People Process Technology Blog

IT, Change Management and Training: They MUST Work Together for Successful EMR Implementation

Posted by:  Jonena Relth, President and Leadership Evangelist of TBD Consulting.

 

Ok, so we know that electronic medical records systems (EMRs) are designed to transform traditional, paper-based medical records into cutting-edge, electronic records that provide entire clinical teams with a more complete picture of their patients' needs and more tools to continue delivering superior healthcare.

 

What many leaders don't understand is why our best efforts to implement EMR systems fall on deaf ears and our medical professionals are struggling to make the change from paper to paper-lite. After all, we've done our best to build new and improved workflows and customized the system to meet the needs of our users. Well, my experience has been with EMR implementation is that leaders don't understand that the most important component of an EMR implementation is related to change management – the people side of integrating new processes and technology.

 

IT professionals aren't change management experts, nor are they training professionals. Without the three disciplines working together during the entire life of the project, all the "I's" won't get dotted and the "T's" won't get crossed.  In other words, you'll have a software system installed but the people you want to use it won't be communicated with in a way that allows them to accept and adopt the changes, nor will they be trained in a way that meets their learning style.

 

Effective EMR training requires a comprehensive change management initiative that informs and involves the intended users. Changes shouldn't be just "told" to people.  Everyone needs the opportunity to assimilate information about the changes coming and be able to ask questions, etc.  Just putting a positive spin won't work.  Allow people the opportunity to accept, embrace and adopt the changes - which will result in their integrating the system in their daily tasks once the system goes live. This takes time and serious effort by the change management experts who will determine various methods to ensure change options such as live meetings, newsletters, interactive webinars, website, posters and other media, etc.  Oh yeah, and don't forget the food. Tip to remember: "If we feed them, they will come."  (Sounds like a move, huh?)

 

That leads me to my next pet peeve: One-size-fits-all training.  Just because the IT folks learn best with hands-off WBT or that the training folks prefer face-to-face instruction, doesn't mean that all the audience will fit into one of those categories.  People have different learning styles and learning requirements.  For instance, it's going to be a VERY hard sell to get physician to stop seeing patients in order to sit through a day of un-paid training.  Let's face it; physicians make their living by seeing patients.  For this reason, we need to provide just-in-time training with super users or short e-Learning modules that the physicians can take during their breaks.  And depending on their roles and learning styles, clinical staff could be trained with a combo of e-Learning and Day-in-the-Life, Face- to-Face training.

 

In any event, the training should be carefully designed using a systematic approach that builds on the organizations stable foundation of processes.  Only by doing this will the training meet the needs of both the users and the different departments.  And don't forget that the training plan should include assessment so you will know if the users are able to apply the new skills, knowledge and information they learned.  Last, but not least, be sure to implement some sort of easily accessed, online reference and/or learning management system where current users can go for refresher information and new users can take training and read up on what they missed during go-live training.

 

Sounds like a lot, I know; but without all three - - IT, Change Management and Training, EMR implementations will not succeed to the level our organizations need.  With these professionals working together, we can achieve:

• Increased adoption of the many changes from paper to paper-lite
• Increased project ROI
• Improved patient safety and patient satisfaction due to greater accuracy by users
• Improved employee satisfaction because they can provide quality patient care
• Comprehensive, user-friendly, training that is designed and delivered before go-live to everyone who will use the EMR
• Validated transfer of knowledge via learning assessments in the training
• Refresher and ongoing training available for future employees and contractors
• Shortened user time to efficiency
• User-friendly online reference tools and/or learning management system

As always, I love to get comments from my readers.  Please let me know if your experience with EMR implementations and training are in alignment with mine.

 

Jonena

 

TBD Consulting has a 19-year, proven track record for ensuring employee performance improvement which translates to EMR usage and patient care success.  Organizations interested in ensuring true ROI for an EMR implementation, please contact our Corporate office at 602-263-1961.

 

TBD Consulting, Inc. Solutions…Not Just Strategies!

Needs Assessment Requires Experience, Objectivity, Confidentiality and Efficiency

Posted by: Jonena Relth, President and Leadership Evangelist

 

IF done right, a needs assessment will positively impact your return on investment (ROI).

 

As performance improvement professionals, we are naturally approached with requests for training development and delivery.  These are two of TBD’s core competencies, but we would do our clients a huge disservice if we simply sprang into action to develop instructor-led or online curriculum without first pausing to ask some important questions, such as:

©      What gives you the impression that your employees don't know how to perform the job or task?

©      Have they already received training for this skill?

©      Is there anything else that might prevent or discourage their expected performance on the job?

©      How is their lack of performance in this area affecting your customers? Your bottom line?

Once we have answers to a few basic questions, we conduct a needs assessment to determine whether it is the lack of skills, knowledge, training or other factors that are preventing your employees from doing their best on the job.  When you can affect a positive change in performance, you can increase your ROI and improve your employee and customer satisfaction.

 

 

However, when making changes, whether involving small procedural changes or large system implementations, there are consequences, both intended and unintended, to other parts of your organization. Before making changes, you need to view the organization holistically, which is where the value of a needs assessment is realized because it opens up other pieces to the employee performance puzzle such as:

© What are the positive and negative consequences of leaving things as they are?

© What positive and negative consequences will be felt by the departments directly involved, before and during and after the change?

©  How will the changes affect the organization as a whole?

 

 

Why ask an outside firm to conduct the needs assessment?

 

Although you can conduct a needs assessment yourself, there are several good reasons to engage an outside firm:

©      Experience.  An outside firm with extensive experience in conducting needs assessments can quickly identify the root cause of a performance issue and clearly define the problem.  This allows you to zero in on the right solutions and increase your ROI.

©      Objectivity.  The outside firm does not have preconceived ideas or a stake in a particular outcome, so you remove some of the bias created when conducting an in-house, needs assessment.

©      Confidentiality.  Employees who participate in the data gathering phase feel “safer” that the information they provide to an outside party will not be linked to their names and impact their careers.

©      Efficiency.  An outside firm can quickly organize and execute the process with minimal disruption to your business.

 

How is a needs assessment conducted?

 

The questions we ask and the process we use will relate directly to the performance issue you have identified.  The bottom line is that one size does NOT fit all.

 

First, it's important to use a variety of methods to collect information from senior leaders, supervisors and front line employees.  Most often, we use questionnaires and focus groups, either in person or virtually.  We review existing training, reference systems, hiring practices, dashboard stats, performance review forms and other resources.  Depending on the complexity of the issue, the data gathering can be completed in just a few days or could take weeks - or even months, but you can usually plan on getting a pretty clear picture of what's going on within 2 months.

 

Once you've gathered enough information, summarize the findings and your recommendations in a report.  The recommendations should outline performance improvement solutions that may or may not include training.  Be sure to recommend next steps and estimate costs to implement the solutions.

 

If it’s not a training issue, what else could be preventing your employees from performing on the job?

 

©      Communication.  Your employees know how to do the work.  However, they are not clear about which tasks are the most important or where they should be spending the majority of their time.  Perhaps they do not have important information at their fingertips.

©      Empowerment.  Your employees know how to do the job but are discouraged from making important decisions on the spot.  One client wanted employees to hold firm in pricing discussions with customers, and even provided repeated training for their employees in this area.  However, supervisors were regularly reversing staff decisions if the customer complained.  The employees soon figured out that it wasn’t worth debating with customers only to be overruled by their supervisors. 

©      Incentives are disincentives.  Incentives can backfire if the wrong behavior is reinforced.  For example, if employees are incented to reduce the amount of time spent on the phone with each customer, they may rush through calls, thereby negatively impacting customer service goals and your ROI.

©      Environment.  Your employees have been trained to perform a task a certain way, but few people around them follow the “official” procedures.  When they ask for guidance, they receive conflicting answers.

 

Asking the right questions and analyzing the answers is the gateway to the right solutions.

 

If performing in-depth needs assessment is not a core competency in your organization, involve outside consultants who have a proven track record of getting to the root causes of issues and who can recommend solid, "easy" to implement solutions.  Note: I've seen many pricy solutions recommended by well-meaning consulting firms that simply add layers of work and no real solution.  The bottom line should be that the solution should ultimately save you time, money and energy while you focus on what you do best – running your business.  Remember, positive ROI is a good thing.  That's why we're in business, right?

Mama always says, "It's better to find the truth now than to solve a non-issue and leave the real issue left unresolved!"

Being agile to conquer business challenges is one of the most critical success factors for organizations today.  TBD Consulting assist our clients to navigate and manage organizational and cultural changes.  We don’t just recommend strategies; we work with clients to develop a comprehensive solution to foster employee engagement in meeting business results.  With extensive, real-life experience in the corporate world, we know what works and help our clients create corporate culture solutions that actively sustain change management initiatives.

To learn more, please visit our website: http://tbdconsulting.com/index.php/solutions/organizational-development/

Or call to speak with one of our performance improvement professionals. 602-263-1961

Jonena

How Big Is Your Cave?

Posted by:  Ken Pilone

Trust in your people, empower them and let them help you find and eliminate the waste that they see every day!  Unleash their passion and they will rally around you in ways you have yet to imagine!

As our economy continues to circle the drain, panic is beginning to set in.  The President has recently signed into law a bill to boost job growth.  But our confidence in our government is at an all time low.  What little credibility there may have been in our elected leaders has all but vanished in a sea of cynicism and a deep rooted sense of disillusionment and disappointment.  Fear has replaced optimism. 

This bill claims to be able to create 250,000 jobs but our economy has lost 8.4 MILLION jobs since the start of the recession.  The approach congress has taken is to provide meager tax incentives for companies that create jobs that last 1 year or longer.  How meager?  The company would get a 6.2% reduction in payroll Social Security taxes through December of 2010 and a whopping $1,000 credit for employees that lasted a year.  Huh?  In other words, you can save $1,000 if you hire a person for, say, $50,000!  Like I said, meager. We are now forced into a ‘back to basics’ frame-of-mind. 

So what do we do now?  We must attack this problem at its source.  Business has to collectively and deliberately create jobs.  We need to do it for the benefit of our nation.

We need to go back to what I call a ‘caveman mentality’.  When you think about it, why did early humans live in caves in the first place?  Answer: to avoid being eaten.  The cave was a place to shelter from the elements and predators.  But it was more than that.  It was also a place for people to work collectively for the common good.  It was a place where people could find peace and community not just protection. 

Companies are modern day caves.  They provide people with many of the same needs for shelter, a place where basic needs are met and a place for social interaction.  Just as some caves were better than others, some companies are better than others but the basic needs are the same.  What kind of cave do you have?  Do your people feel safe and secure?  Are they?

We know that business, particularly small business is and always will be, the primary economic engine that drives our economy and hence our lifestyle.  We can’t rely on the government to help us.  That much is clear.  Here’s what we need to do.  We have to manufacture jobs! 

But how do we pay for them?  Time for a little basic math.  Businesses have 3 choices; they can add profit to their cost of doing business to establish price (cost + profit = price); they can keep price steady to stay competitive and reduce cost to retain profit (price = profit – cost); or they can do both.  We can achieve more from reducing cost than from increasing profit or raising prices. 

This is how we create jobs.  We mobilize everybody in the company to find and close all the small holes in the enterprise where profit seeps out.  This allows us to keep more of what we make and to create jobs for others who desperately need a cave right now.  Open your cave to more people who will bring more diversity, creativity, innovation and profit!

There is meaning in this for us.  Of course we must be able to make money to stay afloat.  But beyond that, why does your company exist?  Is there any higher purpose beyond trying to please your shareholders and the B.O.D.?  I hope so.  Wouldn’t you rather hire people vs. laying them off? 

This isn’t a trick question.  The fact is that it is your PEOPLE that will determine their own fate if management will only let them.  Turn them loose on the problem; not the solution.  Don’t say to them, ‘sorry folks but we have to lay off 20% of you because of lack of profit’.  Instead bring them the problem to solve.  Say something like, ‘people, we have a great problem to be solved but it can be solved with your help’. 

Take a humility pill.  And as I said above, trust in your people, empower them and let them help you find and eliminate the waste that they see every day!  Show them through your actions that there is a higher purpose.  This will unleash their passion and they will rally around you in ways you have yet to imagine!  Think of the families you will save from the abyss!

Prepare to be amazed.

All the best, Ken

Lean Leadership Summit - Top Notch Speakers & Sessions

Posted by: Jonena Relth, President and Leadership Evangelist TBD Consulting, Inc.

For people involved with or thinking of implementing Lean methodologies in your organization, this is a conference you should consider attending: Lean Leadership Summit 4/21-22 in Irvine, CA.

James P. Womack and Gary Convis will be speaking.

"Lean Leadership Summit
The "Rock Stars of Lean!" An absolutely unprecedented assemblage of many of the most capable and successful executive Lean Leaders on the planet in an intimate setting to share how they transformed their operations to create competitive advantage to grow their businesses."

http://www.advanced-imaging.com/leanleadership/

Hope to see you there! Jonena

How to Stay Afloat

Posted by: Ken Pilone, TBD Consultant and Lean Expert

If you think about it, a ship will sink just as fast from a thousand small holes as it will from one big one.  In fact, it would sink faster.  Why?  Because big holes get noticed.  The captain of the ship will swiftly mobilize every member of the crew when a torpedo hits and yet be completely oblivious to all the tiny leaks occurring throughout the ship all the time.  As long as the ship can pump the water out as fast as it comes in, nobody seems to notice. 

Think of sales as the bilge pump in this analogy.  We tend to think we can overcome our wasteful practices if we could just sell more.  This puts the company under great stress.  Wouldn’t it better to keep what you make in the first place rather than have it leak out all over the place?

The trick is to teach ALL of your staff to ‘see.’  They can be trained to identify waste that you may not be aware of in the first place.  For example, do you create reports that nobody reads?  Do you even know?  Every product, service, task and goal should be challenged to determine what value it provides and, most importantly, to whom.  Who is the ‘customer’ of the report (internal or external)?  What do they do with it?  Is it 100% useful?  What if you omitted section 3?  What improvements do they want?

Here’s an easy but powerful way to attack this.  Have your managers invite their staff to a meeting.  The price of admission is a stack of sticky notes on which each person lists every task, project, etc. they are responsible for, one task per note. The manager draws a window of 4 panes on a whiteboard as below:

RR (Right work done Right)	RW (Right work done Wrong)
WR (Wrong work done Right)	WW (Wrong work done Wrong)

The group then posts their notes on one of panes, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey style, representing what they think the value to the customer is according to the below:

RR = work customers want and is of high quality

RW = work customers want but needs improvement

WR = work customers don’t want but is of high quality

WW = work customers don’t want and is of low quality

 

Keep in mind that some tasks may overlap two or more panes meaning that it may have some parts that are RR and other parts that may be RW, WR or WW.

 

After each person has put up their notes, stand back and look at your wall.  What do you see?  NOTE:  the top panes represent value-added work.  That is to say that you have determined that there is in fact a customer for those tasks.  Those below are, by definition, non-value added -- meaning the customer either doesn’t exist or doesn’t want that service, product, report, etc.  Pay close attention to the WR box.  This is where pet projects and sacred cows tend to collect.  This is also a great place to start in lowering the waterline to expose waste.

 

For each sticky note, an action should be taken even if it is just to validate that it is indeed work that you should be doing.  One tricky part is work that is regulatory in nature or required by company policy or procedure, e.g., creating budgets or conducting performance appraisals.  The challenge here is to first determine if it is truly needed and, if so, to be as efficient as possible so as to minimize the time you spend on work your customers aren’t willing to pay for.

Employees tend to love this process.  It is a way for them to safely tell you, the manager, what they are doing that may not, at least from their point of view, be necessary.  By listening carefully, you may be able to lighten their load a little while at the same time drawing closer to your customers and building morale and trust.

Try it.  You’ll like it.

How to Save Your Business: Six Sigma? Lean? Both? What’s a Company to Do?

Posted by: Ken Pilone, TBD Consultant and Lean Expert

Six Sigma?  Lean? Both?  What’s a Company to Do?
 
Nowadays, organizations of all stripes are trying to figure out how to maximize their workforce productivity and yet deliver exceptional value to their customers.  Many companies have gone through agonizing layoffs just to stay afloat.  People laid off are devastated; confused; scared and traumatized.  Whole families fall into shock and disarray.  Ironically those NOT laid off also suffer greatly.  They are over-burdened doing the work of those laid off, stressed to the breaking point, frightened, confused, disenchanted and generally demoralized.  Their reward for finishing their plate of spinach is another plate of spinach!  Wow.  Not good.
 
As the economy worsens, those companies are facing an increasingly difficult dilemma; the basic question being framed here is, ‘how do we increase value to our customers while at the same time, manage an increasingly disengaged, fearful and cynical workforce?  As these negative factors take hold and become multipliers, overall morale drops to critical levels and drags productivity down with it. As the impact hits home the poor attitudes of your staff become obvious to customers and the rest as they say, is history.  In aviation there’s a term called a ‘flat spin.'  This is a nightmare, worst case scenario where none of the plane’s controls work.  If this happens the outcome is certain.
 
So, what’s a company to do?
  
Hope can be found via a set of interventions that, in many cases, have literally saved organizations from the brink of certain death.  Here are two approaches that might just save the day along with some high level descriptions of each.
1.  Six Sigma arose from a need to reduce or eliminate defects both in process and products or services.  It has achieved enormous results where quality issues were the primary concern.  It relies heavily on statistical analysis and process controls using highly specialized experts to lead the way.
2.  The term 'Lean' was first introduced to describe the vaunted Toyota Production System in a landmark book, The Machine That Changed the World by Jim Womack.  He described what he observed as a Lean Manufacturing system that later morphed into ‘Lean Thinking’ and is now generically known as just ‘Lean.’
3.  Some companies have developed a hybrid of the two known as ‘lean/six sigma’ to describe their overall improvement strategy deploying a blend of the best of both approaches.  All three have unique qualities and share some overlapping philosophies, techniques and tools. 
 
For example all these approaches:
• Can achieve relatively quick, significant improvements within their specific ‘target areas' 
• Focus on adding value to customers 
• Empower workers to solve problems as low in the company as possible (although differently). 
• Seek to identify and eliminate waste in all its forms
• Use solving real operational problems (vs. hypothetical case studies) to teach workers
• Have the option of bringing in external resources to assist when internal resources are lacking
 
In the case of Six Sigma; the approach is to invest heavily in a select cadre of employees who become experts called ‘Black Belts’.  They function like paramedics.  When the bell rings, they bring their expertise to the place where it is needed, fix what’s wrong and move on to the next place.  Usually they will also conduct beginner level ‘Green Belt’ training as a means of leaving behind ‘trained people’ who have hopefully learned by solving real problems.  Pros: Generally quick results and elimination of quality problems.  Cons:  It relies on a separate ‘class’ of workers who can lose focus on their real jobs and who can risk being distracted by pursuing a sub-career working to increase their status and influence within the Six Sigma ‘belt system’.  Many of those without training will shun it due to its tediousness and complexity.  They react to the rigors of the system the way some of us run from the Amway guy down the hall.  No offense.  I used to be one.
 
Lean approaches this empowerment/productivity dilemma differently.  It seeks to create a ‘culture’ of improvement so that ALL employees are trained to be expert problem solvers.  It seeks to narrow the gap between workers and supervisors so that the line between the two becomes blurry and even indistinguishable.  Traditionally supervisors are expected to be ‘experts’ with experience.  They often come from the ranks themselves.  They solve problems and make decisions.  In a lean culture these become basic skill levels shared by every level. 
 
In advanced lean cultures, the supervisor’s role gradually evolves along a continuum from expert, to boss, to teacher, to teammate, to coach, and ultimately to mentor.  Many decisions are made at the lowest level possible in these organizations.  Even those seemingly ‘sacred’ functions such as hiring, firing, scheduling or purchasing can be made by first line workers who function at a very high level.  This is accomplished through a strong emphasis on training and empowerment which leads to much higher levels of engagement and the unleashing of discretionary effort. 
 
Put simply, Lean helps you draw from your staff not just their hands but also their heads and their hearts.  Pros:  Employees are trained to solve their own or their team’s problems which taps into their creativity, innovation and natural talents triggering high levels of employee satisfaction and productivity.  It also strengthens teamwork and general business acumen dramatically.  Cons: Even though problems can be solved quickly, changing any culture takes time to achieve.  
 
Lean/Six Sigma, when working together as ‘bookends’, this blend gets you an organization that focuses on customer value, eliminates defects/waste and lifts empowerment which lead directly to higher levels of productivity and morale which put you on a journey to a lean culture.  Sounds easy.  It isn’t.  But neither is raising kids.  But hopefully it will lead to some level of satisfaction.  Although with kids, the jury’s still out.
 
Of course this is an oversimplification but hopefully it helps you have a basic framework to discern what would work best for your company. 
 
My recommendation?  It depends.  There are too many variables involved.  But, with a gun to my head, I’d pick Lean because it is a more lasting solution that builds long term capability within the organization while enriching peoples’ lives along the way.  Better yet, take two and call me in the morning.
 
Best always,
Ken

Unleashing the Hidden Potential of Your Staff

Posted by: Ken Pilone

Imagine reading this ad in the Sunday paper classified ads:
Wanted: Passionate people to work tirelessly, without pay or benefits, high risk of injury and/illness, emotionally traumatizing, physically exhausting. 

Ready to sign up?  I didn’t think so.  But what if I told you the ad was looking for volunteers to help the Haitian people survive and re-build?  A lot of people are EAGER to sign up for this!  Why?  What’s the difference?  In a word, meaning.  Do your people find meaning in their work? 

Consider these variations on the same word used in these sentences; my work is demeaning or my job is meaningless.  Would your staff use words like that to describe their jobs? 

Let’s be honest.  We CAN keep our jobs as long as we meet some real or imaginary ‘minimum.’  We often see our staff working at the level at which they feel they ‘have to’ but no more.  By some estimates we could keep our jobs at effort levels of only 50% or even less!  Who’s going to do the work that’s left over?  What choice is there but to hire more people if you’re in this situation.

OK, so why do people hold back so much?  Maybe its because we haven’t figured out how to unleash their real potential.  One way to do that is to help them find the value in their work!  By contrast, volunteers will come out of the woodwork when they see an opportunity to be their ‘higher selves’ by serving others.  This brings out not just satisfaction of doing something they believe is important, but it brings out about real, genuine, unselfish JOY!

Sometimes all it takes is for people to actually meet the customers they serve in order to engage them at a higher level.  Other times, it’s enough that they see what becomes of their work internally.  Maybe having the big boss come sit at their desk or workbench and ask them what their work is like would make a difference.  The bottom line here is that we all have hidden, untapped ‘discretionary effort’ that, given the right conditions, we will willingly, no, EAGERLY contribute. 

Think about this;  what do you suppose your staff says about their jobs, their company or YOU at home at the dinner table?  Would they be willing to ‘volunteer’ for you?  If not, there’s opportunity here.  If ever there was a win/win situation, this is it!

The Simplicity of Lean

Posted by: Ken Pilone
 

Why do people make ‘Lean’, seem so difficult.  It isn’t.  The ‘Holy Grail’ for the success of Lean is found in the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) cycle first put forth by W. Edwards Deming to help rebuild Japan and its reputation for producing quality products that were ‘export worthy’. PDCA is simply a logical, repeatable, and simple method to continuously improve (‘kaizen’ in Japanese).  Even though there are tons of books out there about it, the fact is, we all practice these principles all day, every day without even realizing it.  It’s what we would otherwise just call, ‘common sense.’

I’ll prove it to you.  What was the very first semi-conscious thought you had when your alarm went off this morning?  Be honest.  Was it, hit the snooze button!  Fast.  And after 2-3 times swatting at the button didn’t you finally conclude you had to get up?  Am I right so far?  As you began to become conscious, you started ‘grasping the situation’ as it’s referred to in Lean vernacular.  This is simply collecting facts relative to the situation at hand. You finally decided to get up based on grasping those facts. You asked yourself questions like;  What time is it?  What’s the weather like?  Where do I have to be today?  How shall I dress?  Do I have to take the kids to school?  What will the traffic be like? And the most important question of all, Is the coffee on?   

From collecting those facts you started to formulate a ‘plan’ based on what we call, ‘deciding needed action’.  Think of all these facts being dumped into a funnel.  What comes out the end, is what will formulate your plan!  That’s it!  All this was probably going on before you even got out of bed!

OK, so once you made your plan, you carried it out, right?  That’s what we call the ‘do’ phase.  Maybe we should call it the ‘DUH!’ phase.  You put together your outfit, got the kids up, made coffee, checked the traffic, etc.  It’s all common sense so far, isn’t it?  But things rarely go according to plan so we adjust throughout.  Sometimes we even say ‘time for Plan B’. This is our way of acknowledging that sometimes things just don’t work out as you planned them.  You have to take a detour if there’s a construction delay, but your destination hasn’t changed.  So even in the ‘do’ phase you have to monitor your results according to your plan.  You’ll need that information later.

When your day is done, don’t you ask yourself ‘what happened today?’ Without calling it so, this is the ‘check’ part of the cycle.  In the ‘check’ phase all you are really doing is collecting OBJECTIVE data. Mr. Spock loves this phase.  Maybe you found a new short cut to work, a cool new restaurant.  Maybe you were late for work.  How did that happen?, you might ask.  If you keep a Blackberry where you check off what you got done and move to the next day what you didn’t, you’re using a PDCA tool!  The key thing here is to think about it as a judge would in court.  Just the facts! 

With me so far?  OK, here’s where it gets interesting.  In the above ‘check’ step you are simply figuring out what exactly happened.  You are comparing actual results to your plan.  But now, in the ‘act’ phase, you want to ask yourself ‘so what?’  You will standardize the positive results and problem-solve the gaps.  Let’s say you went to a meeting and were asked for data you didn’t have, you probably said (hopefully to yourself), ‘Note to self… next time bring data!  Or if it went really, really bad, you might say, ‘Time to dust off my resume’.  By the way, some renditions of PDCA call this the ‘study or adjust’ phase so as not to confuse it with the ‘do’ phase.  I prefer to think of it as the ‘react’ phase.  Think about it.  Why collect data in the first place if you don’t intend to do anything about it?  Why get on the scale every morning, scream bloody murder and swear like a sailor if you’re not dieting, exercising, or doing something to promote weight loss.  Unless you believe in the fat fairy, chances are nothing good happened during the night.  But, if you are watching your calories, etc., then you DO want to see what the results were! 

So if you had a salad for dinner last night instead of your usual mountain of pasta, you’ll want to see what results you may have achieved.  So the ‘act, adjust, study’ step in the cycle is where you LEARN!  PDCA is not a 2-dimensional disc as much as it is a slinky where you spiral up with each cycle. Lots of people and companies do a good job at PDC but a poor job at A.  Many of my clients also have a PD ‘CYA’ system in place but that’s a blog for another day. 

Here’s the big finish.  If PDCA is the Holy Grail, then ‘A’ is the holiest of the holy!  With deliberate, systematic ‘post-mortems’ at the end of your cycle, you’ll know what and how to improve.  The best part is, it allows you to FAIL!  Think about it.  If you have solid learning routines in place, like a net under a trapeze artist, you can take risks and innovate.  If not, you better do it right the first time!

Is any of this mysterious?  Difficult to comprehend?  Complicated?  I hope you say ‘no, this is easy.  I can do this’.  In the end, PDCA is no more than ‘applied common sense’.  TIP:  Consultants can help. Just make sure that they don’t try to make it more complicated than it is.  If it hurts your head, it’s not being done right.  Find somebody else. 

My Personal Journey into Web 2.0 and Second Life

Second Life Keynote Series starts 2/15/2010 with Jonena Relth

Please join me and Caleb Booker as we debut his new video series devoted to, and filmed entirely inside, virtual worlds. The program, “Virtual Worlds Keynote,” is filmed in Second Life in front of a live studio audience. Well, virtually live.  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tropical%20Treet/67/223/23    Thanks! Jonena

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Today At 4PM Pacific Time: Why We Sold Our Real Building and Went Totally Virtual

(Caleb Booker)

Clear a half-hour of your schedule at 4pm SLT and join us in Second Life http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tropical%20Treet/67/223/23 as our guest Jonena Relth, President of TBD Consulting, gives a 15 minute presentation entitled: “Why We Sold Our Real Building and Went Totally Virtual”. We’ll be recording and broadcasting live through http://treet.tv/.

If tough economic times have driven your business to look for new cost-cutting measures, or if you’re at risk of losing highly skilled employees due to a long commute, do not miss this! Extending well beyond virtual environments, Jonena will cover how her company has combined a variety of Web 2.0 technologies and old-fashioned spreadsheets to get the job done right.

After the presentation we’ll be holding a Q&A that will not be recorded, so be sure to arrive on time to secure your seat!

To join us in Second Life, you’ll need to do the following:

1. Go to SecondLife.com, create an account, and install the software.
2. Log in through the Second Life software using your user name.
3. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tropical%20Treet/67/223/2 to be teleported to our studio before 4pm Pacific.

Please join me and Caleb Booker as we debut his new video series devoted to, and filmed entirely inside, virtual worlds. The program, “Virtual Worlds Keynote,” is filmed in Second Life in front of a live studio audience. Well, virtually live.  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tropical%20Treet/67/223/23    Thanks! Jonena

*******************************************************************************************************

Today At 4PM Pacific Time: Why We Sold Our Real Building and Went Totally Virtual

(Caleb Booker)

Clear a half-hour of your schedule at 4pm SLT and join us in Second Life http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tropical%20Treet/67/223/23 as our guest Jonena Relth, President of TBD Consulting, gives a 15 minute presentation entitled: “Why We Sold Our Real Building and Went Totally Virtual”. We’ll be recording and broadcasting live through http://treet.tv/.

If tough economic times have driven your business to look for new cost-cutting measures, or if you’re at risk of losing highly skilled employees due to a long commute, do not miss this! Extending well beyond virtual environments, Jonena will cover how her company has combined a variety of Web 2.0 technologies and old-fashioned spreadsheets to get the job done right.

After the presentation we’ll be holding a Q&A that will not be recorded, so be sure to arrive on time to secure your seat!

To join us in Second Life, you’ll need to do the following:

1. Go to SecondLife.com, create an account, and install the software.
2. Log in through the Second Life software using your user name.
3. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tropical%20Treet/67/223/2 to be teleported to our studio before 4pm Pacific.

Lean Thinking - Value Streams and Strings of Lights

Please welcome our newest TBD Consultant and Lean Expert, Ken Pilone. 

Ken comes to TBD with 35 years experience in HR, Education, Training and OD in manufacturing, government, retail, automotive, healthcare, distribution, logistics and aerospace industries.  Of those, he spent 19 years with Toyota as a Lean/TPS Consultant. 

Jonena

 

Posted by: Ken Pilone

This past Christmas season, as I stared into our box of outdoor Christmas decorations, I pulled out our Christmas lights which had become a huge, tangled ball, intertwined with other decorations.  Once I untangled the lights from the rest of the stuff, I eventually found a plug.  When I plugged it in, some of the lights came on, others didn’t.  Was this one string? Two?  Three?  It was hard to tell where one string ended and another began.  Eventually, I was able to untangle and separate the strings.  This is exactly what most value streams look like, a tangled ball of interconnected steps that eventually have an end point. 

As I set out to straighten and hang the strings, the metaphor became even more clear to me.  As I stood on tip toes on the top rung of my ladder, it hit me (this isn’t about safety now, is it?).  A value stream is simply a set of activities that, when sequenced together, add value to a customer.  These lights are like that, I thought.  There’s a beginning point, the plug, and an end point where it either terminates or connects to another string. 

The wire is necessary to move current from one light to the next but does it add value? Really?  I mean, nobody will look at my house after I’m done decorating it and say, “Wow, nice wire!”.  We even buy them so that the wire doesn’t stand out.  My house trim is white, so I want to get white wire.  So the goal is to hang them so attention is placed on the lights, not the wire, right?  The wire represents ‘non-value added’ work.  It’s necessary but the customer doesn’t really care about it.  We buy products but aren’t interested in how they got to the store shelves.

My job as a consultant is to help my clients do exactly the same thing.  Our goal together is to untangle their processes, determine which steps in it actually add value for the customer (the lights) and which don’t (the wire).  Then we look at each value-added step and evaluate if it’s working the way we want. Put another way, we ask, ‘if this bulb burns out, does the rest of the string go out too?’.  If not, ‘do we really need it?’.  If so, what do we have to do to fix it? 

What steps in your processes are not working properly?  What is the impact on the customer?  Are your value streams uncluttered and free of knots and tangles?  What do your customers think?

To learn more about Lean thinking and how it's proven methodologies can improve your organization's processes, customer service and bottom line, contact our office.  Our Lean experts are here to help you untangle your Value Streams today! 602-263-1961