Blog posts on change

Posts selected fromManagement Blog - Engineering Blog - Investing Blog and other blogs

• The State of Lean Implementation

  Interesting survey by the Lean Enterprise Institute notes the following as the major obstacles to transforming to a lean organization.

  1. Lack of implementation know-how: 48%
  2. Backsliding to the old ways of working: 48%
  3. Middle management resistance: 40%
  4. Traditional cost accounting system doesn’t recognize the value of lean: 38%

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• Not Innovation but Still Interesting

  There is an obsession with claiming ideas as innovation in order to sell to those that seek new magic bullets.  Often there is not only no magic bullet but no innovation involved.  But examples of using long neglected management ideas well is valuable as these examples show...

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• Doing the Wrong Things Righter

  Most of our current problems are, he [Russell Ackoff] says, the result of policymakers and managers busting a gut to do the wrong thing right.

  I agree with the very big problem of ignoring the overall system and seeking to improve what really should be completely rethought and changed.  However, I am a bit skeptical of the idea of it being better to do the right thing poorly than it is to do the wrong thing well. 

  I realize "It is far better to do the right thing wrong than to do the wrong thing right." as Russell Ackoff has said, is a catchy quote.  But certainly the truth is that it depends on the system and how wrong or right a thing is and the action is.  Sometimes it is far better to do the wrong thing fairly well (to increase the overall benefit to the system) than to do the right thing poorly (and create huge problems in the rest of the system).  So sure pay attention to the concept of thinking about whether the best course of action is to completely change what you are doing instead of improving how you are doing it.  But don't pretend it is really is better to do the right things wrong - it depends.  Sometimes sure that is true, other times it isn't.

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• Making Better Decisions

  When times are good, many are content to let things go: not make any tough decisions or any that might upset someone… When in a bind it is accepted that something has to be done, so you can often get past the “we are doing ok, why make us change…” objections.

  ...

  Have the discipline to focus on the problems even when times are good. That is the key. That allows for a much broader range of options (when times are bad certain options are no longer available – for example, when Toyota had to lay off workers…). In general people are less effective under stress...

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• Encourage Improvement Action by Everyone

  Centralizing decision making is not an effective way to manage organizations. Organizations need to encourage improvement by everybody in the organization. We need to create a system where that is encouraged and supported.

  ...

  Without an understanding of systems and interactions sometimes changes are made without an understanding of the consequences those changes. The beer game is a good example of one way this can cause problems (people don’t always understand all the consequences of their actions). To be clear I agree with setting up systems that allow people to make improvements in the workplace. Just be cautious to avoid tampering.

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• Lean Six Sigma Efforts

  ...management is the most common and most persistent obstacle, not “shop-floor personnel.” Others can resist yet another effort to adopt the latest management fad but the real challenge is in getting management to change their poor practices.

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• Transformation and Redesign

  ...transformation effort undertaken at the White House Communications Agency. It shares the Agency’s efforts beginning with a Deming-based approach to continuous quality improvement through implementation of a total organizational redesign using systems thinking precepts. It describes the obstacles to implementing quality concepts in a high visibility, high security organization and examines the influence of Agency’s organizational culture on quality performance and improvement. The discussion examines the applicability of several broadly accepted quality concepts to the “ultimate command-and-control” organization.

  A couple years after this article I I went to work for Gerald Suarez at the White House Military Office (WHMO). WHCA is one of seven operational units of WHMO, others include: Air Force One, Camp David and the White House Medical Unit.

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• Good Project Management Practices

  This post is in the style of my Good Process Improvement Practices and Practical Ways to Respect People posts.

  Good project management practices include

  • Deliver a working solution quickly; add value as you have time. Don’t aim to deliver a final product by the deadline and risk missing the deadline. Deliver a good solution early, adjust based on feedback and add more as you have time.
  • Prioritize – do fewer things, and do them well.
  • Limit work in process (WIP) – finish tasks, avoid the problems created by splitting attention across numerous tasks.
  • ...

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• The New Age of Robots and What it Means for Jobs

  Industrial robots are the most advanced application of robots in business today but they are still far from plug and play solutions. They require skilled experts to have them work effectively; but the capabilities and usability have greatly increased over the last 20 years. Respect for people (and all that entails about the management system) is an important part of creating a management system to have the most success integrating robots.

  The ability of us to create technological solutions to accomplish tasks that required people has exploded in the last 20 years and will continue to. Lawyers are finding much of what they do can be done by a computer. Much, doesn’t mean all, obviously. Search and rescue in disaster areas is another task that robots are playing an increasing role in; and the use of robots will likely continue to grow quickly. Technology is taking over many aspects of medical care that were not long ago seen as requiring highly trained and experience medical professionals (reading scans, diagnosing illness…).

  
  I think many of these advances are moving so quickly that we are not properly thinking about the long term future of our organizations. The disruption these changes will take will be difficult to predict and plan for.

  ...

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• Small Farm Robots

  Using robots in farming is limited today but the future could see a huge growth in that use. Benefits of introducing more robots to farming include reducing the use of pesticides and chemicals to control weeds.

  Reducing labor costs is also a potential benefit but at current market prices (due to high costs of robotics and available cheap labor) that is more something for the future than today. However that can change fairly quickly – as for example the collapse in solar panel costs have made solar energy economically very attractive...

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• Drone Deliveries to Hospitals in Rwanda

  Partnering with the Government of Rwanda, Zipline serves 21 hospitals nation-wide. They provide instant deliveries of lifesaving blood products for 8 million Rwandans.

  Their drones are tiny airplanes (instead of the more common tiny helicopter model). Supplies are delivered using parachute drops from the drone. Landings are similar to landings on aircraft carriers (they grab a line to help slow down the drone) and, in a difference from aircraft carrier landings, the drone line drops them onto a large air cushion.

  ...

  The drones can deliver up to 50-75 km (which I believe means they must have a range for 150 km because they must return to their home base). The cost is about equivalent to the current (much slower) delivery methods (car or motor bike).

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• Effective Change Management Strategies and Tactics

  Create systems focused on continual improvement with built in checks for frequent assessment, reflection and adjustment to the changes the organization attempts to make.  This effort should be iterative. 

  Building the capacity of the organization to successfully adopt improvements will directly aid change efforts and also will build confidence that efforts to change are worthwhile and not, as with so many organizations, just busy work.

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• Applying Deming’s Management Ideas at the Great Plains Coca Cola Bottling Company

  The difficulty in changing is often mostly about our psychology (not the technical difficulty of operating under changed systems and processes after making adjustments to adapt to take advantage of new opportunities).

  ...

  Results matter but within a context of the process. If I double profits by wagering all the cash we can borrow on the roulette wheel that result isn’t a sign that we are doing much better. Using data wisely requires understanding what the data tells you and what it does not tell you.

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• Avoiding Difficult Problems

  Coping with this issue (of avoiding unpleasant, systemic and long term rather than acute problems) is one of the things that separates great corporate culture from decent or bad corporate culture.
  
  If there are fairly obvious or fairly easy improvements those would likely be acted on. There are, rarely, but still sometimes, instances where those vocal or politically powerful individuals who would lose out in a fairly obvious improvement will prevent action.

  ...

  I am not convinced there are not ways to improve the situation. And I am pretty confident it is important enough to try. And I believe (though I might be wrong) with a concerted effort of knowledgable people improvements that would make a big difference in the quality of life could be achieved. I am not so certain those people involved in leading the effort would be seen in great lights though even if they "succeed." People are much more likely to remember negative consequences to them personally, even if they gain much more than they lost overall. 

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• Change Management – Post Change Evaluation and Action

  ...it is always critical to include process checks to evaluate if the improvement works as intended. It is amazing how often changes are adopted without any process to evaluate the effectiveness of the change. This leads to many problems and creates conditions where the rate of improvement is very slow.

  The rate of improvement is increased by improving how the organization improves. Monitoring the impact of changes is needed for this reason (to learn what is working well systemically and what weaknesses exist in how the organization is improving) as well as to make sure each change does actually improve results as expected. 

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