Como dar este salto? (parte V)

Parte I, parte II, parte III e parte IV.

Vou agora ilustrar as imagens genéricas com algo que saiu de um projecto com quase 15 anos. Seguem-se as relações de causa-efeito entre:

• causa(s)
• factos negativos
• motivo para relevância

Que depois são usadas para desenhar o tal sistema que conspira para se ter a situação actual e que ilustra como o pensamento linear é insuficiente:

Agora sim. Agora temos a matéria-prima para nos dizer o que tem de ser feito.

Continua.

Como dar este salto? (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III. 

Situação: Temos um conjunto de indicadores relevantes e alinhados com a estratégia da organização, e queremos melhorar o seu desempenho.

Quando "eu era criança" via o mundo de uma forma mais linear e seguia as ferramentas dos "samurais" para a melhoria. Assim, se já sei o que quero melhorar, desenho em equipa um diagrama causa-efeito:

Hoje, e sobretudo quando olhamos para a melhoria em simultâneo de vários indicadores, prefiro olhar para o mundo como um conjunto de sistemas que interagem entre si e, em alguns casos, geram espirais de desempenho negativo que parece que conspiram para que tenhamos o desempenho actual e não o desempenho desejado:

Agir e, aparentemente, melhorar algo num canto do sistema será insuficiente pois tudo o resto conspira.

Situação: Chegados aqui, espero que a organização tenha desenhado o seu mapa da estratégia e o seu mapa de processos.

O que vamos fazer passa por isto:

Como chegar ao: O que fazer? Às iniciativas da figura acima.

Peço que olhem para os dois mapas (de processos e da estratégia) e determinem factos negativos da vida da organização. Factos são evidentes, são inegáveis, toda a gente concorda com eles. Por exemplo, um facto negativo pode ser:

• Perdemos muito tempo por causa de paragens por avaria.

Melhor ainda será escrever algo como:

• 39% do tempo perdido deve-se a paragens por avaria.

Este levantamento dos factos negativos é trabalho para ser feito por uma equipa, mas esta parte inicial é feita individualmente por cada um dos membros da equipa. Cada pessoa pode determinar 4, 5, 6 factos negativos.

Uma vez determinados os factos negativos cada pessoa vai ter de fazer um teste, uma avaliação da sua relevância. Os factos podem ser negativos, podem até ser verdadeiros, mas não serem realmente relevantes para o nosso desafio. Assim, cada pessoa vai olhar para os seus factos negativos e verificar se contribuem para contrariar algum dos objectivos estratégicos do mapa da estratégia. Por exemplo:

Exemplo de relevância confirmada

Exemplo de relevância não confirmada

Se um facto é relevante fica, se não é relevante é descartado.

Passo seguinte, aqui entra a criatividade, o conhecimento da organização e uns pozinhos de especulação. Que causa ou causas podem contribuir para o aparecimento do facto negativo?

Porque "não temos tempo para a manutenção preventiva" e/ou porque "a manutenção preventiva é mal feita", o tempo de paragem por avaria aumenta, e isso contribui para a redução da eficiência.

 Se 7 pessoas fizeram este exercício e se cada uma criou e validou 4 relações de causa-efeito, temos um ponto de partida de 28 relações de causa-efeito. Se as escrevermos em post-its e as afixarmos numa parede para agora todo o grupo as ver em simultâneo, ficamos com algo como:

Vamos reparar, se calhar que 3 relações de causa-efeito são repetidas. E vamos começar a ver que algumas relações de causa-efeito parece que se relacionam entre si:

Começamos a juntar as relações de causa-efeito que de alguma forma se relacionam entre si, e começamos a sentir à vontade para acrescentar alguns post-its novos que fazem a ponte entre post-it existentes:

Isto está a ficar muito longo, façamos um intervalo.

Na proxima parte vamos procurar as conspirações que emergem.

Continua.

Calibrar a mudança

A revista HBR de Maio-Junho de 2024 traz o artigo "Transformations That Work". Um artigo interessante e que merece várias leituras.

Uma delas é esta, "3.Explicitly managing organizational energy". Segundo os autores as transformações organizacionais muitas vezes falham porque esgotam mais energia do que geram, levando ao esgotamento dos funcionários e à resistência à mudança. O artigo enfatiza a importância de gerir eficazmente a energia organizacional para evitar estas armadilhas. As transformações bem-sucedidas identificam e abordam os impactes nos trabalhadores e funções mais afectados, garantindo que as mudanças são introduzidas de forma gerível e sequencial.

"Our research shows that if an organization tries to change more than two primary routines simultaneously, the odds of failure increase dramatically. 

...

In successful programs leaders explicitly identify the employees and functions that will be most impacted by each aspect of the initiative and ensure that no group is expected to alter multiple routines at once. Changes are carefully sequenced to limit disruption and prevent widespread organizational fatigue. Success is recognized and rewarded along the way to build energy and enthusiasm for the effort."

Notas para aplicar no desenvolvimento próximo das iniciativas estratégicas de um projecto em curso:

1. Antes de implementar mudanças, identificar que funcionários e funções serão mais afectados pelas mudanças requeridas pelo conjunto de iniciativas estratégicas. Perceber qual a sua carga de trabalho actual e a sua capacidade de lidar com mudanças. 

2. Implementar as mudanças numa sequência estruturada, em vez de todas de uma vez. Esta abordagem ajuda a minimizar as interrupções e evita a sobrecarga de qualquer departamento ou equipa. 

3. Evitar alterar mais de duas rotinas primárias ao mesmo tempo dentro do mesmo grupo de funcionários para reduzir o risco de perda de produtividade e fadiga de mudança.

4. Regularmente, reconhecer os esforços e celebrar os sucessos no processo de transformação. Isto não só aumenta o moral, mas também sustenta a energia e o compromisso necessários.

5. Estar pronto para adaptar a abordagem com base no feedback e nos níveis de energia da equipa. 

"you must organize around projects"

"a different way of thinking about knowledge work: you must organize around projects, not jobs.

...

Knowledge workers don’t manufacture products or perform basic services. But they do produce something, and it is perfectly reasonable to characterize their work as the production of decisions: decisions about what to sell, at what price, to whom, with what advertising strategy, through what logistics system, in what location, and with what staffing levels.

At desks and in meeting rooms, every day of their working lives, knowledge workers hammer away in decision factories. Their raw materials are data, either from their own information systems or from outside providers. They produce lots of memos and presentations full of analyses and recommendations. They engage in production processes—called meetings—that convert this work to finished goods in the form of decisions. Or they generate rework: another meeting to reach the decision that wasn’t made in the first meeting. And they participate in postproduction services: following up on decisions"

...

Knowledge work actually comes primarily in the form of projects, not routine daily tasks. Knowledge workers, therefore, experience big swings between peaks and valleys of decision-making intensity”

Fez-me recuar a:

• Avaliar projectos (parte II) 
• Provocação para empresas certificadas  complementada com a parte II 
• Tenho de testar isto ...

"A ideia de fazer de cada ano um espécie de projecto, algo único e irrepetível, em vez de uma continuação da rotina de sempre, é capaz de ser útil para mudar mentalidades em muitas empresas."

Trechos retirados de "A New Way to Think" de Roger Martin.

Mudar o jogo, liderar a mudança

O primeiro livro de Kaplan e Norton sobre o balanced scorecard (BSC), "The balanced scorecard", foi publicado em 1996. 

O segundo, "The strategy-focused organization", foi publicado em 2001. Depois de ler "The strategy-focused organization" despertei para a função do BSC não como instrumento de monitorização, mas como promotor da transformação estratégica das organizações. Quando na BSC Euro Summit de 2004 o terceiro livro foi distribuído, "Strategy Maps", já a ideia em mim estava bem enraizada.

Volto a recordar isto depois de ler "How the Wrong KPIs Doom Digital Transformation", onde sublinhei:

"Most legacy companies treat KPIs as reporting and accounting mechanisms rather than strategic decision drivers; they're used more to keep score than change the game. Clinging to these legacy KPI perspectives gets in the way of successful digital transformation strategies; these KPIs are literally counterproductive.

We argue that KPIs should lead, not track, digital initiatives. Top management must define and communicate both the key performance that is required to execute its strategic plan and the digital capabilities that will enable that performance."

Duas posturas completamente diferentes, como o puxar versus empurrar. Puxar significa estar mentalmente no futuro, a puxar para que a organização faça a transição que transforma esse local imaginário num local real. 

"Every firm is unique"

"Every firm is unique; it has its own unique history. So we cannot predict the impact or effect of a particular strategy or initiative on your firm, because we know nothing about the specific situation, and no one knows exactly what will be the ultimate impact of any change on the wider system. Your firm has evolved over time to look like it does today. Its value system can be viewed as a set of interconnecting routines. Routines are patterns of action and interaction that are involved in the three value activities of sourcing, operations and selling."

Trechos retirados de: Paul Raspin. “What's Your Competitive Advantage?”

Iniciativas, a operacionalização da transformação

"Value creation takes place in an uncertain world. We cannot predict the future, and in order to survive, firms need to be able to respond to unfolding circumstances. As we have stressed, we need to work with the complexities of the real world, and not assume these away, or pretend to ignore them.

An initiative may have a positive impact in one part of the system, but result in negative impacts elsewhere. 

...

significant change in an organisation typically occurs in two circumstances: a crisis, or a change of leadership, which is often preceded by a crisis. This is not surprising as to change an organisation that is ticking along in an acceptable way is a daunting prospect. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ would be the way most people would think. The idea that managers will enact ‘transformational change’ outside of a crisis is frankly unlikely.

...

Firstly, we need to have a clear description of the initiative: what is involved in the change being proposed. The expected or hoped for outcomes of the initiative should also be set out which can help us figure out what feedback is required to monitor the impact of the changes on the wider value system. Some thoughts as to the time frame of the change process will help, that is, is it weeks, or months before we would expect to see some effects?

It will be necessary to identify, at least initially, the resources required to kick-start the change process, and who owns the initiative. If there are expected synergies with other initiatives, these could be set out and monitored and it would be essential to highlight potential risks associated with the changes.

The first initiative will require a significant amount of change energy. The idea is new, it will need management support, and those involved will need to move out of some familiar routine ways of behaving. But once the initiative gets established, it requires a lot less energy to sustain it as the new practices become embedded into routine ways of working.

...

Value is created by combining inputs with existing assets to create products and services. Operations activities are those where the firm has most influence. Relationships with suppliers and customers can be influenced by what happens in the value creation process, but the firm has no direct control over what suppliers or customers choose to do. [Moi ici: Este sublinhado é incompreensível para quem vive fora do sector privado. "Como é possível estabelecer objectivos para as vendas quando não é possível obrigar os clientes a comprar]

The value activities ‘inside’ the firm generate outcomes with respect to customers, costs and prices."

Trechos retirados de: Paul Raspin. “What's Your Competitive Advantage?”

"Lost in translation"

"A strategic initiative is worthwhile only if it does one or more of the following: creates value for customers by raising their willingness to pay, creates value for employees by making work more attractive, or creates value for suppliers by reducing their operating cost.

...

I believe that strategic management faces an attractive, back-to-basics opportunity. By simplifying strategy—by selecting fewer initiatives with greater impact—we can make it more powerful. In this article, I describe an easy-to-use framework called value-based strategy, which gives executives a common language for evaluating strategic initiatives and developing a holistic view of the many activities taking place within their organizations."

Estratégia ...

Valor (clientes-alvo)

Iniciativas (projectos de transformação) ...

Tudo coisas que escasseiam nas PMEs... e são tão preciosas e necessárias. 

Sexta-feira passada dei uma formação via internet (um estónio, uma alemã, um irlandês, e um senegalês). Por duas ou três vezes ... usávamos as mesmas palavras, mas queríamos dizer coisas diferentes. 

Como falar em estratégia, valor e iniciativas com PMEs e elas perceberem: cancro, preço e concorrentes, e lista de tarefas.

Trechos retirados de "Eliminate Strategic Overload". Um artigo com muito que se lhe diga, mas para já apenas esta preocupação.

Criar a organização do futuro

"The imagery of a ship navigating to discrete waypoints for the purpose of reaching a destination aligns well with the activity of a company plotting and carrying out strategic initiatives. It is observed therefore that the development and implementation of strategy may be conceived as a series of discrete activities that may be managed as projects. Although the refining of strategy often occurs on an annual cycle, the macroenvironment changes as does the internal situation of the business. For this reason, every strategic planning cycle includes elements that are unique. Since the strategic planning process is unique in every planning period, and the activities carried out in each of the strategic planning phases are temporary, often complex, and involve the application of resources, the process of strategic planning is an ideal candidate for the use of project management practices."

Como não relacionar com o que tenho escrito nos últimos 16 anos neste blogue:

"Como não existem acidentes nem acasos, se aspiramos a resultados futuros diferentes dos resultados actuais, temos de transformar a realidade. Temos de criar a organização do futuro através de um somatório de projectos de transformação: as iniciativas estratégicas."

Trecho retirado de “Project-Led Strategic Management” de James Marion.

Ter ou não ter fogo no rabo

Muitas vezes... demasiadas vezes, desanimo com aquilo a que chamo falta de fogo no rabo nas empresas (uma expressão que escrevi pela primeira vez aqui no blogue em Janeirto de 2008, mas que recordo ter começado a usar nas empresas por volta de 2003). Por exemplo, recordar "A falta de fogo no rabo".

Ou porque se formulam iniciativas para implementar estratégias para criar um futuro melhor, ou porque se desenham projectos para ultrapassar problemas operacionais, desafios críticos, desafios importantes, desafios que gritam por atenção e que vão progredindo a velocidade de caracol, e que vão repousando nos congeladores empresariais. Desafios sem atenção da gestão de topo, desafios sem chefe de projecto, sem equipa, sem compromisso de datas, sem especificações de saída, sem recursos, sem ...

Depois, apanha-se algo deste calibre:

I asked Tony Fadell about the iPod timeline for my fast project page. Summary: 😯. pic.twitter.com/mf0CfbAEtB

— Patrick Collison (@patrickc) January 12, 2020

Como é que isto pode medrar neste ambiente?

Practicing the noble art of cheating (part V)

Part I, Part II, Part III e Part IV.

Let us go back to the last picture of Part IV ...

... and let us select the elements of the cause-effect relationship that are in red.

These elements are coded because they were written by someone individually, ideally even anonymously, so that the elements are more freely evaluated by all.
And now, with the group in front of the relationship we can ask:
- Why does A2 happen? What may be behind A2?
- Why does B2 happen? What may be behind B2?

Speculation will start to arise and we may agree on a first cause

Whe have safety accidents because staff do not know the risks.
Why staff do not know about security risks?
Staff do not know about security risks because we do not train staff.
E also have staff accidents because we have no safety protection systems in place.

Good practice is to ask "why" at least 5 times. In this way we move towards root causes, something that influences the end result and can be manipulated by us.

Successively asking why sometimes leads us back to a point already described, namely:

Do you see that? Do you see a loop there?

This technique leads us to identify a cycle that conspires in a normally dangerous way. Especially when they have the power to accelerate autocatalytically. The more accidents occur, the more potential is created for new accidents to occur in the future. Who taught me the ABC of systemic thinking, Peter Senge, places at the center of these cycles the icon of an avalanche descending through a mountainous ridge. The farther down, the more voluminous and destructive the avalanche.

We do not train staff because we have no time available for training.
Why do we have no time available for training staff? Because we lack human resources!!! So, we went back to the starting point.

The exercise should also be done by looking ahead for the future. Can any of the post-its on the board be the cause of something still to describe?

Now instead of "why" I use the expression: "And" as a way of appealing to a criterion of importance.
For example: we lack human resources. And? Why should we worry about this? What may be the consequences of this situation?

If staff is lacking, then existing staff must systematically extend their working hours.
The SME owner could comment:
- And? or "So what?" This is not a problem. I do not pay them overtime.
- OK! And what can happen because of the systematic use of overtime, paid or unpaid?

- People saturate, get tired, want to live their extra work life.
- And?

- Some say goodbye and leave the company. Others begin to fall ill and often fail to come to work. Others come to work, but without the necessary attention.
- And?

WOW! See what just happened?

We identified three more cycles that conspire to maintain and worsen the status quo. How can a company aspire to enter a virtuous cycle if, in this restricted scope alone, we find four vicious cycles. And as long as these cycles are not broken we are wearing bandages, we are making corrections, we are feeding imbalances that we will sooner or later be unable to contain, to hide, to control.

For simplification let us only use three cycles:

Now we have to identify all sticky notes that have no upstream arrows, no upstream causes, they represent root causes, they are root causes. In our example we have (see the yellow sticky notes):

Let us also identify sticky notes that include "no(t)", things we don't have or don't do:

Strategic initiatives will be projects, action plans, dedicated to surgically eliminating root causes and the various "no(t)".
Remember the figure of the monstrous earthmoving machine in part III?

I use it to get here and to highlight the specificity of what is going to be proposed, the degree of detail, as well as the authorship of these proposals, people who suffer from these problems and who are involved, challenged to give their opinion. People with tremendous motivation to perform, because it is their everyday work and they were the creators of the action plan.

Going back to the sticky notes, now of another color, we can place over each root cause or no(t), one or more elementary actions to eliminate these causes.

"Streamline staffing" (we often don't need to hire more people, we just need to transfer people from some sectors to others) to eliminate "The staff number is very restricted"
First "Update job descriptions and competence requirements", then "Train staff" to eliminate "We do not train staff"
"Allow time for training" (be creative, you don't need to do training seated in a room, on-job-training? games? films?) to eliminate "No time available for training"
"Design and implement safety protection systems" to eliminate "We have no safety accident protection systems"

If we impleent those actions what will, most likely,  happen? See the green sticky notes

But ...
If we no longer have lack of human resources... staff no longer needs to systematically extend working hours... Do you know what that means?


The chain of effects downstream no longer happens!!!

So, what do we need to do?

How to turn this into an action plan, a strategic initiative?
We have to answer the questions:

Who? When? Sequence? Time? Cost?

Et voilá!
We come to a detailed action plan arising from the strategy described in the strategy map.

Normally a team of 6 or 7 can generate 3 to 5 pages like this one:

Using the technique of sticky notes with different colors (gray is action; green is something you cannot change)

Then we list all gray sticky notes ...

... and start to make groups of gray sticky notes around a common theme. For example:

• marketing and brand
• production and efficiency
• innovation and interested parties
• marketing and influencers.

What do you think about this technique?
Would you like to try it?

Practicing the noble art of cheating (part IV)

Parte I, Parte II and Parte III.

We have a strategy map and we assigned indicators to each strategic objective. For each indicator we can measure current performance, the today's results, and we settle targets for future performance.

As we wrote before in Part III, today's organization generates today's results in a perfectly normal way. More demanding future desired results have to be generated by a different organization, the desired future's organization. So, to get that performance improvement we need to tramsform the current organization.

There is no chance. Sustainable performance improvements don't happen by accident.

Normally, we set a time frame between today's result and meeting the target. For example, we say that in the next 12 months the organization will increase its productive capacity utilization rate from 55,9 to 85%.

And I question you: Why 12 months? Why not tomorrow or next month?
And you answer: Because we are not yet the organization of the desired future, the one able to generate the desired performance.
Then I add: the strategy map is a theory, a hypothesis about how the organization will improve its performance, but the present organization is still not there.

So I ask: where are the weak spots that prevent us today from having the desired future performance? Concentrate on them, they are what restricts us, what constrains us from achieving our goals.

Let us look into the gap between today's results and desired future results as a perfectly normal and legitimate product of our current set of processes (that's how we work, how we manage, how we train, how we learn, ...)
Those current processes include within, a set of systemic structures that conspire (I use this word here because it seems perfect for what I want to communicate) so that today's results differ from desired future's results. Those systemic structures generate behavior patterns that quite naturally are behind today's results.

To eliminate the gap between today and the desired future we need to identify and eliminate the root causes behind those systemic structures through a set of action plans, strategic initiatives, which will transform today's organization into the desired future's organization and that way generate the set of processes of the future.

We will use a trick to identify the systemic structures: compare current performance with desired future performance. So, plunge into that gap and identify a negative fact. A fact is a fact. A fact cannot be denied. A fact is no theory. Everyone can see that fact. Be as specific as possible.

Gather a diverse group of people who together know the organization at several levels and from different perspectives. Ideally most of them were present when the strategy map was drawn. Remember to all the strategy map, the importance of the cause effect relationships and highlight the fact that the organization is still not the organization of the desired future, highlight the gaps in performance and give everyone a generous amount of sticky notes. Then ask them to individually and anonymously write a negative fact per sticky note and record as many negative facts as anyone can.

An example of a negative fact can be:

1. The machines have been down for a long time (x hours or y%)

When everybody finishes with the negative facts ask them to keep their facts secret and ask them to speculate. Ask them to give their opinion. Ask them to write down the causes that they think are behind each of the negative facts.
One cause per sticky note
For example:

A1. We do not perform preventive maintenance

B1. We have no critical spare parts

When everybody finishes with the causes ask them to give a final step and ask them to write down their opinion about why each negative fact is important for our strategy execution. One reason for importance per sticky note.
Example:

a1. Lost production capacity

This is what we are doing:

In this way we draw a cause-effect relationship anchored in reality, in a negative fact, something that no one can deny.

Negative facts are real but they can have no impact in the organization's strategy. 

I always use the example:

The company's last Christmas party was a failure.

Truth? Yes!

Relevant to the strategy? Most likely not!

So, we must test the importance criteria and check if they have any connection with strategy. Check if the importance criteria violates any promise from the strategy map:

In this example: Lost production capacity clearly goes against complying with prodution plans and maximizing usage capacity.

This way of working with facts, causes and importance criteria make us look into the organization at different levels of abstraction:

The following table can represent the contribution of one person:

Imagine that your team has 7 persons. 

Imagine that each person records 5 negative facts. So, you will have 35 cause effect relationships.

Imagine that 5 are similar to others. So, you will have 30 cause effect relationships.

Test all those negative facts to check if they are really relevant for strategy:

Now, look into the set of 30 cause-effect relationships and see if you can find new relationships among two of them. For example:

The effect "a1.Lost production capacity" acts as the cause that generates the effect "A3.We have stock shortages". And then A3 becomes the cause that generates "3.We carry unmatured product"

Go back to the remaining 28 cause-effect relationships and see if you can find one that relates very well with this two. Normally, people find more and more relationships. After some they will start to write new sticky notes because seeing all these at a wall make them find new relationships (that is why I use a codification for each individual negative fact, the new ones have no code, they are a product of team interaction)

After some iterations we can get a picture like this:

That is why I like to use the word "conspiracy".

Can you see how many feedback loops we have acting on the system?

If we want to improve we have to break this self-reinforcing cycles.

This post is already too long, in Part V I will present my technique to go from the conspiracy cycles into a set of very focused action plans, the strategic initiatives.

Other examples of conspiracy cycles (in Portuguese) here, here and here.