It is best to communicate the context of a Consistent and Reliable Operation via a 2-hr session, which Go2Cab delivers at no charge, to ensure that the audience fully understands the context and benefits of evidence-based decision-making leading to an actionable set of activities (not paper-strategy and paper roadmaps). This blog should help organisations think of or have already started the effort to achieve operational excellence, where the blog prepares the organisation for a healthy launch and implementation of reform and business transformation. The context of this blog is when an organisation has either decided or is thinking about improving one or more segments of the operations.
Go2Cab shares its hands-on experience to draw your attention to simple actions you may wish to consider when dealing with Analytics, whether in general or specific to operational excellence in digital reform and business transformation.
Prerequisite 1: Be Prepared to Become Exposed and Accountable
Whether the organisation is small or has grown through organic growth or acquisition, the operational activities may still be managed with little or no metric-driven or evidence-based decision-making culture. One assumes that some evidence may be used, but there are no guarantees that the evidence is proper. Instead, opinions are almost the only way that makes or breaks day-to-day operations. The opinion-based approach works well when organisations are small and the leadership has adequate experience. In such circumstances, the evidence used is “empirical”, and the leadership (including lowest-level management) mentally processes two or three factors simultaneously and, most likely, makes the right decision.
The complexity of the operation has very little to do with the size of the organisation. Running a smaller organisation can be more complex than running a larger [in size] organisation. Complexity is due to the OPERATIONAL DYNAMICS (i.e. moving parts of the business in time), where opinion-driven decision-making leads to sub-optimal (if correct) decisions. More of the “shoot off-the-hip” takes place every day. At some point, the leadership realised it was becoming untenable to manage the operation with self-sustained profitability, deal with the dynamics, and manage a more significant number of “interactions,” which became a real challenge to ensure the anticipated growth. And, despite everyone’s best intentions, things do not feel the same way anymore.
The paradox is that as soon as the organisation subscribes to evidence-based decision-making, the “wrong” and the “bad” are exposed. The ALL GREEN (Go2Cab calls the “Watermelon”; green from outside, red from inside) REPORTING does not work. People do not feel comfortable because evidence tends to point fingers implicitly. It is vital to ensure that EVERYONE IS COMFORTABLE and fully understands that ACCOUNTABILITY is A GOOD and POSITIVE THING. The more successful implementation through evidence-based decision-making should ensure that the “wrong” and the “bad” appear as early as possible to enable timely corrective actions.
One of the first things the leadership should do is to formally state, enforce, promote and encourage everyone that knowing the “wrong” and the “bad” are good rather than being exposed means a negative thing. When people highlight that something is not working, it is no longer a complaint. Instead, it is an opportunity to improve. When the “wrong” and the “bad” are due to someone’s mistake, it is an opportunity to train, upskill, and proactively prevent rather than a chance to punish. In this way, accountability becomes SINGULAR. There should be one person accountable for delivering the MEASURABLE OBJECTIVE via TIMELY execution of the RIGHT tasks to deliver the expected outcomes of one or more SERVICE. Sure, some people help this person, but it is no longer a “committee” that is accountable. The other important ramification is that anyone’s mistake can be exposed at any time, including that of the leadership, which means everyone is treated similarly. No one should be ashamed of making a mistake. People should be ashamed of repeatedly making the same mistake despite the organisation’s training, assistance and support. Such people should not be part of the organisation anyway.
One visible outcome of this prerequisite is that leadership and management at all levels must FULLY AND CONTINUALLY COMMIT (rather than ONLY SUPPORT). Thus, the operation becomes “Do What You Say You Do, the mantra of t”, with no exception.
Prerequisite 2: Stop Generalisation, Motherhood, Paper-Strategy & Roadmaps
An organisation’s pain during business reform, business transformation, or when the leadership attempts to instil operational excellence is excruciating and costly, particularly when more than one attempt fails to deliver tangible benefits. One common suggestion by advisors is to start a significant review, the construction of target operating models and concepts of operations, “as is”, gap analysis, and “to be”, and certify an army or people with Green and Black Belts. Another desirable action is to hire a few more Master Blackbelts, and by now, the organisation has spent at least a few million and has not seen any benefits even after 12 to 24 months since they started. There is no doubt that the Six Sigma approach is required, but you do not need to have a significant review and certify an army or people before you see the benefits. Go2Cab will help you do it without anyone being approved at your organisation and at a much lower cost than anticipated. The first thing the leadership must do is be BOLD, BRAVE, OPEN-MINDED and STOP the construction of paper strategies, visionary statements, roadmaps and reams of MS Word, MS Excel and Visio-like diagrams.
Organisations must address four critical aspects of this issue. Failure to pay close attention guarantees these aspects failure.
Aspect 1: Starts with a Clean Slate
Do not commence with the review of your “as is” situation. Instead, decide why you should exist and what you should be to fulfil the said existence. Remember that by now, you are rejecting all motherhood statements, generalisations, paper strategies, and roadmaps. Identify your customer with the measurable objectives that will meet the Customer’s needs. Avoid data-flooding the operation and the Customer. Design the processes required to support well-defined capabilities and services, which will ensure that the desired customer objectives are met by design and proper analysis methods such as those used by Go2Cab.
Aspect 2: Call a Spade a “Spade”
Formalise the definitions of keywords, phrases and terms used within the organisation. When appropriate, associate specific measures with one or more definitions. Try to keep it simple but avoid becoming simplistic in everything you do, particularly the simplistic analysis of data or the operational situation (regardless of whether or not you have or use data to analyse the problem). The simplistic analysis will most likely mislead you. Pay attention to the dynamics of the operation when analysing the data, your situation or when you gather data throughout the operation. Avoid focusing on one area and ignoring the other under the “Let us start simple” banner. If the organisation is loosely coupled, the investments made to improve one functional area are most likely wasted as such an area cannot operate within a “dirty” environment. Do not streamline before you clean. Do not solely rely on simple statistics and surveys to guide you on what and why you should review or improve a selected segment of the organisation. Go2Cab can help you identify the INFLUENCING FACTORS, including the operational dynamics. In this way, you will use evidence-based decision-making supported by the appropriate evidence to prioritise and maximise the ROI and achieve operational excellence in areas that matter most.
Aspect 3: Avoid Over-Metricising “Everything”
Suppose you approach operational excellence the way Go2Cab promotes it. In that case, you will know precisely what data you need, how often you need it, what to do with it, and how the outcome will be actioned to achieve a quantifiably improved outcome. Please don’t associate a measure with things you do not need. One common mistake is to have a scorecard for everything, including performance reviews. Such over-engineered outcomes backfired quickly and may lead to a loss of trust. THE MOST EXPENSIVE WORD UNDER THE SUN, within the origination.
Aspect 4: Reduce the Number of Committees SWAT and A-Teams:
Avoid the assembly of SWAT and “A” teams for operational excellence. Go2Cab repeatedly finds that operational excellence fails when organisations hire external advisors who internal people also help to take charge of instilling operational excellence. Such actions tend to send the wrong message since people who are not involved are seen to be the “B” and “C” teams or the “bad” guys. Go2Cab will help you construct and coach the teams within your origination at all levels, where everyone contributes through structured, well-orchestrated, timed training and well-defined actions. In this way, everyone will feel they are part of improving the organisation, and everyone is treated the same way. When people are assigned to undertake or lead the planning or execution of a task, lead activities, and influence the decision-making simply because they have been in the origination for too long, it is not the right move. Cultivate the culture of ROLES played by QUALIFIED PEOPLE to deliver a SERVICE using one or more CAPABILITIES they already do or, they will possess rather than a culture that is primarily influenced by HR-reporting lines and silos that usually are the determining factor to decide who should/can do what or otherwise.