Do not leave problems for self-determination
I use one important principle - the origin of which I will explain later - which works more than wherever I was. Actually: at any time, in any organization (or process, or system) in which I was located, there were always a small number of bottlenecks - these are people, teams, systems, or anything else that limited the results of the entire organization. In fact, usually only one.
The idea is very simple to consider using the example of a linear system. Imagine that you have a group of children charged with making paper airplanes (let's call them Andy, Bob, and Claire). The steps for manufacturing are as follows:
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What happens in time if all the children work so fast that they can? If the answer does not immediately suggest, then watch this video (a small cartoon about working people). (it will be interesting)
(Description: If you have problems due to the fact that Andy and Claire do not help Bob with wings, which means you have not spent enough time on the corporate environment. Instead, imagine that the task is not to do paper airplanes, but to complete part of the tedious ISO9001 documentation Just imagine that they work under a contract and receive penalties for not fulfilling volumes. All the presented situations have the same problem suitable for our reasoning.)
So how much can a group of children produce? Due to the fact that the slowest child (Bob) can make only 5 airplanes per minute, a group, as a whole, can also produce only 5 airplanes per minute. Any airplanes that Andy will make on top will only be blanks while Claire will idle most of the time. This, in the simplest sense, is a bottleneck.
What will happen if the cork ceases to exist? If you watched the video - you know the answer. Andy has enough material to take some more airplanes so he can take a break. Claire can hurry to do. But Bob is different: he cannot hurry to keep up with Andy, and he cannot make a reserve for Claire. On the other hand, Bob has very high pressure to work as efficiently as he can.
It is worth noting that the development teams are different from groups of children - although not everyone believes in it, even considering that they are managed. And many organizations have much more complex processes than in the example, although people who have a strong propensity for the mythical methodology of Waterfall can make you believe the opposite. If problem areas in the development team are not under the pressure of others, they will more than likely be under pressure from themselves to work better. Software development is also a special area where special skills are needed, and even the transfer of roles within the same company takes considerable time due to the specificity of knowledge.
In the end, strange people ... In a sense, we can abstract and use them as “resources”, but I would not advise if you want to have a lot of friends. But as Tom de Marco noted in Slack [ amzn ]: we are not interchangeable. This means that you cannot easily replace one employee with another, in all situations except the simplest ones, for example, when making paper airplanes, probably. The impossibility of interchange has its roots in the more fundamental problems of working with people: we are not mechanical parts, we are complex parts of a complex system. We have feedback, unlike machines that have problems statistically or at the limit of the calculated. Both examples are appropriate, and most importantly in the analogues, we are under stress.
Having described the problem areas, the pressure exerted on them, their presence in more complex structures (and some reservations to the model) - it is already time to answer the important question: who should be responsible for tracking the state of these problems?
Never leave problem areas to self-determination.
Why?
You have already seen these components. Let's repeat. Actually a problem place:
To understand what is happening when problems are left to self-determination, we use a simplified example. Consider an individual employee, let's call him Bob, he is Senior.
Bob can be a consultant, a single employee (probably with rare skills, using the tools he needs), a single department manager, or any other similar option. In fact, Bob is on self-determination. And there is one important condition: Bob is a bottleneck. If Bob gives a weakness, makes a mistake or makes a mistake, it will affect everyone. Surely no one cares about Bob until he himself draws attention.
Bob has two tasks: he must do his job, and he must somehow make sure that his own work is controlled. How should Bob manage his time? He has two conflicting tasks. Like everyone, he has to grasp the immense, therefore he must either spin or screw up. (Just as Deming said: it’s not necessary to change. Survival is not an obligation .) Suppose he wants to perform his tasks, for this he must:
(Retreat: most organizations do not even try to measure efficiency - at best they measure financial costs and the profits that they get from investments per employee. As we have already noted, full-time employment is not a guarantee of maximum productivity. " The Goal " [ amzn ] Elijah Goldratt contains much more about this).
Our protagonist Bob is struggling with his own conflicts and should do the maximum possible. What happens if he chooses the “way of struggle”? Then he will do more than he can, but this is not the most important thing. He can make a more significant mistake - to do something that was not required, just because he didn’t stop to think whether it was possible to avoid them. Or make mistakes for not paying attention - miss the moments that you could see, stop it and think more globally. Both options require more effective management. But Bob and so, in fact, controls himself, what will happen if he chooses the option to solve the problem? Now something deeper appears. Every time he controls himself, he doesn't do his job. It is worth recalling: Bob is a bottleneck, it is under strong pressure, it needs to work efficiently and effectively. While he controls and improves his work - he really does not do it.
What happens when this problem exists? It's simple: as you can see everything is at a loss. In integrated software companies, it works the same way as for children with airplanes. And when Bob is responsible for the problem of the entire company, he puts himself under even greater pressure: either himself, or someone else, or surely both. (Surely this seems to him to be just an increase in load.)
What happens when people are under pressure? They start to stress. And what happens to people in the presence of stress?
The seemingly complicated and not plausible explanation actually works fine: an increase in performance under pressure actually reduces it.
An interesting situation is obtained. When Bob does not try to control himself - his performance will fall in the long run compared to the others. And if he tries to control himself - his productivity will fall soon, due to the fact that he uses his resources for management, not for work. And here, it turns out, Bob is tied by his hands: his performance will decrease anyway.
At the same time, Bob is not the only one who suffers from this. He wants to work perfectly despite the fact that he is a problem place. And he makes a decision (in his free time, perhaps even subconsciously) to control "himself" as effectively as possible. But what is it really? This is meta-management - management of management (I apologize for tautology), a form of management in myself. And according to the goal of managing himself better (surely working more), he should increase the amount of time to manage. And as a result, reduce the time for the main activity. And as a result, increase the pressure on yourself. How is he going to solve this? Looks like he needs to increase the amount of time:
Nothing like? It is a closed loop that waits for us at every step, however sad it may be.
So what do we do about it? I believe that a creative approach is needed here, and you can also indicate general recommendations.
These recommendations are mainly on the use of employees and processes with obvious bottlenecks (“on use” not in understanding the resource, but used as “how not to waste their time.”) Most of the recommendations relate to time and resource management.
In any case, in all variants, this situation can be resolved without micromanagement and hostile (skeptical) relations. In most organizations, the bottlenecks are people, and the best way to waste their time is to not pay attention to them. In fact, I believe that a lot of wasted time through bottlenecks appears due to the fact that we do not take into account the peculiarities of people under pressure and in stressful situations.
If you want to learn more about bottlenecks, the ideas that I used come from Theory of Constraints . There is a lot of information there, but I recommend reading the original publication for business, the novel The Goal [ amzn ], which explains how to find and remove bottlenecks. Its continuation, “ It's Not Luck [ amzn ]”, explains why even complex organizations have several really bottlenecks and reveal their various types. I mentioned Slack [ amzn ] twice in the article - this is not about limitations, but contains many useful ideas on how to manage resources. If you are interested or need more links and information, ask in the comments.
Child Game
The idea is very simple to consider using the example of a linear system. Imagine that you have a group of children charged with making paper airplanes (let's call them Andy, Bob, and Claire). The steps for manufacturing are as follows:
')
- Andy’s task is to fold paper in half for 10 airplanes per minute
- The task of the second, Bob, to form wings, he can do it at a speed of 5 units per minute
- Claire tests the flight of the assembled airplanes at 20 per minute
What happens in time if all the children work so fast that they can? If the answer does not immediately suggest, then watch this video (a small cartoon about working people). (it will be interesting)
(Description: If you have problems due to the fact that Andy and Claire do not help Bob with wings, which means you have not spent enough time on the corporate environment. Instead, imagine that the task is not to do paper airplanes, but to complete part of the tedious ISO9001 documentation Just imagine that they work under a contract and receive penalties for not fulfilling volumes. All the presented situations have the same problem suitable for our reasoning.)
So how much can a group of children produce? Due to the fact that the slowest child (Bob) can make only 5 airplanes per minute, a group, as a whole, can also produce only 5 airplanes per minute. Any airplanes that Andy will make on top will only be blanks while Claire will idle most of the time. This, in the simplest sense, is a bottleneck.
What will happen if the cork ceases to exist? If you watched the video - you know the answer. Andy has enough material to take some more airplanes so he can take a break. Claire can hurry to do. But Bob is different: he cannot hurry to keep up with Andy, and he cannot make a reserve for Claire. On the other hand, Bob has very high pressure to work as efficiently as he can.
Bottlenecks in software companies
It is worth noting that the development teams are different from groups of children - although not everyone believes in it, even considering that they are managed. And many organizations have much more complex processes than in the example, although people who have a strong propensity for the mythical methodology of Waterfall can make you believe the opposite. If problem areas in the development team are not under the pressure of others, they will more than likely be under pressure from themselves to work better. Software development is also a special area where special skills are needed, and even the transfer of roles within the same company takes considerable time due to the specificity of knowledge.
In the end, strange people ... In a sense, we can abstract and use them as “resources”, but I would not advise if you want to have a lot of friends. But as Tom de Marco noted in Slack [ amzn ]: we are not interchangeable. This means that you cannot easily replace one employee with another, in all situations except the simplest ones, for example, when making paper airplanes, probably. The impossibility of interchange has its roots in the more fundamental problems of working with people: we are not mechanical parts, we are complex parts of a complex system. We have feedback, unlike machines that have problems statistically or at the limit of the calculated. Both examples are appropriate, and most importantly in the analogues, we are under stress.
Having described the problem areas, the pressure exerted on them, their presence in more complex structures (and some reservations to the model) - it is already time to answer the important question: who should be responsible for tracking the state of these problems?
Golden Rule
Never leave problem areas to self-determination.
Why?
You have already seen these components. Let's repeat. Actually a problem place:
- responsibility for the result of the whole company
- is suppressed either by your own or by the company
- cannot get help fast enough either because of rare skills or because of the company's inability to respond to increased demand
To understand what is happening when problems are left to self-determination, we use a simplified example. Consider an individual employee, let's call him Bob, he is Senior.
Bob can be a consultant, a single employee (probably with rare skills, using the tools he needs), a single department manager, or any other similar option. In fact, Bob is on self-determination. And there is one important condition: Bob is a bottleneck. If Bob gives a weakness, makes a mistake or makes a mistake, it will affect everyone. Surely no one cares about Bob until he himself draws attention.
Bob has two tasks: he must do his job, and he must somehow make sure that his own work is controlled. How should Bob manage his time? He has two conflicting tasks. Like everyone, he has to grasp the immense, therefore he must either spin or screw up. (Just as Deming said: it’s not necessary to change. Survival is not an obligation .) Suppose he wants to perform his tasks, for this he must:
- do your job as efficiently as possible
- control yourself to be sure that you use your time efficiently and be able to improve your work
(Retreat: most organizations do not even try to measure efficiency - at best they measure financial costs and the profits that they get from investments per employee. As we have already noted, full-time employment is not a guarantee of maximum productivity. " The Goal " [ amzn ] Elijah Goldratt contains much more about this).
Founding bottleneck conflict
Our protagonist Bob is struggling with his own conflicts and should do the maximum possible. What happens if he chooses the “way of struggle”? Then he will do more than he can, but this is not the most important thing. He can make a more significant mistake - to do something that was not required, just because he didn’t stop to think whether it was possible to avoid them. Or make mistakes for not paying attention - miss the moments that you could see, stop it and think more globally. Both options require more effective management. But Bob and so, in fact, controls himself, what will happen if he chooses the option to solve the problem? Now something deeper appears. Every time he controls himself, he doesn't do his job. It is worth recalling: Bob is a bottleneck, it is under strong pressure, it needs to work efficiently and effectively. While he controls and improves his work - he really does not do it.
What happens when this problem exists? It's simple: as you can see everything is at a loss. In integrated software companies, it works the same way as for children with airplanes. And when Bob is responsible for the problem of the entire company, he puts himself under even greater pressure: either himself, or someone else, or surely both. (Surely this seems to him to be just an increase in load.)
What happens when people are under pressure? They start to stress. And what happens to people in the presence of stress?
The seemingly complicated and not plausible explanation actually works fine: an increase in performance under pressure actually reduces it.
An interesting situation is obtained. When Bob does not try to control himself - his performance will fall in the long run compared to the others. And if he tries to control himself - his productivity will fall soon, due to the fact that he uses his resources for management, not for work. And here, it turns out, Bob is tied by his hands: his performance will decrease anyway.
At the same time, Bob is not the only one who suffers from this. He wants to work perfectly despite the fact that he is a problem place. And he makes a decision (in his free time, perhaps even subconsciously) to control "himself" as effectively as possible. But what is it really? This is meta-management - management of management (I apologize for tautology), a form of management in myself. And according to the goal of managing himself better (surely working more), he should increase the amount of time to manage. And as a result, reduce the time for the main activity. And as a result, increase the pressure on yourself. How is he going to solve this? Looks like he needs to increase the amount of time:
- performing tasks - to get more results, or
- management - to be more efficient
Nothing like? It is a closed loop that waits for us at every step, however sad it may be.
Hope for the future
So what do we do about it? I believe that a creative approach is needed here, and you can also indicate general recommendations.
- To pay more attention to the problem of bottlenecks in the organization: this concept is intuitively clear to everyone, but nevertheless it is not often that they draw conclusions from it. Seeing some illustrative examples (and they are not rare in real life) that can go wrong in the case of bottlenecks can help us draw this necessary attention.
- Protective retrospective: the allocation of a percentage of the time of employees who are bottlenecks for a regular, stable improvement is mandatory. No one can have the right to decide that he is “too busy” to review the processes in order to go into a tailspin. You need to trust your own manager when attention and improvement are really needed.
- Expert reviews: tried it yourself, and it can be really effective. Collecting the opinions of objective people on a regular basis can stop you from making a mistake sometime.
- Make the work more visual: it is not difficult to recycle, but without a simple way to control what people are working on, problem areas will continue to exist, they will be added to work, and not do true work. Involve others as well.
- Creating a culture of engagement: too many hours a week when employees can work on the same thing. Be less inclined to force you to do more and more tasks while much more important ones are waiting for their work to be reviewed.
These recommendations are mainly on the use of employees and processes with obvious bottlenecks (“on use” not in understanding the resource, but used as “how not to waste their time.”) Most of the recommendations relate to time and resource management.
In any case, in all variants, this situation can be resolved without micromanagement and hostile (skeptical) relations. In most organizations, the bottlenecks are people, and the best way to waste their time is to not pay attention to them. In fact, I believe that a lot of wasted time through bottlenecks appears due to the fact that we do not take into account the peculiarities of people under pressure and in stressful situations.
For additional study
If you want to learn more about bottlenecks, the ideas that I used come from Theory of Constraints . There is a lot of information there, but I recommend reading the original publication for business, the novel The Goal [ amzn ], which explains how to find and remove bottlenecks. Its continuation, “ It's Not Luck [ amzn ]”, explains why even complex organizations have several really bottlenecks and reveal their various types. I mentioned Slack [ amzn ] twice in the article - this is not about limitations, but contains many useful ideas on how to manage resources. If you are interested or need more links and information, ask in the comments.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/144171/
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