Should process rule your business; should it be left to a set of rules which have been made by a committee or worse an individual; should we lose our human sensitivity and give in to dry rule book; what role does a manager have other than following blindly the process; should we sacrifice our creativity to process...
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Questions are galore when it comes to organizational process. Depending on whom you ask, the answer will be: “Yes, process is paramount.” “No, process stymies the work culture.” Or worse still: “Process should be adhered to but exceptions have to be factored in.”
The last one is the most popular. The problem, as we find often, is that exceptions become the rule. Then the process falls by the way-side.
That is why Compact Hometel’s Suresh Tota (read his insight) believes in the first option: “Process is the king.” In fact, if process means better quality then process should be the final word. Everything else should be subservient to it. A sentiment shared by Vrinda Rajgarhia of Sweet World, who found that even the slightest deviation from the process could lead to total loss of business. Rajgarhia talks of quality as if nothing but that exists for her.
If one goes a level deeper then it becomes obvious that much of the process and consequential result of better quality is actually linked to the way an organizational structure is designed.
Process and quality for some are a religion. Take the case of Idiom’s Jacob Mathew, who set up own factory to manufacture furniture designed by them since other manufacturer were reluctant to produce goods as per Idiom’s specifications. The easiest thing to do for Mathew was to compromise on specifications and adhere to what the manufacturers dictated. Idiom today is a trail-blazer because Mathew and his team refused to compromise. Being unreasonable is good for business. If one is wedded to quality they better tread a new path.
One does not appreciate the need for a process simple as it may be unless s/he has seen things blow up and threaten the very existence of the business. We all want to lead a peaceful life without running ourselves to death when a crisis breaks out. However, more than this mortal fear, what drives people to follow a process is the sheer love for their work. A thing of beauty is always cherished. Be it a product or a service, the perfection gives an aura of superiority and the rest of the world wants to emulate it. It becomes a de facto standard. Every entrepreneur loves to set her stamp on the world's stage.
We come across many concepts while dealing with process and quality. Here is a brief tour of
some of them so that we understand what people are talking when they talk about their products and businesses.
You can’t manage what you can’t measure
This is classic Peter Drucker mantra. A simple spreadsheet has done wonders to businesses simply because it can capture data and throw out some visualizations by way of charting and pivot tables. If I am writing this article against a deadline and do not know how long I should take to write and then edit it, I am working blindly. If a simple two line data is provided to me which says, deadline is 9 pm and I can send the file latest by 8 pm then I know when to stop obsessing over my copy. Without this data point, we are all working in darkness.
People who have dealt with data know that it is important to generate data. An atmospheric scientist studying pollen particles in the air keeps a daily log of the observations. An ornithologist keeps a daily log of birds seen and heard of. A marketing manager keeps a daily log of campaigns in his domain. A sales manager keeps a daily log of client visits by each of his sales executives. A Parliament record keeper keeps a log of daily business of the law makers inside the Parliament.
People participate in this activity daily and every minute. Only when we have enough data can we look at them for some patterns. So it is all about keeping a log and looking at them for patterns. Patterns give us the ability to measure things and fine tune things if necessary.
Visibility is the key
V A Ramani, a former TVS Industries quality executive told us about the practice of sunrise and sunset meetings on the factory floor. Data would be presented to everybody in a stand-up meeting on the factory floor daily. It would give them the schedules, impending delivery deadlines, problem areas and such data. It would be made available on charts and boards. The workers would see these data points twice daily, all together at their workplace. It would give them a clear direction on what they are working upon and how critical it is.
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If data were to be inside spreadsheets and looked up by managers in a glass cabin then it would not impact the factory floor. Data is actually for people who can be influenced by it and also who can change its destiny.
Visibility to data is key in any business as you will learn in the articles by our CEOs. Everyone has talked about the importance of visibility of data to effective execution.
Review, review and review
Last year, the Project Management Institute (PMI), executed a very large event close to perfection. There was all round praise for the execution team. Interestingly, all the members in the execution team were volunteers. When asked how they could pull off such a perfect execution, the head of the conference Project Management Office (PMO), Hirdesh Singhal said, “The secret is review, review and review.”
Singhal couldn’t have said it better. No data or visibility is effective without reviewing the progress. Data needs to be looked up, read aloud by members of the team and necessary actions identified. We are mostly used to reviews which are more tame and routine.
What Singhal meant by emphasizing review three times is that data needs to be looked more closely, in detail and discussed with the members of the team. Data showing both good and bad things needs to be detailed out. Everyone in the team has to be aware of the data to its minutest detail. Nothing should be glossed over.
Reduce the moving parts
When Suresh Tota says that a process should be accompanied by a common Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) which can be achieved by everyone then it should be preferred to the method which describes what needs to be done and allowing everyone to take their own decision on how to do it. This way there is only one way to do something, and the possible points of error are drastically reduced.
Take the case of the Internet. The architects of Internet decided that there will be only seven root servers and they will exchange a list of new domains registered with each of them daily. This exchange would take place in the night so that far less number of users would feel the service disruption during this MIS process. Present day Internet still works on this principle. Increasing the root servers would only increase the moving parts, increasing the complexity and thus the points of error.
We have obviously not looked at concepts like FTR (First Time Right), Kanban, Quality Circle and such industrial strength practices. What we have done here is to explore concepts that can be started off by anyone with minimum investment in knowledge and tools.
As they say, a leader is as good as his/her team and a team is as good as the process it follows.
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