On Decisive

I am a big fan of the Heath brothers, having read their previous bestsellers Switch and Made To Stick. I was excited to read their latest book Decisive, How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work, not only because they had written it but because decision making itself was a subject area of particular interest to me. This book exceed my high expectations both in terms of content and delivery.

The Heath brothers begin by reminding us why decision making is difficult:

And that, in essence, is the core difficulty of decision making: What’s in the spotlight will rarely be everything we need to make a good decision, but we won’t always remember to shift the light. Sometimes, in fact, we’ll forget there’s a spotlight at all, dwelling so long in the tiny circle of light that we forget there’s a broader landscape beyond it.

And while we instinctively think that more analysis should lead to superior decision making, it is actually the process we use to come up with the decision that is more important:

When the researchers compared whether process or analysis was more important in producing good decisions—those that increased revenues, profits, and market share—they found that “process mattered more than analysis—by a factor of six.” Often a good process led to better analysis—for instance, by ferreting out faulty logic. But the reverse was not true: “Superb analysis is useless unless the decision process gives it a fair hearing.”

So why is decision making so difficult and what is the key to improving our capability? It is about understanding the underlying set of biases:

Research in psychology over the last 40 years has identified a set of biases in our thinking that doom the pros-and-cons model of decision making. If we aspire to make better choices, then we must learn how these biases work and how to fight them (with something more potent than a list of pros and cons).

How does the normal decision process flow, and what are the challenges within each step:

If you think about a normal decision process, it usually proceeds in four steps…And what we’ve seen is that there is a villain that afflicts each of these stages:

-You encounter a choice. But narrow framing makes you miss options.

-You analyze your options. But the confirmation bias leads you to gather self-serving information.

-You make a choice. But short-term emotion will often tempt you to make the wrong one.

-Then you live with it. But you’ll often be overconfident about how the future will unfold.

And while we can’t eliminate these biases, we can counteract them:

We can’t deactivate our biases, but these people show us that we can counteract them with the right discipline. The nature of each villain suggests a strategy for defeating it:

1. You encounter a choice. But narrow framing makes you miss options So…Widen Your Options. How can you expand your set of choices?…
2. You analyze your options. But the confirmation bias leads you to gather self-sensing info So…Reality-Test Your Assumptions. How can you get outside your head and collect information that you can trust?..
3. You make a choice. But short-term emotion will often tempt you to make the wrong one. So…Attain Distance Before Deciding. How can you overcome short-term emotion and conflicted feelings to make the best choice?…
4. Then you live with it. But you’ll often be overconfident about how the future Will unfold So…Prepare to Be Wrong. How can we plan for an uncertain future so that we give our decisions the best chance to succeed?

This is the WRAP process for decision making which is at the heart of this book:

Our goal in this book is to teach this four-step process for making better choices. Note the mnemonic WRAP, which captures the four verbs. We like the notion of a process that “wraps” around your usual way of making decisions, helping to protect you from some of the biases we’ve identified. The four steps in the WRAP model are sequential; in general, you can follow them in order—but not rigidly so. Sometimes you’ll double back based on something you’ve learned.

Why is a process needed?

To get that kind of consistent improvement requires technique and practice. It requires a process. The value of the WRAP process is that it reliably focuses our attention on things we otherwise might have missed: options we might have overlooked, information we might have resisted, and preparations we might have neglected.

1- Widen Your Options

On avoiding a narrow frame:

Focusing is great for analyzing alternatives but terrible for spotting them. Think about the visual analogy—when we focus we sacrifice peripheral vision. And there’s no natural corrective for this; life won’t interrupt our focus to draw our attention to all of our options.

On multitracking:

In a study of top leadership teams in Silicon Valley, an environment that tends to place a premium on speed, she found that executives who weigh more options actually make faster decisions. It’s a counterintuitive finding, but Eisenhardt offers three explanations. First, comparing alternatives helps executives to understand the “landscape”: what’s possible and what’s not, what variables are involved. That understanding provides the confidence needed to make a quick decision. Second, considering multiple alternatives seems to undercut politics. With more options, people get less invested in any one of them, freeing them up to change positions as they learn. As with the banner-ad study, multitracking seems to help keep egos under control. Third, when leaders weigh multiple options, they’ve given themselves a built-in fallback plan.

An important element of multitracking is our mindset:

How you react to the position, in short, depends a great deal on your mindset at the time it’s offered. Psychologists have identified two contrasting mindsets that affect our motivation and our receptiveness to new opportunities: a “prevention focus,” which orients us toward avoiding negative outcomes, and a “promotion focus,” which orients us toward pursuing positive outcomes.

Another method of widening options, is finding someone else who’s solved your problem:

To break out of a narrow frame, we need options, and one of the most basic ways to generate new options is to find someone else who’s solved your problem…Notice the slow, brute-force approach that had to be used by the lab that didn’t use analogies. When you use analogies—when you find someone who has solved your problem—you can take your pick from the world’s buffet of solutions. But when you don’t bother to look, you’ve got to cook up the answer yourself every time. That may be possible, but it’s not wise, and it certainly ain’t speedy.

2- Reality-Test Your Assumption

On considering the opposite as a way to further test our assumption:

The most important lesson to learn about devil’s advocacy isn’t the need for a formal contrarian position; it’s the need to interpret criticism as a noble function. An effective promoter fidei is not a token argumentative smarty-pants; it’s someone who deeply respects the Catholic Church and is trying to defend the faith by surfacing contrary arguments in situations where skepticism is unlikely to surface naturally.

Questioning can be an effective tool to that effect:

Roger Martin Says “What would have to be true?” question has become the most important ingredient of his strategy work, and it’s not hard to see why. The search for disconfirming information might seem, on the surface, like a thoroughly negative process: We try to poke holes in our own arguments or the arguments of others. But Martin’s question adds something constructive: What if our least favorite option were actually the best one’ What data might convince us of that?

Other methods include:

1. Confirmation bias = hunting for information that confirms our initial assumptions (which are often self-serving).

2. We need to spark constructive disagreement within our organizations.

3. To gather more trustworthy information, we can ask disconfirming questions.

4. Caution: Probing questions can backfire in situations with a power dynamic.

5. Extreme disconfirmation: Can we force ourselves to consider the opposite of our instincts?

6. can even test our assumptions with a deliberate mistake.

7. Because we naturally seek self-confirming information, we need discipline to consider the opposite.

On Zooming in and out, and the importance of perspectives to further test assumptions:

Psychologists distinguish between the “inside view” and “outside view” of a situation. The inside view draws from information that is in our spotlight as we consider a decision—our own impressions and assessments of the situation we’re in. The outside view, by contrast, ignores the particulars and instead analyzes the larger class it’s part of…The outside view is more accurate—it’s a summary of real-world experiences, rather than a single person’s impressions—yet we’ll be drawn to the inside view.

The point is that the predictions of even a world-class expert need to be discounted in a way that their knowledge of base rates does not. In short. when you need trustworthy information, go find an expert—someone more experienced than you. Just keep them talking about the past and the present, not the future.

When we zoom out, we take the outside view, learning from the experiences of others who have made choices like the one we’re facing. When we zoom in, we take a close-up of the situation, looking for “color” that could inform our decision. Either strategy is helpful, and either one will add insight in a way that conference-room pontificating rarely will. When possible, we should do both. In interpreting the sentiments of Americans, FDR created statistical summaries and read a sample of real letters. In assessing the competitors’ products, Paul Smith’s colleagues relied on scientific data and personal experience. In making a high-stakes health decision, Brian Zikmund-Fisher trusted both the base rates and the stories of actual patients. Zooming out and zooming in gives us a more realistic perspective on our choices. We downplay the overly optimistic pictures we tend to paint inside our minds and instead redirect our attention to the outside world, viewing it in wide-angle and then in close-up.

On the importance of ooching/piloting:

The “ooching” terminology is our favorite, but we wanted to be clear that these groups are all basically saying the same thing: Dip a toe in before you plunge in headfirst. Given the popularity of this concept, and given the clear payoff involved—little bets that can improve large decisions—you might wonder why ooching isn’t more instinctive. The answer is that we tend to be awfully confident about our ability to predict the future.

Which also comes with a warning:

Ooching, in short, should be used as a way to speed up the collection of trustworthy information, not as a way to slow down a decision that deserves our full commitment.

3- Attain Distance Before Deciding

On overcoming short-term emotions, use the technique of giving advice to a friend:

The researchers have found, in essence, that our advice to others tends to hinge on the single most important factor, while our own thinking flits among many variables. When we think of our friends, we see the forest. When we think of ourselves, we get stuck in the trees. There’s another advantage of the advice we give others. We tend to be wise about counseling people to overlook short-term emotions.

On the importance of honoring your core priorities:

The goal of the WRAP process is not to neutralize emotion. Quite the contrary. When you strip away all the rational mechanics of decision making—the generation of options, the weighing of information—what’s left at the core is emotion. What drives you? What kind of person do you aspire to be? What do you believe is best for your family in the long run? (Business leaders ask: What kind of organization do you aspire to run? What’s best for your team in the long run?) Those are emotional questions—speaking to passions and values and beliefs—and when you answer them, there’s no “rational machine” underneath that is generating your perspective. It’s just who you are and what you want. The buck stops with emotion…All we can aspire to do with the WRAP process is help you make decisions that are good for you.

Maybe this advice sounds too commonsensical: Define and enshrine your core priorities. It is not exactly a radical stance. But there are two reasons why it’s uncommon to find people who have actually acted on this seemingly basic advice. First, people rarely establish their priorities until they’re forced to…Second, establishing priorities is not the same thing as binding yourself to them.

4- Prepare To Be Wrong

On bookend-ing the future:

Overconfidence about the future disrupts our decisions. It make us lackadaisical about preparing for problems. It tempts us to ignore early signs of failure. It leaves us unprepared for pleasant surprises. Fighting overconfidence means we’ve got to treat the future as a spectrum, not a point…To bookend the future means that we must sweep our spotlights from side to side, charting out the full territory of possibilities. Then we can stack the deck in our favor by preparing for both bad situations (via a premortem) and good (via a preparade).

On the importance of setting up tripwires to trigger decisions based on gradual changes:

Because day-to-day change is gradual, even imperceptible, it’s hard to know when to jump. Tripwires tell you when to jump. Setting tripwires would not have guaranteed that Kodak’s leaders made the right decisions. Sometimes even a clear alarm is willfully ignored. (We’ve probably all ignored a fire alarm, trusting that it is false.) But tripwires at least ensure that we are aware it’s time to make a decision, that we don’t miss our chance to choose because we’ve been lulled into autopilot.

On the importance of trusting the decision making process

The WRAP process, if used routinely, will contribute to that sense of fairness, because it allows people to understand how the decision is being made, and it gives them comfort that decisions will be made in a consistent manner. Beyond WRAP, there are a few additional ideas to consider as you navigate group decisions.

 

On a concluding note:

What a process provides, though, is more inspiring: confidence. Not cocky overconfidence that comes from collecting biased information and ignoring uncertainties, but the real confidence that comes from knowing you’ve made the best decision that you could. Using a process for decision making doesn’t mean that your choices will always be easy, or that they will always turn out brilliantly, but it does mean you can quiet your mind. You can quit asking, “What am I missing?” You can stop the cycle of agonizing.

Just as important, trusting the process can give you the confidence to take risks. A process can be the equivalent of a mountain climber’s harness and rope, allowing you the freedom to explore without constant worry. A process, far from being a drag or a constraint, can it actually give you the comfort to be bolder.

And bolder is often the right direction. Short-run emotion, as we’ve seen, makes the status quo seductive. But when researchers ask the elderly what they regret about their lives, they don’t often regret something they did, they regret things they didn’t do. They regret not seizing opportunities. They regret hesitating. They regret being indecisive.

Being decisive is itself a choice. Decisiveness is a way of behaving, not an inherited trait. It allows us to make brave and confident choices, not because we know we’ll be right but because it’s better to try and fail than to delay and regret.

Our decisions will never be perfect, but they can be better. Bolder. Wiser. The right process can steer us toward the right choice. And the right choice, at the right moment, can make all the difference.

A highly recommended read in the area of decision making. If you are interested in further readings in this topic, I would suggest an earlier post, On Left Brain Right Stuff.

On Unleashing The Power Of IT

I just finished reading the book Unleashing The Power Of IT – Bringing People, Business, and Technology Together by my colleague Dan Roberts at Ouellette and Associates. Dan had generously and graciously offered me a copy of this book.

Below are key excerpts from the books that I found to be particularly insightful:

1) “But still, I firmly believe that IT organizations can be well positioned to compete as their companies’ value-added provider of choice—if and only //they’re ready to take a hard look at themselves and make some changes, both in regard to how they approach their work and the personal skill set they consider essential to tackling the demands of an ever-changing business environment. The bottom line is that the IT professional of the past won’t cut it in today’s corporate world.”

2) “Five Critical Success Factors That Enable IT Organizational Excellence…Leadership: Positively Influence and Inspire Others…Strategy: Establish the Right Game Plan for Your Organization…People: Hire and Professionally Develop Your Winning Team…Best Practices: Select and Customize Them to Fit Your Organization…Execution: Translate Your Strategy, Goals, and Initiatives into Specific Action Plans That Deliver Measurable Results.”

3) “In summary, leaders need to do the following in hiring and professional development: -Instill leadership competencies and behaviors. -Select people with the right skills and experiences that align with the position qualifications to execute the technology strategy. -Build leadership bench strength. -Embrace performance measurement and best practice methodologies that shape behaviors into desired results. -Learn how to select the right employees the first time. -Identify professional development programs that deliver sustainable results through phased-in learning, accountability mechanisms, and coaching. -Recognize that employee interpersonal competency and skill development is mandatory.”

4) “The Commitment Component of Change: ♦ Compliance vs. Commitment ♦ Changing Minds ♦ Understanding Resistance ♦ Emotional Cycles of Change…The Community Component of Change: ♦ Change Leadership ♦ Key Roles in the Change Process ♦ Transition Structures ♦ Network of Resources…The Clarity Component of Change ♦ Case for Change ♦ Urgency for Change ♦Capacity for Change ♦ Readiness Assessment ♦ Impact of Change…The Communication Component of Change: ♦ Mission and Vision ♦ Rich, Detailed Pictures ♦ Levels and Outcomes ♦ Build Your Tool Kit ♦ Communication Plan”

5) “Whether or not your staff believes it, the best way to build client loyalty is not by proving IT’s technology prowess but by building a service strategy that enables internal IT to be seen as a top provider of service. In fact, a well-developed and well-communicated service strategy is critical in today’s IT organizations. Clients demand service to be immediate and proactive, and if they don’t get it internally, they’ll find it elsewhere, by hiring either their own staff or external vendors. Indeed, good service is no longer just something that’s nice to have; it’s the make-or-break factor that determines whether clients choose internal IT or someone else to deliver the solutions they need.”

6) “IT leaders need to help all members of the IT staff develop a new mind-set 50 foster the transition of their organizations into a service-oriented culture. Here are three skills I teach in my workshops to evolve the participants’ mind-set toward a service-oriented culture. Developing a “We” Mentality…Learning to Love Complaints…1. Thank the client for making the complaint…2. Gather more information…3. Apologize for the circumstances…4. Ask how you can help…Making Every Interaction Count.”

7) “If you map out all the moments of truth that clients experience with the IT organization and assess what their experience is like through those interactions, you’ll have a good idea of your organization’s level of service and where it needs to improve. This can range from voice tone and body language to a grander scale, like revamping all your forms or streamlining your web site interface.”

8) “The big secret to managing expectations is the ability to understand what the client’s expectation is in the first place. That might sound really obvious, but IT organizations are often afraid to ask this question because they are concerned they won’t meet it. However, it’s impossible to meet an expectation that’s unknown. After understanding the client’s expectations, the next step is to stop focusing on what you can’t do and gear your mind to what you can do…There seems to be an awkwardness (almost an embarrassment) when IT manages expectations. However, I like to remind people I work with that clients are very used to this behavior from external vendors.”

9) “Here are the general characteristics that clients expect to see in a consultant: ■ Confidence in his or her own capabilities without arrogance ■ Enthusiasm and complete engagement during the project ■ Accessibility and responsiveness ■Knowledge about the client’s line of business and a willingness to learn more ■ Dedication to the client’s best interests”

10) “The more empathetic you are, the more you demonstrate to the client that you understand his or her reality. That creates the confidence that you’ll be able to work through future issues constructively…But being an effective consultant isn’t about the right answer. If other’s can’t hear what you have to say because of how you deliver the message. you have lost your ability to influence. Delivery is everything. If I have an important point to make, the other person is much more likely to hear me if I have been equally interested in his or her perspective. How I demonstrate that respect is empathy. In most conversations, that can be a simple paraphrase or acknowledgment of the other person’s idea first, before I add my two cents.”

11) “It’s my belief that to succeed in the IT profession today, all of IT—including IT leaders and the people who report to them—must get past their aversion to negotiating and learn how to manage the conflict that’s an inevitable part of their everyday lives. The good news is that good negotiators aren’t born; they’re taught. In fact, for a long time, I’ve strongly believed that IT professionals could do a better job negotiating if they learned about interest negotiations rather than better job negotiating if they learned about interest negotiations rather than using position negotiations.”

12) “Positions limit negotiations because there’s not a lot to negotiate over, and they create linear situations, with the participants starting at extreme endpoints and then moving along the continuum to some point at which both agree to agree…By talking about interests, the scope of potential negotiating possibilities increases dramatically. The two of them now can generate a list of options based on the different interests they have just stated…That’s because interests define each party’s real needs, wants, or concern. Interests are broader than and can be very different from stated positions. When you understand your own interests as well as those of the other party, you can spend your time developing possible options, not fighting over small concessions about one item.”

13) “Becoming politically savvy doesn’t come naturally. IT leaders need to develop skills—both personally and among their staffs—that will increase political awareness and make the IT organization successful at navigating through politically churned-up waters. Here are some of the key skills required. Creativity…Interpersonal…Effectiveness…Communication…Focus…Interests…Flexibility…Trust …Support…Conflict Management.”

14) “I purposely use the word lead rather than manage or control. Leadership extends both the client’s and the project manager’s sphere of influence beyond the mere administration of a project. Leadership by the client enables the project’s objective. It raises the stakes, legitimizes the need, and changes the effort from a game to a cause. One of the most powerful motivators for IT professionals is the opportunity to make a real difference in the business. It’s truly regrettable that so few business clients take advantage of this powerful secret to project success. Leadership by the project manager emboldens the actions of the team. Project teams thrive on being allowed (or empowered) to be creative, to experience the excitement of discovery, to enjoy a sense of real accomplishment, and to have fun while doing great things. A good project manager can lead a project team to places it could never be driven to…One final point about motivation: It is not something a project manager does to the team members. Rather, it’s something the team members do for themselves. Motivation is a door that is locked from the inside. The best a project manager can do is create a climate that enables and encourages good work. The vast majority of IT professionals I’ve met in my career want to do a good job. It’s truly unfortunate that too many of them are forced into situations that discourage, inhibit, and occasionally even penalize their best efforts. The key is to manipulate the environment, not the people.”

15) “You’ll know you have a high-performance, gelled team when you see the following characteristics: A shared elevating vision or goal A strong sense of team identity ■ Mutual trust ■ The interdependence of team members ■ Open and effective communication ■ A sense of autonomy ■ Low turrnover ■ Joint ownership of the product ■ A high level of obvious enjoyment”

16) “There are three primary reasons that companies look outside the internal IT organization for technology services: cost control, the desire to focus on core competencies, and supply-demand fluctuation. Very often, however, when I ask clients why they’re outsourcing, they don’t know what the goals are. And even when they do know, they’re not using metrics that tell them whether they’re meeting those goals. The vast majority of people I encounter say they’re outsourcing to control costs, yet only about half use cost as a metric. So it’s important to understand why you’re outsourcing, in the context of the corporate strategy.”

17) “The formulation of the IT organization’s image as the service provider of choice k one of the most important factors for a successful IT cultural transformation…For all these reasons, IT needs to market internally; to increase its credibility, build partnerships, and turn around any negative perceptions. This marketing is not about hype and empty promises; it’s about creating an awareness of IT’s value. It’s about changing client perceptions by presenting a clear, consistent message about the value of IT. After all, if you don’t market yourself, someone else will, and you might not like the image you end up with…So the first step is marketing to the IT organization that marketing is a good thing. This can be done in a number of ways, but the most effective is to let your IT staff know how important this is to your success and help the staff feel accountable for marketing. To elicit positive marketing behaviors from the entire IT team, IT leaders need to tie the marketing mind-set to measurements that provide incentive and reward.”

18) “How do you know when you’ve succeeded with your marketing efforts? What are the indicators of a good marketing plan? The first is to define up front what will determine success rather than waiting until the end. You need to know before you begin what you want to happen as a result of your efforts. Other indicators are the following: Your clients are requesting that IT be more involved in their business such as inviting you to business planning and strategy meetings or having you review and influence their technology decisions. ■ Your budget requests are being met without your having to constantly justify your existence and contributions. ■ Your current clients are referring others to you, or you can imagine your clients saying, “Hey, IT really helped us out,” rather than “Oh, those IT people!” ■ Requests for your assistance are becoming more focused and more in line with the products and services you actually provide. ■ You are getting unsolicited positive feedback, both formal and informal, from your clients and senior management. ■ Morale in the IT department is high. ■ IT is being included in merger and acquisition negotiations and due diligence. ■ IT is being included in meetings and sales processes with big C-level clients.”

19) “”Trust,” Davis proclaimed, “is something you receive for meeting or exceeding client expectations while being empathetic and understanding to institutional, departmental, and individual desires.””

20) “The 12 Core Competencies: 1) Influencing Others 2) Enabling Change 3) Leadership 4) Strategic Focus 5) Communication 6) Collaboration 7) Organizational Understanding 8) Problem Solving 9) Business Acumen 10) Project Management 11) Technical Understanding 12) Client Orientation ”

Regards,

Omar Halabieh

On The Six Sigma Way

I recently finished reading The Six Sigma Way – How GE, Motorola, And Other Top Companies Are Honing Their Performance by Peter S. Pande, Robert P. Neuman, and Roland R. Cavanagh.

This book is THE reference on Six Sigma. The authors define it as “A comprehensive and flexible system for achieving, sustaining and maximizing business success. Six Sigma is uniquely driven by close understanding of customer needs, disciplined use of facts, data, and statistical analysis, and diligent attention to managing, improving, and reinventing business processes.”

This work is made up of three major sections. The first part provides an executive summary of this system. The second part focuses on the organizational aspects of adopting this system. The last part, focuses on the actual implementation of Six Sigma including the roadmap and tools. Also included in this book, are numerous appendices that provide further “practical support”.

What sets this book apart is both the breadth and depth in which the topic is discussed. Whether one is a novice or expert, looking to obtain a high level overview or a deep understanding of the subject matter, this book is for you. In addition, the interspersed case studies, examples and tools make it very practical and applicable. After reading this book – one cannot but concur with the authors’ closing remark: “We believe – and hope you agree – that there are enough essential, powerful, and valuable elements to make the Six Sigma system, in some way, part of every successful business. At the same time, we strongly encourage you to adapt the discipline and methods of Six Sigma to best impact your unique culture, industry, market position, people, and strategy. Our biggest fear is that people will “accept” or “reject” Six Sigma as it it were a thing (falling victim to the Tyranny of the Or) and not use it as a flexible system.”

Below are key excerpts from the book, that I found particularly insightful:

1) “The Benefits of Six Sigma: 1) Generates sustained success…2) Sets a performance goal for everyone…3) Enhances value to customers…4) Accelerates the rate of improvement…5) Promotes learning and “cross pollination”…6) Executes strategic change”

2) “Six Themes of Six Sigma: 1) Genuine Focus on the Customer…2) Data- and Fact-Driven Management…3) Process focus, Management, and Improvement…4) Proactive Management…5) Boundaryless Collaboration…6) Drive for Perfection; Tolerance for Failure”

3) “Six Sigma Improvement and Management Strategies: 1) Process Improvement: Finding Targeted Solutions…2) Process Design/Redesign: Building a Better Business…3) Process Management: The Infrastructure for Six Sigma Leadership”

4) “In the Six Sigma Way, we will use and refer to a five-phase improvement cycle that has become increasingly common in Six Sigma organizations: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control – or DMAIC.”

5) “…The ideal roadmap for establishing the Six Sigma system and launching improvements…1) Identify core processes and key customers. 2) Define customer requirements. 3) Measure current performance. 4) Prioritize, analyze, and implement improvements. 5) Expand and integrate the Six Sigma system.”

6) “Five-step measurement implementation model: 1) Select what to measure 2) Develop operational definitions 3) Identify data sources 4) Prepare collection & sampling plan 5) Implement and refine measurement”

7) “We can offer an assessment model, however, based on two major conditions – both of which must be met if process design/redesign is going to work: 1) A major need, threat, or opportunity exists: a) Shifts in customer needs/requirements…b) Demand for greater flexibility…c) New technologies…d) New or changed rules and regulations…e) Competitors are changing…f) Old assumptions (or paradigms) are invalid…g) The current process is “a mess”…2) You’re ready and willing to take on the risk: a) Longer lead-time for change is acceptable…b) Resources and talent are available…c) Leaders, and the organization as a whole, will support the effort…d) The “Risk Profile” is acceptable.”

8) “Process Value Analysis: As processes get more complex, they tend to insulate people from the real reason that customers patronize a business. “Value Analysis” is a way of reemphasizing the key raison d’etre of a business or process by looking at work from the external customer’s point of view. In the analysis, we assign each process step to one of three categories: 1) Value Adding…2) Value Enabling…3) Non-Value-Adding”

9) “Twelve Keys To Success: 1) The Six Sigma Efforts to Business Strategy and Priorities 2) Position Six Sigma as an Improved Way to Manage for Today 3) Keep the Message Simple and Clear 4) Develop Your Own Path to Six Sigma 5) Focus on Short-Term Results 6) Focus on Long-Term Growth and Development 7) Publicize Results, Admit Setbacks, and Learn from Both 8) Make and Investment to Make It Happen 9) Use Six Sigma Tools Wisely 10) Link Customers, Process, Data, and Innovation to Build the Six Sigma System 11) Make Top Leaders Responsible and Accountable 12) Make Learning an Ongoing Activity”

Regards,

Omar Halabieh

The Six Sigma Way

CIO Perspectives

I recently read CIO Perspectives by Dean Lane (The Office of the CIO). Dean was kind enough to send me a copy, after reading his earlier work CIO Wisdom.

As with CIO Wisdom, this book is a collection of articles by various IT executives on topics of relevance to CIOs and IT professionals at large. The topics are grouped into four broad categories: Finance and Performance, Customers/External, Internal Process, and Learning and Growth. What sets this book apart is the diverse perspectives gained from the contributing authors as well as the breadth of topics covered that include the people, process and technology aspects.

Below are excerpts of key learnings from this book:

1- Guiding Principles for Successful M&A: “1) People are number one. 2) Speed is king. 3) There must be IT governance. 4) Design for scale and reliability. 5) Use common project management methodology. 6) Communicate effectively. 7) Align IT with other business function.”

2- Zero Based Budgeting: “Know the critical influencers of IT cost, keep the executive team informed and involved, be flexible, and treat your budget as a tool you use to align IT with the business.”

3- Business Immersion: “Business immersion is about learning how business functions based on your own observations and through the perspectives of your peers from within their functional areas. It involves making an assessment of the challenges and opportunities affecting each, and how this information relates to the company’s strategy and financial objectives.”

4- Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): “…SaaS could create an opportunity for IT to grow from a (seemingly) ineffective cost center to a proactive technology strategy center, from deploying and maintaining software to a service-centric entity, supporting the business goals of the enterprise.”

5- Commitment and Delivering: “IT serves two internal customers. One is the executive management (the true customer) and the other is the end users. These two customer’s needs are not necessarily aligned.”

6- Phases of Corporate Lifecycles: “1) Spark it: Building/adding short-term capacity with low investment, 2)Grow it: Creating sustainable capacity for ongoing business operation and growth, 3) Hold it: Controlling costs in the face of steady capacity use and risk avoidance, 4) Trim it: Retreating or diverting to alternate modes of operation”

7- Leadership Characteristics: “What are the hats that a CIO juggles every day? 1)  Officer: Be a full business participant 2) Visionary: Look to the horizon! 3) Technologist: Know the field and the market.4) Educator: Teach, teach them all! 5) Controller: Process and method makes it all tick and tie. 6) Executioner: Get it done or get it gone. 7) Firefighter: First responders save the day.”

8- IT Governance: “There are four categories of IT governance: 1) Investment governance…2) Execution governance…3) Operational governance…4) Organization governance.”

9- Elements of Communication: “Message…Transmitter…Receiver…Medium.”

10- Communication in Information Technology: “Communication in the business environments is critical to the success of any undertaking. Good communications cannot ensure good results, but bad communications will most certainly fuel poor results.”

11- Keys to CIO Success: “1) Understanding of the business…2) Project management…3) Customer and client relationships.”

12- CIO as Anthropologist: “The anthropological CIO reminds him- or herself that the ultimate goal is to introduce the most effective, not necessarily the most efficient, process and technology. Effectiveness is based as much on acceptability within a company’s culture as it is on best practices; the most efficient processes and technologies are ineffective if the community refuses to adopt them, undermines their implementation, or mounts an outright insurgency…Introducing change means learning about these soft aspects of the organization and navigating a course that flows with rather than against the cultural currents that travel through it.”

13- Innovation: “Innovation seems to be most recognizable as revolutionary, but it is only one of three main classifications of innovation: incremental innovation, evolutionary innovation, and revolutionary innovation.”

Regards,

Omar Halabieh

CIO Perspectives

 

 

Cultivating Service Excellence in Nine Steps

I recently finished reading Unleashing Excellence – The Complete Guide to Ultimate Customer Service by Dennis Snow and Teri Yanovitch.

In this book the authors outline an action plan, made up of nine elements, to “inculturate” service excellence (excerpted):

“1) Create the Service Improvement Team(…) Action Steps: a) Try to select 8 to 12 members at the most. b) Ensure that the team represents a cross-section of the organization c) Have as many senior level members as possible on the first Service Improvement Team. Members need to have the authority to get things done. d) Draft the team charter.

2) Develop the organization’s Service Philosophy and Service Standards(…) The service Philosophy answers two questions: what we do? how we do it?…Guidelines for Developing your service standards: Each standard on the final list should be unique from every other standard…Each standard should be actionable…The standards must focus on customer service.

3) Develop and execute on ongoing service Communication and Awareness plan(…) Communication during the awareness stage – what employees need: information…Communication during the awkwardness stage – what employees need: reassurance…Communication during the assimilation stage – what employees need: what’s new about the service effort.

4) Create and execute a plan for ongoing service Training and Education(…) Training for the frontline employees should: 1) Ensure consistent understanding of the service improvement process. 2) Share best practices regarding service excellence. 3) Develop personal action plans for service excellence. 4) Communicate next steps.

5) Adapt the Interviewing and Selecting processes to include all elements of the service culture(…) Action Steps: a) Observe and interview your best employees in order to uncover their service talents. b) Enlist your service superstars in your recruiting efforts. c) Track how the best employees were recruited to your company. d) Model your company’s values during the interview process.

6) Create and implement a service Measurement process(…) Keys to local measurement success: a) Local measurements should be linked to the overall service improvement effort…b)The workgroup should be able to impact the factors they measure…c) The act of measuring shouldn’t negatively impact the customer experience…d) Improvement in one service factor shouldn’t negatively impact another service factor.

7) Develop appropriate Recognition/celebration processes that reinforce the service culture(…) Action steps: a) Ensure that recognition is strategically linked to the overall service improvement effort. b) Create mechanisms that encourage recognition at all levels of the organization. c) Review current recognition practices to determine if they are consistent the Service Standards and contain an emotional component. d) Provide special recognition for your stellar performers. e) Communicate and train all management and frontline employees on the importance of recognizing service excellence.”

8) Implement a Service Obstacle System for identifying and addressing barriers to service excellence(…) One of the most important jobs of a leader in a service improvement initiative is to help remove obstacles that keep employees from giving great service.

9) Build a Management Accountability system that ensures commitment to ongoing service excellence(…) The three-legged stool suggests that leaders should be accountable for three broad areas: a) The customer experience. b) The employee experience. c) Business results.”

Regards,

Omar Halabieh

Unleashing Excellence