|
Return to Newsletters menu
Vanguard News - December 2008
***
In this issue:
Action over knowledge
Inaction despite knowledge
Blame over knowledge
Narrative over knowledge
Ideology over knowledge
Belief over knowledge
Prejudice over knowledge
Achieving targets, not purpose
NI 14 brings out the vultures
Lament from the front-line
What do you do in a downturn?
Tool heads fess up
***
Action over knowledge
A reader wrote to inform me that following the Heathrow Terminal 5 debacle, BAA
responded to a report from the House of Commons Transport Committee, defending
their performance. They said:
'We focused on fixing the problems at T5 and not investigating until those problems
were resolved once and for all. Had we diverted our resources to investigating
rather than solving the problems, we could not have fixed them as quickly as we did.'
As the reader notes: How can you solve problems if you don't know what caused them?
Managers love fire-fighting. Knowledge is far less sexy.
***
Inaction despite knowledge
A top executive in the city has written to the Prime Minister to say the recent
financial crisis was caused by incentives and thus commissions should be outlawed.
He is right, it is something that has been known both specifically (in financial
services) and generally for years, it is well evidenced by research and there is
good theory as to why. It is entirely predictable that incentives will always get
you less and, as in the recent episode, could even destroy you.
The FSA promises to tinker with IFA commissions by 2012 (why wait?). But there
are no plans for tackling the real problems.
***
Blame over knowledge
'People will be held accountable' says the minister for Children, Ed Balls,
following the death of ‘Baby P’, the child killed by his mother and accomplices
in London. While the media joins Balls in his witch-hunt, one commentator is
pointing to the system as the cause of failure: an academic, based in Lancaster.
Her work shows how the new IT system promulgated by Balls creates a service that
is predisposed to NOT help children.
It is easy to see how children get seen by lots of different people: every time a
child is referred it is treated by the IT system as a 'new' case. Then those who
visit will be predisposed to avoid taking the child on. Why? If you take a child
on, the computer system will allocate 'workflow' activity targets, hard-wired to
a 'RAG' status that gets managers hovering if anything is 'going red'. It is
better to discount relative's or neighbours' reports and/or find any reason not
to take the child on. Read her commentary in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/19/child-protection-computers-ics
Simon Caulkin also wrote about this important work in his column. Go to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/23/simon-caulkin-baby-p
It is Balls who is to blame. It is he who has driven the new computer system into
all children's services in the name of improvement.
According to a reader, social workers are calling his department (DCSF) the
Department for Curtains and Soft Furnishings. It is hard to lead people who have
no respect for you.
***
Narrative over knowledge
I met with people reviewing the new planning application system ('One App') for
the minister. It is a classic example of a one-size-fits-all, IT-led, rules-based
design that will prevent the service absorbing variety. In short it's a shocker
but at least this IT system won't kill our children, it just upsets people who
want to make planning applications. What I learned from civil servants is that
the report has to fit with the minister's narrative. And that, of course, tells
the story of the recent One App implementation as an important step forward
upon which we will now build. Did we elect such a self-serving uncurious person
or did the regime make him like that?
The problems with One App are also being felt in other services. Computers gaily
fire out electronic requests to the Environment Agency, Fire Services and others,
stuffing them with waste. The whole idea was we needed to speed up planning.
Local Authorities using the Vanguard Method have shown how to do that without
computer systems. Citizens bring gratitude and flowers, planners enjoy their
work. But sadly better planning services at lower costs leading to happier
citizens doesn't fit with the minister's narrative.
***
Ideology over knowledge
The Fire Service is being obliged to centralise its control rooms. It is an
example of the obsession with service factories, economies of scale. The project
is behind schedule, is experiencing IT problems, and the promised savings to
local authorities of £14m is now, apparently, not going to be realised.
Meanwhile the union is saying 92% of fire-fighters think this will make their
service worse. I am with them, because economies are in flow, not scale. But
like the other factories were going to be stuck with it. And the costs. And the
worsened service.
***
Belief over knowledge
The Commons Home Affairs Committee was told visas were being granted rather than
rejected in order to meet processing targets. 'It is easier for staff trying to
hit processing targets to approve an application than reject one', said Linda
Costelloe Baker, who monitors Government visa refusals.
And instead of understanding that the phenomenon is ubiquitous, systemic and
ought to drive the committee members to do something the committee will think
it is a management problem. This and other committees have been told the same
thing many times over but they can't understand it because it offends a
deeply-held belief.
***
Prejudice over knowledge
Audit Commission inspectors cannot argue with the results achieved by systems
thinkers. But that doesn't stop inspectors recommending (i.e. obliging) actions
that they are told to inspect for as evidence of 'good management'. For example,
having achieved performance that puts targets in the shade with processing benefits,
one council has been advised they now need to develop SMART targets. They got to
such amazing performance by realising that targets were dumb.
Another example: having developed a customer-sensitive lettings process, where
all pertinent issues are taken into account by meeting people, the organisation
was advised that it doesn't do enough about promoting 'diversity' and 'inclusion'.
Inspectors cannot see that the design copes excellently with both individual and
community issues and does so in a way that is sensitive to individual and
community needs and differences. Instead what the Audit Commission inspectors
want to see is things like 'workshops' on diversity. So you have to put your
tradesmen in a room and brainstorm 'how should we deal with diversity?' If the
tradesmen feel affronted ('I don't care what colour people are, I fix the taps')
they have to keep their mouths shut, play the game and let management get it
documented so the Audit Commission can give the thumbs up.
And more: They want to see 'benchmarks'. Systems thinkers know why you should
never benchmark - everything you need to know to improve performance is in your
own system if you know how to look, leaving aside reliability problems with
comparison and copying without knowledge.
All of this is bad advice, but 'advice' given by people with power - if you don't
do as they tell you, you will suffer. The Audit Commission should be closed down,
it is driving up costs, worsening service and demoralising people. It is a
purveyor of bad management.
***
Achieving targets, not purpose
A reader tells me his local paper ran a story about a local councillor who said
'…plastic bottles and containers will still not be collected for recycling by
the council. We are judged on our recycling targets by weight not volume. We
could spend thousands on new lorries and extra journeys to collect plastic which
is bulky but very light, and it won't improve the figures.'
He knows that what matters is pleasing the inspectors, not doing the right thing.
***
NI 14 brings out the vultures
A reader writes: 'Looks like the NI14 gravy train is fast approaching the platform'.
He was referring to an attachment promoting a new service from consultants,
offering to make organizations 'best in class' by helping them discover that
20-50% of customer contacts are avoidable, by giving them new complaints
procedures and methodologies for capturing customer data.
The obvious appeal of the concept (removing failure demand means less cost) will
lead command-and-control thinkers to be easy prey for those who know how to sell
to someone who is pre-occupied with costs. The bandwagon now following failure
demand includes IT providers offering new IT systems for monitoring and tracking
failure demand. They will lead to a bureaucracy of inappropriate management
behaviour and an increase in the size of the management factory. The snake-oil
providers make beguiling use of cost-benefit analyses to make the case for
investing in a programme of change to tackle failure demand. But do they know
anything about method? These appealing ideas will come to nothing, except
greater waste.
Failure demand is just one of the things you need to study in order to make the
case for a change to a systems design. To put it another way: failure demand is
a common feature of traditional 'command-and-control' service organisations. To
get rid of it you have to change the system.
I am writing a definitive article on failure demand for Customer Strategy magazine.
When it is published I'll let readers know.
***
Lament from the front-line
A reader writes:
'Converts to the Vanguard Method have been trying to help our Chief Executive
see sense. We placed hard evidence on the table, for example one of the
interventions delivered a £300K reduction in the cost of recruitment advertising
whilst improving the recruitment process. Because this saving is spread around
our organisation's services the bean counters aren't interested (does not fit
into 'efficiency savings' you see). If that's not bad enough imagine our despair
when we learn from the local paper we are getting an 'efficiency team' at a cost
of £90K, tasked with delivering £250K worth of efficiency savings primarily
through service cuts. A local councillor expressed the view that a proportion
of the saving could be made by scrapping the £90K team before it starts, I'm
with the councillor.
It's also ironic that recruitment to the new 'efficiency' team will be an easy,
customer-friendly process delivering on the required time scale. Systems
Thinking made that possible.'
I feel sorry for him and others like him. We have learned to insist that our
work starts with the leaders, they have to UNDERSTAND systems thinking (commitment
is easy, understanding is different). Otherwise good people who have got it get
demoralised when they see their leaders doing stupid things. And, unfortunately,
getting it doesn't happen by showing the evidence. If that were true there would
be many more systems thinkers.
***
What do you do in a downturn?
The Wall Street Journal reports that while GM and Ford are laying people off,
Toyota is engaging their people in improvement activities. GM and Ford are hoping
the US government will bail them out, Toyota simply gets on with the job,
improving the system.
See: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122384818385826909.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
***
Tool heads fess up
According to people who attended the latest 'lean' Summit, Dan Jones, one of
the leading proponents of 'tools' said the lean tools have not achieved the
expected results, adding it has been hard to engage managers and leaders and
thus the change has been difficult to sustain. And their solution? More tools!
Visual management, A3 exercises and standardising processes.
They just don't get it.
The tools developed by Toyota were developed to solve problems associated with
making cars at the rate of demand. Service organisations have completely different
problems to solve. Ohno insisted we should never codify method - write tools -
for it is thinking - how you conceptualise your problem that is the key.
Tools like A3 and visual management won't deliver a change in thinking - people
just fill the blanks with their current (wrong) assumptions. Standardising
processes, a favourite of the tool heads because Ohno said 'first you must
standardise', appeals to the command-and-control thinker but in a service
organisation standardising processes will lead to the system not absorbing
variety (as the tool heads have achieved with HMRC - newsletters passim).
These people are no different to managers - they won't get it until they do it.
It takes doing it to get it because it is counter-intuitive. As many Toyota people
who worked with Ohno always tell me: 'Ohno would never explain'. This is why.
Getting knowledge starts with knowing how to look.
***
Thanks for reading!
John Seddon
john@vanguardconsult.co.uk
Author: 'Systems Thinking in the Public Sector', available from Triarchy Press:
www.triarchypress.com and 'Freedom from command and control: a better way to make
the work work' available from Vanguard (www.systemsthinking.co.uk).. 'Freedom from
command and control' is also available in the US from:
http://www.productivitypress.com/productdetails.cfm?SKU=3276
Vanguard Consulting: Developers of the Vanguard Method, helping organisations
change from a command and control to a systems design. Beware of imitators, as
Vanguard has developed solutions for sectors others claim to be able to provide
the same service. If providers are not accredited to the Vanguard Method you
should not expect a Vanguard service.
Systems Thinking People - a service helping systems thinkers find suitable work
and helping organisations fund suitable systems thinkers. www.systemsthinkingpeople.com
***
You were sent this because you asked for it! You can stop the Vanguard Newsletter
by hitting reply and writing 'UNSUB' in the subject line.
Downloaded from www.lean-service.com - improve service and cut costs
Return to Newsletters menu
| Return to top |
|
|
