Part 21 (1/2)

3 To Accoanizational Developanization eanizational developive clarity to the goals and allow those involved to knoell they are progressing toward the finish line

As a strategy and planning consultant, I have worked on anizational development teams The latest included professional developration tearess and hopefully levels of success

Say you're asked, ”Hoe knoe're successful?” Or, ”Hoe knoe're done?” Your ansill usually will be, ”The metrics will tell us”

These measures are dependent on the efforts involved The efforts will normally deter employee professional developanization Health quadrant If your questions are around achieveanization, you ain, the main difference between these and the Product/Service Health metrics I've covered is that these arefrom focused efforts The scope of these metrics should be well defined The Product/Service Health -terram, not a measure of a specific effort

These metrics, built around specific efforts, can still be ”risky” But, since they come ”attached” to the specific effort, the risks of fear, uncertainty and doubt are ate

Perhaps it would be more correct to consider these ”other metrics” rather than advanced metrics These are not more sophisticated than effectiveness anization

Before we look at metrics in the other quadrants, let's step back and look at the forest we're in I've argued that anizational i from the inability to successfully take on enterprise-wide ianizations Struggle So Hard to Ianization suffers froanizational I tiers inherent in metrics and the risks involved I've seen the fear rise up and poison an organization Fear born of poorly defined and poorly implemented metrics

While I still believe metrics to be one of the ained a new appreciation for the value anization forward

I'h measurement I find that to be the riskiest of uses for h soram I have found that metrics, when done well (or at least safely), can be a catalyst to ianization finds out a lot about what it doesn't know

Let's look at a si the speed of a process, the organization learns that it lacks more inforanization doesn't even know the process in question well enough to produce the necessarybecomes apparent because of the atte tells you what you didn't know you didn't know

Every process i the process needing ioals are to reduce waste and improve flow, a favorite tool is the value stream map, which requires you to define the process But, what if you're not doing a process-i for measures?

Well, thoseof the processes to be measured You'll need to ask questions like: When does the process start? Even this sianizations to answer Does it start with the first action a worker takes within the process? Or does it start with the request by the customer? Does it start with the identification of a need?

When does the process conclude? Is it upon delivery? Or is it upon closure of the docuress of the process? Is conclusion dependent on a successful delivery of the service or product? Or does it sinate the completion of the attempt?

Are there subprocesses? Especially ones you don't control? Within the process there may be many subprocesses-many that are misunderstood or unknown Who owns those subprocesses? How do they affect your work? Are they prerequisites to other steps? Are they critical to the successful co for the data, measures, infore (if not force) the organization to define the thing being measured In many instances, you will find that you have to i measured tobeing , you gain a better understanding of the things to bea process-improveic plans, and how you handle long-ter pros

Making Your Processes Repeatable

The steps to a process should not just be understood and communicated, but they should be consistent They should be repeatable In atte purpose of ianization to have the process defined well enough to arnered froram may lie in the requireh to measure

When you've defined the process, you still will not be able to gain useful measures around it unless it is carried out consistently each time it is used This consistency allows for corrections and improveies Here's a short one I am constantly impressed with the ability some people have to throw a basketball froh a horizontal cylinder ten feet high They call it ”shooting,” as if that makes it more of a skill But the si the ball Many do so in a high arc, allowing the ball to co the metal rim What I find especially impressive is how many different forms and techniques the players use The key I've learned is not how you hold your hand, arrange your feet, follow through, or even square your hips to the target The simple trick is consistency If you ”shoot” the ball the saet better Not because you repeat the process the same way (or you would continue to miss) but because you can make small corrections Because you are consistent in your delivery, you can see how each ses the results Eventually, you'll find the right fore of success

Consistency allows for improvement

The saanization You have to understand the process You have to repeat the process the same way each time You have to measure the results You can then make adjustments to improve the results Your process or methods can be unique, but they have to be repeatable and repeated

Measuring Helps to Encourage Using Existing Processes

You don't have to try to i withit has the capability to do so This is where the adage, ”you ih,can also make the performance deteriorate There is no assurance that the result ofis is youacts as a catalyst for change-good or bad

While that is true for the process being measured, there are other, related processes that are affected as well For example, in our Service Desk scenario, the speed to resolve a trouble call required the use of the trouble-call tracking system

When I needed to measure the time to resolve issues for a couple of our offices, it quickly beca used by the technicians The h each case history to adjust the close dates and ti them when the process called for them to They would wait days and even weeks to close cases It was seen as unimportant documentation and paperwork I heard more than once that ”it's not the real work-the real work is helping the custo out that stuff takes ti solve uments, there is a fair amount of truth packed into those states, the paperwork is very i for additional resources You have to prove not only that you haveefficiently and that adding more resources would solve the problem This is hard to prove if you have no evidence And if your time to resolve shows up as weeks for sihtly assume that you are inefficient