because there was no framework in place as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, all three of these recommendations are in the process of being developed as a real time response. If a framework had been in place prior to the pandemic (even part of it), we would have been able to be more responsive to the shortages sooner. All complex supply chains need to be developed with some thought to how the system works together, including understanding and responding to the risks to the supply chain.

PIVOTING

With many manufacturers and organizations looking to help in some what to solve COVID-19 issues, it’s been truly amazing to see how even somewhat stodgy organizations revamped their production floors or even their main functions into doing some sort of COVID-19 response. What will be even more challenging will be adjusting to the ways that the ongoing presence of a highly contagious and potentially deadly virus has changed the our way of life and how business is conducted. Impact varies dramatically from little to none to dramatic, possibly business ending. On top of that, because the “mitigation” phase came with stay-at-home restrictions and closures for non-essential businesses, many businesses are reopening in a financially stressed or depleted state. Successful businesses will be the ones who can see and understand how the changes are affecting their businesses and can pivot quickly to a new or updated model that will work in the new COVID-19 affected world. To whatever extent possible, “Make lemonade out of lemons”.

PRIORITIZATION

Similar to the lack of a Supply Chain Framework, the lack of a predetermined way of prioritizing requests caused conflicts as the rules of who go what and how much were not clear or known. Working on priorities and assigning value to specific types of demand helps ration short supplies and ensure that those most in need get needed supplies.

Balancing Public Health against the Economy
A key issue that came under the spotlight as we headed to reopening was how to balance Public Health against the Economy. Shutting non-essential businesses, as we know, dramatically affected our once healthy economy, and some sectors of business, such as restaurants and close contact businesses will be severely limited in their operations until we get a vaccine or achieve “herd immunity”. But the question is how do you balance the threat of increasing deaths against the cost of lost jobs? No one has a good answer, and various states have tipped the balance one way or the other (subject to change…) It’s probably one of the toughest prioritization decisions anyone could make. Prioritization exercises should promote activities that will provide the best value, but circumstances change, so they need to revisited frequently.

USE OF TECHNOLOGY
Where would we be without technology.. the internet and Zoom? It’s been fantastic to see how these tools have been leveraged so quickly to conduct school, operate businesses and in many ways, carry on with a new normal. Many can’t escape the distractions of home especially with kids not at school, but others have found that working remotely makes them more focused and productive, or just plain happier.

Many small retail businesses already had websites, but now they are essential for curbside pickup and no-contact business transactions. So anyone with web related technology or skills has been in demand, and in many cases, progress that would normally have taken months or years has happened in days or weeks!

With the increased reliance on technology to carry on business, its clear that having a good internet connection is essential. We should all be thankful that the internet providers developed a network that has been able to support the sudden new demands, and should continue to support efforts to ensure that everyone who wants it has access to reliable broadband internet . It’s clear now more than ever, that the internet and all the technology and applications that can be accessed over it can make us more efficient and productive.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Just like in a business, lack of clarity about who does what as well as who needs to consult with others has led to many conflicts.

President (Feds) vs Governors (State) vs Local (County/City)
Some of the decisions we’ve lived through - Who set the “Stay at Home” Order”, Who sets the opening guidance, How do you set what the guidance as well as guidance are” and Who enforces all this stuff? Each step of the way, there were clashes over what the President, Governors or Mayors could implement - and if there were conflicts, who ruled?

How everyone works together
While all the efforts of the mask makers, volunteer efforts and manufacturing transformation were all wonderful in the way they had everyone pitch in, and in most cases, make a meaningful contribution, all these efforts, being so disconnected without large scale planning led to many efforts being less successful in doing the most important activities in that moment in time.

If any of the volunteer efforts could have joined forces, and actually discussed who did what, it clearly would have boosted the output of their efforts. Any discussion of Roles & Responsibilities reduces conflicts and improves coordination for better results.

LEADERSHIP
Whether in business or government, there are countless examples are where a strong leader has helped their team or citizens navigate challenging times and periods of great change. The challenge of COVID-19 was one that no government leader was prepared for, and if you watch any press conferences, you can see which leaders are rising to the challenge and those who are not. Good leaders are transparent, deliver both the good and bad news, make tough decisions (and explain how they arrived at those decisions), inspire, and add a little humor from time to time.

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
The dramatic shift in life (and business) was unsettling for all, and in many cases has put once solid businesses into a very troubled spot. So that base level of stress has settled into almost every pieces of our lives. Luckily we humans adapt even to challenges as bad as this one, but not everyone interacts so well with others when they are stressed.

Triggering
The White House press conferences have displayed many (way too many) instances where both reporters as well as the president were triggered in some way, and instead of backing off, they dug in deeper. This behavior did not shed any insight on the question at hand or solve any problems, it just left me (at least) to shake my head and see what a complete waste of time that interaction was.

Absence of non-violent communication
Even with triggering communications, relationships can be salvaged or even improved if the two parties can have an open and honest conversation about how and why they became triggered, so they could learn how to work together more effectively in the future. This rarely happens in today’s political environment.

It’s quite a sad that we see so much conflict during a time we say “We’re all in this together”. Those that are triggers and avoid mending conflicts are not solving the problems that need to solved. Collaboration can’t occur when individuals are triggered and when there is no attempt at non-violent communication (listening to and trying to understand each other’s needs and perspectives).

In Summary….

We are all in this together; we all have many challenges to overcome. Hopefully the wonders of modern science will help us get to the end of this sooner than later.

In the meantime, hopefully this post has spurred to you to think about how the issues raised from this situation relate to your own world.

Last but not least, let’s hope we figure out how to prevent this from ever happening again!

Get the Right Players on your Team!

Begin with the end in mind - if you want to have a successful initiative, it is important to have the right players on your team! Depending upon what your organization is setting out to accomplish, the right players may.. or may not already be in your company.

Once you’ve defined your initiative or project, complete a SWOT analysis to determine what additional resources you’ll need to get the right mix of skills on the team. Ideally, you’d conduct this SWOT not only with the management team, but also with key stakeholders and the initial picks for your team. You might be surprised with some of the strengths as well as limitations that are identified in the process.

While a project or big initiative can be a growth opportunity for someone with the right mix of raw talent, be cautious about expecting inexperienced resources to fully get the job done. They will only succeed if they have the right level of support or mentoring to help them get to the next level.

What skills are you missing? Be brutal in assessing the skills and knowledge of your staff. While they may be fantastic at what they do today, do they know the latest technologies? Do they have the perspective to see opportunities that new technology can bring? Are they excited about learning new things?

Who will keep the team on track? Your team may be great in handling smaller projects or the day to day, but how well can they stay on track when the initiative has a broad scope or many moving parts? Who will work with the defined initiative leadership team to modify priorities as the initiative unfolds?

Who has the perspective to transition the initiative from the high level strategy down to the many details? Your leadership team has done a great job in outlining the vision, but is there anyone on your team who has the perspective to translate the vision to the many ways you might work to accomplish it? Not looking at all the ways an initiative can be accomplished may lead you to stick with today’s solutions when you really need to figure out the best solutions for the future. See my post: Build a Strong Foundation - The Importance of the Discovery Phase.

Do you have enough resources to get the project or initiative done in the time frame you are shooting for? Remember, less experienced resources will take longer to get the job done; experts may (or may not) be able to wade through work more quickly. If you don’t have enough resources to get the job done, no amount of late nights will pizza will be able to get the job done with the quality you’re looking for.

When working with a vendor, it can be helpful to have an outside resource serve as a go-between. Sometimes vendors needs to be reminded that a client requires some specialized help. Vendor objectives do not always align with company objective - an outside resource can remind a vendor why the company picked them! In addition, an outside resource may be helpful in providing overall perspective or having those difficult discussions that can come up, navigating the path forward when faced with a serious issue or resolving a misunderstanding between the client team and the vendor.

With the right team, your chances of success are greatly improved! Next, makes sure everyone on the team knows their role on the team (see my “Who’s on First” post)

How to use Cascading Goal Setting to Improve Performance and Results

While alignment between an organization’s top goals and all the activities going on may sound like something that happens naturally, it actually may require significant efforts on the part of the leadership team to achieve. The new goal may not completely match the direction of the past. Without clear communication to the team, each member will likely carry on as they have in the past - which might be counterproductive to getting to that new goal.

Mission

Everyone should have clear idea of the organization’s mission. The mission answers these questions:

• Why does the organization exist?

• Who does it serve?

  The mission generally doesn’t change too much from year to year. If it does, there needs to be clear and frequent communication to employees to help them understand the ways in which the company’s mission has changed.

Values

Closely related to the mission, the values set the guardrails about what the organization supports and how it operates:

• What does the organization believe in?

• How does everyone work with each other?

The values form the framework of how and when people communicate and how they collaborate and settle differences between each other.

Vision

Unlike the mission, the vision may change from year to year as the organization responds to the changes of the world outside. The vision states:

• How does the organization want to change or grow?

Here’s where misalignment can start - if the vision has changed significantly, but the people within the organization don’t really understand that, they won’t respond accordingly.

Strategy

With an updated vision in hand, strategy outlines what actions the organization will take to realize the vision. It’s still a sketch, but starts to identify WHAT the company will work on

• What’s the overall plan of action or change designed to achieve that major or overall aim?

Strategic planning then takes that sketch and cascades it down to the Goals, Initiatives and Projects that will actually accomplish what needs to done.

Strategies are then further developed by creating a series of “SMART” Goals that specifically identify what success will look like:

Then Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) and Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) are developed to track the progress towards the SMART Goals.

The SMART Goals then inform the start of new initiatives and projects, each of which also develop a series of SMART Goals and KPI’s to track the success of those efforts. In the process, action as well as monitoring plans are developed to make sure progress is happening in the right direction.

By cascading the Vision to Strategy to SMART Company Goals to required Initiatives & Projects, alignment exists from the top organization to its major change activities.

If that same process is used to cascade Company Goals down to the Department and Individual level, that same alignment occurs between the top goals of the organization all the way down to every employee.

Cascading Goals is how Organizational Alignment is created but that is only start. Even with a framework in place, it’s not easy to get and keep everyone aligned… especially if your vision is somehwhat of a moving target! More on that another time…..

Your employees are worth their weight in gold

Your employees are your greatest asset and may be as valuable as gold, but with one major difference, they need your attention! Much like a plant, people need a few specific things to continue to grow and potentially bloom. You should think of yourself as a gardener whose specialty is growing people.

Without some cultivation, a great employee can become disenchanted with your organization, stop growing their contributions or worse yet, leave and take the knowledge and skills they do have elsewhere.

What employees need from you to be successful

1. Management

• What’s the road map for the company?

• How can the employee grow at the company?

• What are their goals & priorities?

• How is their work aligned with company goals?

• What can their do on their own? Do they need support?

 

2. Recognition and Appreciation

The words, “Job well done!” can have a tremendous impact on someone. Being recognized as completing a desired goal and in general, knowing that you are appreciated is a key driver for many employees.

Pizza lunches, and food of all sorts motivates some people, but the best is really for someone to know that you appreciate them and the way they contribute to the organization.

3. Coaching

• What can you suggest to them to “up their game”

• What are their Improvement opportunities?

• Can you explain what they might not fully understand or appreciate?

4. Cheer leading

• When an employee is close to the finish line, can you give them that little push?

• If they’ve having a bad day or having other parts of their life interfere with work, can you help them get back on track?

5. Teaching

•    If an employee needs to know some  specific skills or ways of doing things, can teach them or direct them to training that will provide what they need?

• Can you teach them some of the more nuanced communication skills they may lack?

With good direction, recognition & appreciation for a job well done sprinkled in with coaching, cheer leading & teaching,

You will have an amazing team and lots of blossoming employees!

Close the Loop!

As a company implements change, an important part of communication is to remember to “Close the Loop”. This will keep everyone on the same page and in alignment about next steps.

Who needs to close the loop?

Everyone! Closing the loop keeps everyone moving in the same direction and avoids misunderstandings

Managers and Leaders have to close the loop most often:

• After a discussion or meeting

  • What are the action items? Put them in writing/email.

  • What decisions were made? If you made a decision or reached a major milestone, make sure everyone involved clearly understands this.

  • Ensure there are no misunderstandings about the takeaways from the discussion/meeting. Without a clear summary of takeaway and next steps, folks leave a meeting with very different understandings of what is next.

• When a decision has been made

  • Did everyone who gave input learn of the decision?

  • Did you explain why you made the decision you did?

• When a decision HAS NOT been made

  • Let everyone know where the decision making process sits, even if a decision has not yet been made.

  • In the absence of information about a decision, the “rumor mill” can create a very different next step than the reality of the situation.

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

Everyone should be proactive by closing the loop with their supervisors, managers and leaders. More commonly, a manager comes looking for more information about the status of open items. If you are proactive in your communication, your manager will appreciate it!

• What’s the status of open items?

• What roadblocks are you encountering?

Closing the loop is a two way street

• Communication to the receiver (I made this decision …)

• Acknowledgement from the receiver - be sure the receiver really understands and accepts your communication

  • Are you getting acceptance or a confused look?

  • Are you getting back feedback or questions?

• If you have difficulties in closing the loop, reflect upon how you interact with others

  • Do you provide regular communication on the topic?

  • Did everyone understand the original objective or issues to be solve?

  • What could you have done differently?

By Joshua Coleman on Unsplash

If you are a do-er, it’s easy to move too quickly and forget to let everyone know what’s happening.
Slow do (just a little) and close the loop. It will help keep all the ducks in a row…

Build a Strong Foundation - The Importance of the Discovery Phase

In the same way that building a house starts by building a strong foundation, tactical initiatives as well as projects are built upon what is uncovered and decided during the discovery phase.

Unfortunately, too many initiatives and projects fail to do enough discovery work. As the initiative or project unfolds, the team painfully learns the details of what should have been found at a high level during discovery - such things as incorrect assumptions, omission of major pieces of work or dependencies that need to be in place.

What is the Discovery Phase?

The dictionary tells us discovery is:

the act of finding something that had not been known before:
Many scientific discoveries have been made by accident.
The discovery of gold in California opened up the west.

A discovery is also something that you did not know about before:
 It was quite a discovery when I came upon this beautiful mountain stream.

Whe an initiative or a project starts, there has been a discussion about what is wanted at the end, but there is a lot that is not known. In the discovery phase, all the questions can’t be answered, but the team should start to understand what it will take to get the initiative or project done, what it will cost and what other areas of the organization may be impacted.

What Does Success Look Like?

The first and most important work in the discovery phase is to figure out “what success looks like”. Each person involved may have a very different view of what the end is— even though everyone is saying exactly the same words! If it is not 100% clear about “what success looks like”, there may be a variety of ideas about the end result will look like. So it is very important to make sure all those involved are on the same page about what the future state will look like. In some cases, such as launching a major computer system, it may not be easy to know exactly what detailed pieces the project may implement, but everyone should agree that success would be launching the system with at least the core functionality that can be obtained within the limits of the schedule and resources available.

Use of SMART goals can put some specifics to “what success looks like. These goals are
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound. By spending the time to work out SMART goals, everyone will more clearly understand “what success looks like” to them - it may actually start to change the initial ideas of the initiative, as various stakeholders weigh in on their reality today and what it will take to get to that vision of the future state.

Who’s Affected and/or Involved?

Make sure you’ve included the voices of everyone affected or involved in the initiative. If the stakeholder group is larger, be sure the person who represents a specific group is really speaking for that group. If a key stakeholder group is not part of discovery, their viewpoints and concerns about the initiative could cause issues down the road.

Assumptions

Even when everyone agrees what the completion of the initiative or project looks like, it is very likely that a variety of assumptions have been made.. and not everyone may make the same assumptions! One person may think that outside consultants will be brought into help, another may assume that existing staff will take on all that extra work. It is the unstated assumptions that cause conflict later in the project, when the reality of the assumption is known. The impact of an incorrect assumption may have a small or huge impact on the project.

Dependencies

Much like assumptions, too many dependencies are not understood early in the project. When the dependency is uncovered later, the project stalls until it is cleared away. The goal may be to plan out a new manufacturing line, but the current staff may not be capable of envisioning exactly what that will involve, so a major dependency is to find the right person and bring them into the organization to drive that change.

Start with a Sketch

Think of the discovery phase as sketching out the initiative. As details are gathered, lines are made thicker, more lines and shading is added. In requirements, the full color and details are added to the initiative. In web design, discovery will involve wire frames, which are just line drawings of the page layout and call outs for functionality. The wire frames are much more useful for uncovering omissions than a full color layout. When the page has all its color, users focus on is the design pretty?, are the color right? When that is left to determine later, those viewing the wire frame spend more time making sure the web page has the functionality needed.

Dive Deep if needed

When there is not enough information to make assumptions or estimate work, the team may need to dive deep into the some of the details. Once the outline of the work is known and it is clear what it will involve, the team can move back up to a higher view of the planning.

Once the team is in alignment about “what success looks like”, have a bunch of SMART goals, understand the outline of all the work to be accomplished, have identified the assumptions made and dependencies involved, it’s time to get budget approval and move to execute the plan!

Make Your Plan then Work Your Plan!

With January 1 looming, many companies are budgeting for 2019. What does the future bring?
For some companies, it’s pretty simple, look at what was done this year, decide the small ways it will change, and then you’re set! If you are growing or you’re changing your strategy, this process is not so simple. You may know that the future will bring growth or that you’ve got a new target - but how do you get from there to a budget?

Tactical Planning

If you’ve done your strategy work for the coming year, you have a clear idea of the markets you are targeting and some ideas about how you will connect with them. But that’s not enough. You need to operationalize your strategy by creating a road map of how you will get from where you are today to where to aspire to go.

Some major things to consider:

• What does success look like? If you execute well on your strategy, what will your operation look like?

• How will each department be affected? Sometimes it’s just hiring additional staff, but it could mean you need to bring someone into your organization who has a specialized skill set

• How much will it cost? (the budgeting part) How will you fund the needed improvements? Will the timing work for your cash flow or busy season?

• Does the plan seem reasonable to all the key personnel? Everyone who is a “driver” (Making change happen) in your organization should understand where the company is going and what their role is in getting there.

• Who will be accountable for what? You need to assign initiatives to specific people who own the execution of those initiatives.

• What could go wrong? Better to think of this now and prepare some alternative actions. The future is not always as we planned - what are the major things that could de-rail your plan and how will you respond to them?

Goals!

Once your plan is set, be sure it has clear goals set for each department. Each department should work those goals down to the individual level, so everyone in the organization understands how they will contribute to the coming year’s plan.

Goals should be:

• ”SMART” - Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time bound

• Clearly define the specifics of any deliverable so everyone understand exactly what is meant by the words being used - example “Create a Web Site” is far too vague.

• Assigned to specific individuals who are responsible for their completion. If needed, specify who will collaborate with that individual to work through to the goal’s completion

Create key performance indicators (KPIs) where ever possible to track your progress against goals.

Work your plan!

Your plan should be a living and changing document reflecting the new ideas that come in as well as the tasks that didn’t get executed quite as you planned.

• Followup: Make sure tasks happen as you planned or reschedule as needed. If specifics need to change, be sure to document them.

• Focus on the top priorities: Consider what is key for success and focus on those items. Things you thought were important may not really need to be first.

• Keep the plan visible to everyone so everyone know what has been accomplished and what is left to go.

• If you choose to stray from your plan, be certain is it still taking you to the place you want to go. It could be that you’ve found a better way to get to the end, or you may have re-evaluated your entire strategy, but in either case, revisit your entire plan to make sure you are really making a change that will be an improvement.

• Celebrate success: As you complete goals or hit major milestones, celebrate! Nothing is more motivating that to know that the team is heading in the right direction and is making progress toward the larger longer term objective.

Who's on First?

In this famous Abbott & Costello skit,  you can see how confusing it can get to figure out "who" is doing "what" in a baseball game -- (Video Credit: Koch Entertainment)

Who's on First?

In an organization or on a project, confusion or misunderstanding about "who" is doing "what" can lead to inefficiency at best, and major work disruptions and  interpersonal conflict at worst.  A good technique to make sure everyone is on the same page about what contributions are expected from each team member is to create a RASCI Roles & Responsibility map.

R-A-S-C-I Mapping

The creation of the RASCI map and the discussions that happen during the course of its creation is what makes this tool so powerful - it forces everyone involved to objectively talk about the details of the process or project, who needs to be involved and agree upon the roles each person plays in each task. Ideally, a collaborative spreadsheet such as Google Sheets or Office 365 Excel is used so everyone involved can participate in its creation and ultimately agree on the details of the RASCI map.

The first step is to make a complete list of all the work to be completed. 
Tasks generally all done by the same person could be grouped together.  Any work that involves multiple steps with different people taking a different role in the work, should be broken down in more detail. All this should be put down in the rows of the spreadsheet. 

Next, identify all the people who are part of the process or project, including outside contractors. Add each person as a column in the spreadsheet.

Then, share the sheet with everyone involved and have them update their role in the process or project as follows:

R = Responsible for getting this task done. Only ONE person should be responsible for any one task. If two people put R for the same task, their roles need to be discussed or the task may have more than one component and needs to be broken down further.

A = Accountable for making sure the task gets done. In a small organization, the person who is responsible may also be accountable.  In larger organization, a manager or executive may be accountable for many tasks. 

S = Supports the responsible person. This could be administrative or backup help. It is more about helping the responsible person and less about giving the responsible person any input or insight to get the task done. Multiple people could be supporting the one responsible person.

C = Collaborates with the responsible person to get the work done. Without collaboration, the responsible person may not be able to get the task done, and in most cases, the collaboration improves the quality of the task's output. Multiple people could be collaborating with the one responsible person.

I = Informed people need the information or deliverable created as part of the task to get their work done.  Even if the task is complete, it is critical that its output is given to others in the organization who need to know the task is complete or use some piece of it in their work. Multiple people might need the information from the one responsible person.

Once the map is done, make sure everyone involved agrees with the result.  If there is some disagreement about who is "R" for a task, or some folks didn't realize they were "C" for a task and should be collaborating on it or there are other places where the team is not aligned, discuss the work, how it is best done and update the map.

The result - Role alignment! ... everyone knows what they should done doing (They now know that "Who" is on first base!)

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

When you create a RASCI map, let me know how it went - did it solve your organizational issue?

Jean

Exponential Sales, Stair-step Expenses

Growth = Success - that’s the message from investors. Once  the very important hurdles of having a product or service that others want to purchase and having the funding to actually make or provide that product have been met, a company needs to have the organizational capabilities to manage and execute on that growth profitably.  Major operational expenses, such as a new computer system, can be very expensive.  If such decisions are well planned to match the needs of growth, an organization can grow more smoothly without too much disruption.

Sales growth over the years can be steady

Or exponential..

Operational Growth usually comes in steps, as major investments are made.

When the organization makes a big investment, it solves current issues and lays a foundation for growth. For a time, the investment allows the organization to scale as unused features and capabilities are implemented. But if the company is growing significantly, at some point, the investment will no longer be able to keep up with the increased demand. Too much pressure can be put on the existing system of people, processes and tools. So to grow smoothly, new investments, ranging from small to huge, will be needed to  keep the foundation of the organization shored up for future growth.

Foundational investments such as a new ERP computer system can be large and disruptive.  Organizations can delay big operational improvements, but might end up relying upon their people and processes to fill the gaps because of less than adequate tools.  If an organization is able to look out into the future and is able stay even one small step ahead of its needs, operational spending increases can be better planned and implemented to more smoothly navigate through growth.

Have some good stories where an organization did this well (or badly?) - let me know!

Jean

Jean@excellenceinops.com

The Face of Change

Is change positive or negative?  If the change is growth, the answer really depends upon how the person impacted by the change feels about it.

I recently attended a workshop which started off by having everyone in the room pick a card off a table that portrayed the way they felt their contribution was viewed by others in the organization.

I picked the card with a QUESTION MARK, because I view my role as supporting the organization when they have questions. 

Another person picked a card showing A HOUSE BEING BUILT. He's working to implement many new programs and processes.

The third picked a card showing THE DEVIL.  He's implementing a lot of change, which is not going very smoothly.

Since I generally view changes coming from growth as POSITIVE, I was a little surprised by his choice. What I discovered was that the changes he's been implementing have been viewed very negatively by his employees.  So while he thought that the changes he was implementing were necessary for building a foundation for future growth, he felt he was playing the bad guy role in that process.

I'm not sure he needs to take on that burden.  If changes had been communicated in way that his employees understood, he wouldn't necessarily needed to be viewed at the devil.

TIPS FOR COMMUNICATING CHANGE:

• Clearly communicate why a change is needed, ideally explaining the "good" that will come with the change
• Clearly communicate how it affects an individual, ideally WIIFM (What's In It For Me?)
• Listen to feedback, use it as an opportunity to confirm the specifics on your change or use it as an opportunity to help an individual understand the change.
• As change is implemented, communicate the results of the change.

Do you see yourself as a positive or negative face of change?

Jean
Jean@excellenceinops.com