Better late than never.

Greg’s article inspired me to complete this long overdue action item.

Ackoff’s Comparison of Analysis and Synthesis

Greg wrote a great article for Quality Progress magazine.

Be sure and check out the list of Ackoff’s F-Laws.

Breaking From the Pack

Don\'t hold back, say what you really think!

I’ve significantly revised the earlier version of this paper as part of writing the 2nd edition of The Basics of Process Mapping.  The principles are the same, but I’ve added guidelines to each principle plus an example showing how one of my clients applied the whole set.

Here is a draft chapter on the 7 principles from the manuscript that you may download.

I came across this question recently while I was scouring a site on the web.  I’m not sure I answered it there, but the question sure stuck with me.

I read a ton of books. (In Texas, we measure by weight, not volume)

Most are marked-up in various ways.  Highlighted, post-it notes, etc.  This is one indicator of use, I suppose.

Back to the question at hand.

I define my field broadly, i.e. performance improvement.  Within that, I’ve developed a fair amount of expertise in instructional design, process improvement, and to a lesser extent, change management.  Unless you are a potential client for one of these, in which case the order may change- I’m nothing if not flexible.

What does this have to do with the question at hand?

I still consider myself a student in these disciplines.  So I read a ton of books to keep up, as they say.

The one book I keep coming back to for instructional design, is Ruth Clark’s “Developing Technical Training.“  3rd Edition now.  I started with the first edition.  I keep coming back.

I not only find the content imminently practical, I also really admire the writing style.

Concise.  Conversational. Structured to facilitate learning, comprehension, and transfer.

Nothing like my post.

Ruth also practices what she preaches.

I guess the really good ones always do.

What is your one book?

I happened to be at the SME.org website a few minutes ago and saw that they sell the 4 Recommended Readings (books) used to prepare Lean Certification candidates to “sit” for the Bronze level knowledge exam.

They offer these books to SME members at a lower price than they do non-members.  You can buy each book separately or get a better deal if you buy the whole package (all 4 books).

If you check out Robert’s Lean Thinking Library, you’ll see that it already has all these books, plus many more that I have personally read and would recommend for ongoing professional development.  You’ll also notice that the books come from Amazon.com; not my garage in case you were wondering.

Naturally I was curious about SME pricing vs. Amazon’s prices.

This turned out to be much more difficult than it should have been.

If this handy widget works, you’ll see what I saw at the SME site.

OK.  I can say with certainty that you should buy from my library site if your goal is to save money, get your books quickly, and mull over my commentary on each book.

I’ll post the precise data soon so that you can check my math.  I ‘m still running down some other prices as well from another well known non-profit organization that is focused on Lean.

SME had 3 of the 4 books.  Amazon only had 3 of the 4 books from their store.  The 4th was available from multiple 3rd parties.  Strangely enough, the book missing from SME was Lean Thinking, by Womack. (That is a little like a Church being out of Bibles)

Amazon’s “missing 4th book” was Learning to See.  I’ve only seen this sold new by LEI; they publish it and no doubt it is a cash cow for them at $50.00.  I’m in the wrong business.

Check this out:

Grazing Cash Cows

A 1990 study published by Boston Consulting Group answered this question in part by what they referred to as the “05 to 5 rule.”

“Across a spectrum of businesses, the amount of time required to execute a service or an order, manufacture and deliver a product is far less than the actual time the service or product spends in the value-delivery system…”

“The 0.05 to 5 rule highlights the poor ‘time productivity’ of most organizations since most products and many services are actually receiving value for only 0.05 to 5 percent of the time they are in the value-delivery systems of their companies.(1)”

What is your reaction to this rule?

Do you wonder, “How can that be?” Or, “Somebody should do something about that!”

How about, “That must be someone else’s organization, not mine.”

Or, perhaps you may think, “That is so 1990. It’s got to be much better now.”

Now, think about this question:

Assuming every person does the work they were hired to do error free, every time, could there still be a lot of waste present i.e.,  at or near what the “05 to 5 rule” implies?

Believe it or not, even with error free work all the time the answer is “yes.”

In part this is due to distinguishing between waste and value-creating work, and the impact both have on “flow.“ It’s also due in part, to the way we “design” work.

So what do we do about it?

If you are able to attend the 2010 ASQ Lean and Six Sigma Division Conference (session A3), you’ll learn 3 skills to help address this situation:

Skill #1: What the term “flow” means and how to measure it in ways that matter to your customers.

Skill #2: Recognize typical barriers to flow in knowledge work that are hiding in plain sight.

Skill #3: Discover why finding and eliminating these “barriers to flow” reduces lead-time, waste, and cost while increasing productivity and value.

Here are the objectives of the “Flow, not Joe” presentation.

At the conclusion of this session you’ll be able to:

· Know where to look and what to watch for, in order to improve the flow of knowledge work

· Define 5 measures you can use to quantify the business or customer impact from improving flow

· Explain why improving flow is good for customers and good for your business

Who is Making this Presentation?

Robert Damelio is a consultant, author, and President of THE BOTTOM LINE GROUP, a Dallas, Texas based management-consulting firm. He has worked extensively with both Fortune 500 and Government organizations to help them strengthen operations and reduce waste, while simultaneously increasing productivity, customer-perceived value, and customer satisfaction. His primary areas of expertise are process improvement, process management, and change management particularly as they apply to knowledge-intensive work in service, professional, administrative, and “non-manufacturing” processes. During the last 10 years especially, Mr. Damelio’s focus has increasingly been on helping leaders within Client organizations plan, implement, and measure the results of their major organization change and improvement initiatives. He is the author of “The Basics of Process Mapping,” and is currently serving ASQ as the chair of ASQ’s Lean Enterprise Division Body of Knowledge (BoK) and Certification Committee.

Why Consider this Session?

One of the learning needs that ASQ Lean Enterprise Division members voice most frequently is for “examples or cases of applying lean principles and tools in transactional or office settings.” This session focuses on the principle, “find and eliminate barriers to flow.” It is one of seven principles for improving the flow of knowledge work. These 7 principles were used during an award winning lean engagement that helped reduce the lead-time for the targeted administrative process from an average of 28 days to 4 days. Attendees will receive a paper that defines all 7 principles.

I hope you can join me in Phoenix.

P.S.  In the interest of “full disclosure,” you would also learn this material as part of the Business Process Improvement Workshop that is scheduled for March 23-25, 2010. Either way both you and your customers win!

(1) p76, “Competing Against Time,” George Stalk, Jr. & Thomas M. Hout. 1990 The Free Press.

As part of this principle, you first learn to recognize the various forms of waste present in the way work is done currently. Then, more importantly, you discover the cause(s) of that waste. Finally, you develop counter-measures that eliminate or reduce the impact of each cause and make adjustments to the factors that hinder flow, such as IT, training, job design, goals, measures, priorities, policies & rules, etc, as an integrated set.

I’ve created two templates to help with this principle. See “Links to My Other Websites” (lower right hand corner) or click here ASQ Conference Presentation Supplemental Materials.

The first, “Recognizing Waste in Knowledge-Intensive Work is a table that lists, defines, and provides examples of 8 types of waste that you’ll likely encounter.

The second template is a list of “factors that may cause waste or impede flow of knowledge intensive work.”

Let me know how these work for you.

Thanks for asking!

The biggest challenge is distilling 50 years of combined consulting knowledge and experiences into 3 days of practical activities so that you leave ready to get results.

Here’s what we came up with:

Detailed list of topics

· Thinking in process terms – concepts, terminology, principles, and techniques

· Variations on what is meant by “process,” and the impact on process identification

· Three guidelines for well-formed processes

· What makes a process a “business process?

· Real-world impacts of incorrectly identifying business processes

· A clear method for determining when one business process ends, and another begins

· Example – using this method in identifying “true” business processes

· Summary – five rules for business processes

· Impact of process identification for application and process architects

· A brief history of “business processes” – the rise, fall, and rise again of “BPx”

· Hammer’s legacy – understanding functional and process perspective

· The good and the bad, part 1: Why functionally-based organizations are a good thing

· The good and the bad, part 2: Why functionally-based organizations introduce process difficulties

· Reconciling the two – philosophies and methods for helping functions and processes get along

· Introduction to modeling techniques – when to use decomposition, when to use flow diagrams

· What makes for an effective “swimlane diagram?”

· A five tier framework for relating business objectives, processes, applications, and data Modeling techniques for each perspective

· Achieving progressive levels of detail – working through scope, concept, and specification levels

· Understanding the six enablers of a business process

· A three-phase approach to completing a process-oriented project

· A reading list

· Discovering your enterprise’s business processes

· “Process areas” – families of related business processes

· Depicting process areas with an “overall process map” or “process landscape”

· The role of standard process areas such as “Customer Relationship Management”

· Why top-down process identification often leads to incorrect results

· A bottom-up method for process discovery

· Beginning your analysis by clarifying terminology – a structured approach

· Introduction to the major case study

· Hands-on practice with process discovery – team work and group debrief

· Framing the process – scope, issues, and goals

· A critical concept in all business analysis – separating the “what” from the “who and how”

· Four components of the “what” scope definition – the essence of the process

· Three components of the “who and how” scope definition – the current implementation

· Tips for ensuring you haven’t defined the process smaller than it really is

· Case study – hands on practice with documenting process scope

· Initial assessment of the “as-is” process and goal-setting for the “to-be” process

· A compelling and blame-free format for the case for action, and methods for communicating it

· Clarifying strategic direction – the process “differentiator”

· Case study – hands on practice with process assessment and goal specification

· Workflow models – techniques for modeling process workflow

· Components and terminology in workflow models (“swimlane diagrams”)

· The most common errors in workflow modeling – missing the point, “deception by sanitization,” and a rapid descent into detail

· Avoiding errors with three questions to drive the development of your initial swimlane diagram

· A real-life example of applying the three questions

· Principles and guidelines – making your models useful, and knowing when not to model

· Guidelines for actors – who or what can or cannot be an actor on a swimlane diagram,

· Guidelines for steps – naming, multi-actor, and sequential, parallel, and collaborative steps

· Guidelines for flow – what that arrow really means, common errors, parallel vs. exclusive flows

· Representing the basic concepts in BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation)

· Additional symbols, keeping it simple

· Managing detail – controlling the detail of your models, knowing when to stop

· Real-life example – why detail must be managed

· Controlling detail – three levels of workflow model (handoff, service, and task)

· Definition, use, and example of each of the three levels

· Business modeling vs. specification modeling, and the problems with being too precise

· When to stop – how to know when you’ve crossed the line and aren’t modeling workflow anymore

· Making the transition to use cases, procedures, and task specifications

· Techniques for facilitating an as-is workflow modeling session

· The basics – participants, resources, and tools

· Facilitated session ground rules – specifics for “process” sessions

· Tips and guidelines to ensure you’ll actually get through the process

· A reminder – the three questions to drive your initial “handoff level” workflow model

· After the initial pass – five questions to validate and extend the model

· Case study – hands on practice with developing the initial workflow model

· Progressing to further levels of detail

· Tips for designing the to-be process

· Three common redesign problems, three techniques to avoid them

· Final assessment of the as-is process – a framework for assessment and its role in redesign

· Surfacing and challenging assumptions – using a “challenge session” to generate improvements

· Characterizing the to-be process – generating creative improvements

· Uncovering unanticipated consequences – using an enabler-based assessment to avoid problems and understand the requirements for process change

· Factors to make the new process sustainable

· Creating the new workflow – turning the to-be characteristics into a workflow mode

· Review of selected work products from a structured assessment; a quest for the secret sauce

· Lean Speak 101 – Knowledge Work Version

· 7 Principles for improving flow of knowledge work

· Waste in knowledge work

· Flow – definition and anatomy

· Enablers and flow

· Barriers to flow – recognizing patterns that frequently occur in knowledge work

· Waste and flow

· Measures of flow – lead time, cycle time, value-creating time; rolled throughput yield, productivity

· Assessing flow- “where to look, and what to watch for”

· Simulation-Hands on Practice in finding and eliminating barriers to flow and quantifying the related business improvement results

If you wanted to improve flow in a business process, how would you do it?

1. What principles would you apply?

2. What steps or procedures would you follow?

3. What work products would you produce as a result?

4. When you assess a business process, where would you look, and what would you watch for, in order to find and eliminate barriers to flow?

5. How would you know that the process and the flow of work in that process were measurably improved-in ways that your customer’s experience and value?

These are a few of the key questions that Mr. Alec Sharp and I will help you answer as part of a 3-day public workshop experience coming in March 2010.