|
Return to Newsletters menu
Vanguard News - March 2007
***
In this issue:
What went wrong on the railways?
Not the time to have a huff
CPA results show 'improvement'
From wrong to wronger
Forget risk, think knowledge
Just returning your call - to the UK
It's the system stupid
Deming Forum
Out and about
Other Vanguard events
***
What went wrong on the railways?
UK readers will know about the train crash in Cumbria. Early reports say the cause
was a faulty set of points. They had not been inspected, as planned, a matter of
days before the crash. Investigators will now turn to the organisation's procedures.
I have no idea how railway maintenance is organised, but from knowledge of working
with similar 'preventative' systems, I can say with confidence that if their inspection
and maintenance work is managed in a classical command-and-control way, the system
would be open to such failures.
In the classical command-and-control 'inspection' design managers worry about meeting
inspection standards and schedule their resources accordingly. Often scheduling is
done by computers following management's rules. Work is prescribed, the inspectors
have to follow procedures and make records of what they do. It is a 'turn up and
write reports' design. Managers assume if standards and activity targets are met
all is well.
But it is not. In telecommunications and oil pipeline maintenance, we have found
such designs cause workers to run hither and thither, their activity being
concerned with meeting the requirements as set, which is not the same as maintaining
the system. There is no continuity or ownership, leaving the system open to people
not being concerned about whether action has been taken. That, after all, is not
designed to be their concern.
When work is re-designed using systems principles you get a massive increase in
performance, instead of people turning up and recording things you get people
turning up and solving problems. Responsibility is the design principle, instead
of compliance. It is a truly preventative system, not an inspection system.
To take telecommunications as an example, we found the highest frequency cause
of telegraph poles falling over was low-drop wires. The inspector's job was to
send off a form and following forms through the system revealed it could take as
long as a year to remedy the situation, leaving the risk exposed. In much the
same way with oil pipelines we found the form completed by the inspector would
travel through no less that seventeen functions before anyone would think about
turning up to do something. Through studying demand from the pipeline (things you
need to be able to fix) we re-designed the job to be 'turn up and take action',
and by allocating workers to their own geography (pipeline) they soon took pride
in keeping the pipeline available.
I wonder if the investigators will think about these things. If anyone can tell
me how the maintenance system is designed I would be interested to know. My bet
is I am right and, furthermore, the 'solution' will be more inspection; probably
inspection of the inspectors; the wrong answer.
***
Not the time to have a huff
The chief executive of the Local Government Association was reported as walking
out of a meeting with the minister for local government because an advance copy of
her speech showed she was going to say that citizen satisfaction with local
authority services was still a problem.
Instead of having a political huff he should have seen it as an opportunity to
do his job - lead - and engage his intellect in working out why we have this
paradox: the measures (targets) authorities report up to government show
improvement while citizen satisfaction paints the opposite picture.
The evidence we have, for every service about which we have knowledge, is that
compliance with the targets and other specifications is what's making the services
worse. He might do something useful if he knew that.
***
CPA results show 'improvement'
The Audit Commission reports that local authorities are improving on their
Continuous Performance Assessments (CPA). More authorities are 'four stars',
fewer are 'no stars'.
As we showed in our report on adult social care (available from the web site),
authorities with widely differing star ratings all had the same poor performance
when studied as systems. We find the same with all services; it is not unusual to
be working with a 'four star' authority that has lousy service delivery. The
authorities comply with the things that got them their stars, but that is not
the same as improving their services.
The legislation going through parliament is dropping 'Best Value', the
predecessor to CPA, as a statutory obligation on local authorities' reviews of
services. Good thing, as it didn't work. But think about how this is being done.
A good leader would shout from the rooftop: 'We've stopped it because it didn't
work!' Politicians bury it quietly. They talk about 'narrative' - the story they
tell. Just like managers who have wasted millions on customer-first and people
programmes, they rationalise, they talk as though these things have 'made their
contribution'.
Perhaps it is too tricky to address why they didn't work.
***
From wrong to wronger
The fact that the CPA results have gone up suits the narrative on inspection. The
good news is the Audit Commission is cutting costs, there will be less inspection.
The next 'new thing' is to be Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA). The idea is to
assess groups of organisations. I imagine this will cause top managers of these
organisations to spend their time in meetings trying to work out how to prepare
for this together and they will create a bureaucracy to respond to the requirements.
I don't imagine it will be easy to generate a consensus amongst the players.
Moreover, it will take all of the leaders away from where they should be spending
their time; how stupid is that?
The promise is CAA will mean less inspection. It will, like CPA, start with a
self-assessment. Whether the specifications for self-assessment will lead to useful
knowledge and improved performance or merely create waste of many types remains
to be seen. But they don't have a good track record on this.
***
Forget risk, think knowledge
One of the features of the CAA will be risk assessment. This nonsense has grown
in recent years. Managers are obliged to brainstorm what could go wrong, sort
these into probability of occurrence and potential impact on the organisation
and then develop action plans to monitor and do things about those things they
think are of highest risk. It becomes a cottage bureaucracy, creating and distributing
waste. It is of little value but it gets you a tick in the box.
I always encourage managers to ask a different question: What does go wrong? It
means you have to start with getting knowledge and I tell them they must get that
knowledge themselves, not ask for reports. Most things that do go wrong are of
little consequence beyond the organisation but the stuff of learning internally.
It is quite OK for many things to go wrong. We are not all flying aeroplanes or
running trains, where risk-avoidance is paramount. To adopt such an attitude to
all risks leads to waste, not control.
Deming often pointed out things will always go wrong. It is how you behave as a
consequence that matters. If you treat a one-off event as though it is predictable
you create waste. I wonder if the people writing the CAA understand that.
***
Just returning your call - to the UK
Organisations are now promoting their withdrawal from Indian call centres as a
'customer bonus'. Don't you love' em? They set up their first call centres
arguing they would be 'attractive to customers', they just forgot, and they
still forget, the purpose of the call centre is to give service, not take calls.
When they sent the calls to India managers argued customers would be tolerant,
knowing that the consequent lowering of costs would translate to cheaper
services. I didn't notice.
The reason they are coming out of India is the reason they went in - cost. They
are learning that the cost of service is end-to-end from the customer's point of
view. There is no point in having a cheaper transaction if it just drives up the
number of transactions. I guess they don't tell the customers that because they
think we'd find it hard to understand.
***
It's the system stupid
One of our new consultants (at least 'new' in the sense that he is through his
first year's training) wrote to me. Before joining Vanguard he was an IiP
('investors in people') specialist. He wrote:
'I landed my first (own) client and carried out scoping this week. It is an 'IT
support' organisation and a previous IiP client of mine. They could not believe
how much I found out about their business in just a few days. Their customer
service questionnaires (all compiled from their perspective of course) had told
them that they were truly a 'customer-focused' organisation - so we found out
what really mattered, and identified that many of their customers were not
getting 'service'. We found plenty of failure demand (35%) and the capability
data revealed some fairly horrendous end-to-end times from the customer's
perspective. The highest frequency demand was 'my email is not working' and the
analysis revealed that the response was to send an email acknowledging the
request! Progress chasing failure demand would then ensue. This company's
unbillable hours currently equate to 50% of last year's profit - all due to
failure demand and other waste within their system.'
And a few years ago he'd have told them to 'invest in their people'. Now he
knows: It's the system stupid.
***
Deming Forum
I shall be speaking at The Deming Forum this year. Deming had a huge influence
on Vanguard's early learning. He introduced us to the idea that work should be
managed as a system and he was very good on what is wrong with traditional
management thinking. Some of his followers are inclined to say 'getting it'
takes a lifetime. It is my intention to expose this myth. The Forum dates are
May 23/24th. For information and a booking form please
e-mail: info@lean-service.com
***
Out and about
As you receive this newsletter I shall be on my way to South Africa to meet
with some new clients and speak at Customer Management World Africa, Johannesburg.
For information: http://www.loyalty-world.com/2007/cmwza/confprog.stm#2078
At the end of March I shall be in Holland. On the 26th I shall be speaking at
European Contact Centre Week in Amsterdam. Yes, I shall be telling them their
paradigm is the problem, should shake a few up. For information:
http://www.iqpc.co.uk/cgi-bin/templates/document.html?topic=227&event=12054&document=87602
On the 27th I shall be speaking to an academic audience and on the 28th I shall
be speaking to people from public and private sector organisations who are
interested in Vanguard's work. For information about either of these events
please e-mail the organisers in Holland: Chretian Felser, Felser@sioo.nl or
Andree de Miranda, demiranda@leanservices.nl
And a date for your diary: On June 29th, I shall be making a key-note presentation
for the Chartered Quality Institute in London. My title: The Quality Renaissance:
innovation, care and management thinking. I shall be talking about the profound
achievements of leaders who have changed the way they think.
For more information and to book: http://www.thecqi.org/events/g3-188.shtml
***
Other Vanguard events
Shared services: what you should not share, what you could share and how to go
about it. N.B. it covers local authority services and is open to public sector
people only. March 22nd Leeds. Contact: info@lean-service.com
Process Mapping: March 27th, April 19th, Buckingham. Contact: info@lean-service.com
Vanguard Scotland: Process Mapping, March 21st Falkirk. Contact: office@vanguardscotland.co.uk
Vanguard Ireland: Process Mapping, March 5th, Ballyclare, March 12th, Dublin.
Contact: anna.rich@vanguard-ireland.com
***
Thanks for reading!
John Seddon
john@vanguardconsult.co.uk
Author: 'Freedom from command and control: a better way to make the work work'
available from Vanguard (www.lean-service.com) and all leading book suppliers.
Available in the US from: http://www.productivitypress.com/productdetails.cfm?SKU=3276
The only book that comes with a guarantee: If you tell me the book creates no
value for you I'll give you your money back.
'Freedom from Command and Control' - the October 2005 show - is now available on
DVD, only £45, visit www.lean-service.com to find out more.
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.
***
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 |
|
|
