Silver Bullet Life Cycle

My translation of the article by Sarah Sherd “Life Cycle of a Silver Bullet” , 2003

"Attention! Throw out of your head other optimization methods - we discovered the best one. With our method, your quality level will increase, and the cost and development time will fall. ” Virtually any optimization method is proclaimed the best way to save a young business from problems. Unfortunately, a few years later, the same method is already crushed and blown apart, and is being replaced by a new one. This parable tells how this happens.

In the 17th century, Europeans believed that a silver bullet could kill a werewolf. Today's executives are looking for silver bullets to protect not from werewolves, but from lost profits, disappointed shareholders and the loss of market share. For these managers, silver bullets are management trends that promise to change the route of business development. Over the decades, many examples have accumulated: Six Sigma, Lean Enterprise, Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI®), and recently they have won agile software development techniques as a silver bullet. Such initiatives to optimize processes can work and actually work, but the way to implement them is critical for success. This parable demonstrates the eleven stages of the life cycle of a similar optimization initiative.

Stage 1: Blank

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The head of the company Porcine Products, Mr. Okkorok decides to get rid of all the silver bullets. He concludes that no one knows the company better than himself. He stares intently at how the company works in order to identify current problems and their causes. He also explores the company's strengths in order to build on them and use them more effectively in the future.

Imagine a pig in a suit throwing off a stack of books and construction drawings from the table.

Stage 2: Executive Dedication and Openness

Chamfer turns all its attention to the improvement of Porcine Products. Having identified the problems and levers of influence, as well as the places of their application, he allocates time and money for the implementation of the discovered optimalities and the suppression of opposing initiatives. He hires forward-thinking, intelligent managers and devotes a significant amount of his own time to making sure that the problems are really solved, and not sprinkled with sand. Hammer and his managers explore a variety of current and promising optimization techniques to highlight current problems and possible toolkits containing suitable directions and suggestions.

The executive insists that senior managers take part in the decision. Hammering makes managers realize their role in the company's problems and reorganize their own work to change the direction of the company. An atmosphere of candor without punishment is encouraged, and senior managers listen to messages from all levels of the company, especially regarding the optimization of their own work.

Imagine a pig who is building a brick house.

Stage 3: Success

Porcine Products reaps the fruits of hard struggle. Managers and managers change leadership style. Through improvements at all levels of the company change the way the company. Products are created more efficiently and with better quality. Costs fall, the number of orders increases, the morale is strengthened.

Stage 4: Fame

The business press has noticed the success of “Pig Products”. Hammer explains the improvements achieved in the company and gets a question about the name of the method. In honor of his French grandfather, he calls the improvement "Balle-Argente method." The press also wants to report how much time and money was spent, and what was achieved as a result; The fry looks back at the work done and gives marks. From all this, the business press calculates a magical index-return-investment (IVI) for the Balle-Argente business development method.

Imagine a little pig proudly holding a book with a brick house on the cover. The book is called “Balle-Argente Method”.

Stage 5: Impulse

Other companies have been following the success of Porcine Products. Some of them are experiencing competitive problems, because Porcine Products is now more efficient than their company; while other companies wish to achieve published IVI. Heads at meetings discuss what Porcine Products did, and why it worked.

Stage 6: First repeat

The leaders of these very other companies decide to repeat the success of Porcine Products. They communicate with Okkorok and other employees from his company on what actually happened. Each company is assigned a senior manager to monitor the implementation of the method in other companies. These senior managers diligently read the Balle-Argente method literature. Implementers study the problems of their companies and try to apply the spirit and letter of the Balle-Argente approach. When they make recommendations, they listen to the wishes of their own work, pay particular attention to the advantages and disadvantages of this approach, and eventually report their own IWI.

Imagine two or three piglets building houses from wood.

Stage 7: Confirmation

Some companies publish reports on the successful implementation of the Balle-Argente method. The reports indicate specific improvements that each company decided to implement. Since, after adopting the Balle-Argente approach, special attention was paid to investments and return on investment, this set of companies was able to present the exact values of IVI. These companies have earned approval from shareholders for financially efficient management. Business books about this method have been published: “Balle-Argent in difficult times”, “Balle-Argent for small companies”.

Imagine a set of books on a shelf with wooden houses on the covers.

Stage 8: Procedure

Many companies decide to pay attention to the method. IWI convinces some, and the fact that competitors are reaping the benefits of implementing Balle-Argenta, convinces the rest. Managers and senior managers of the second set of companies add Balle-Argenta to the list of current production initiatives. However, they are not able to focus on all methods, therefore they delegate the implementation of the Balle-Argente method to middle managers. These managers descend published IVI charts as targets. Other middle managers descend a comparable IVI for the simultaneous introduction of other methods. Management believes that the competition generated by such multiple initiatives will spur zeal on the implementation of initiatives.

Knowledge of managers-implementers about the Balle-Argente method is limited to publications in the business literature. Timelines prevent managers from contacting Porcine Products or reading more extensive articles about the method than short pomace. In order to reduce the risk of a slip by the established IVI, managers are looking for ways to improve the profitability of the Balle-Argente method in its implementation. The implementation, which took several years for Porcine Products, now needs to be completed in one financial cycle. Managers-implementers require subordinates to follow exactly the steps described in the literature, without further discussion or modifications. Some improvements are excluded due to the overhead of their implementation. Declared justification for this: such improvements will not work, because the company is in other conditions.

Instead, managers-implementers “pull down” the main strategies from the Balle-Argente literature to the category of broad goals, which will later be applied according to the residual principle. In almost all cases, the strategy of managers and managers should listen to the workers and accordingly change their work style - this is the first of the main strategy, which is crossed out. This is referred to as improving communications , and later turns out to be implemented as improving downward communications . These managers-implementers "rose" in their companies, because they defiantly respected their superiors. They do not require a literal implementation of the strategy. Chiefs should listen more , because it can frighten or confuse the management.

In the end, managers-implementers tend to put their actions in the best light. They are confident that the involvement of senior management will look like a manifestation of weakness. Most of the implementations of Balle-Argenta turns into manipulation of news. Top and middle management remain unaware and not involved in the implementation process, waiting for the fruits of success.

Imagine a whole village of thatched houses.

Stage 9: Reduced recoil

Due to cost cuts, reduction in implementation time, insufficient involvement of management, blurring of accents due to other improvement initiatives, as well as the tendency to literally follow instructions instead of searching and then correcting urgent problems of the company, Do not lead to previously published figures IVI. Similar rolls across the industry.

Imagine a village flooded with mice, crumbling straw houses with props.

Stage 10: Method Attacks

Employees in such companies feel under fire from incomprehensible managerial initiatives, and the Balle-Argente method is being introduced by force, requiring additional efforts to comply with regulatory requirements. Employees know that following all these checklists does not solve real problems. Some people at meetings complain that the Balle-Argente method forces the company to do stupid things. They refer to their own impressions and experience, complaining that the initiator of the implementation of Balle-Argenta does not want to hear anything about real problems that cannot be solved quickly. They also complain that checklists and complex documentation replace research and solutions, and that increased focus on IVI seriously reduces cash investments for more substantial optimizations than the imposition of simple patches.

Together with the results from Stage 9 (that the current implementation of Balle-Argenta does not provide a good IVI), these very fair complaints cause in the business press merciless blackening of the Balle-Argent method as harmful. Articles in favor of killing the monster Balle-Argenta.

Imagine a big wolf-villain blowing away a village of thatched houses.

Stage 11: All Over

Mr. Khryakov, the constructive leader of the Animalia holding, comes to the conclusion that no one knows the company better than he does. He decides to throw out Balle-Argente along with other silver bullets and pay close attention to the problems of the holding and how to solve them.

Imagine another little pig rolling off a stack of books and drawings from the table. On one of the books you can see a picture of a brick house on the cover.

Moral of the story

Sequence of separately useful steps will not necessarily lead to a useful result. In the parable, every leader and manager made reasonable decisions in the boundaries outlined above. And the consequences were disastrous.
For best results, start with stage 1 and stop at stage 3.
To solve the problems of the company is possible only after a thorough study of them. Other people's strategies worked because they were designed specifically for them. If you want real optimization, you must do the work yourself to isolate the problems of your business and apply sensible methods to solve them.
Not all people who reported using the method actually used it. At stage 8, the non-real application of the method was discontinued. Instead, we got a method with the same name, which is trying to get through to the result quickly and at any cost, and apparently without success. (Unfortunately, most companies are trying to use the method at stage 8.)
The original is always the same. Do not read anyone's interpretation of the method, read only the originals. If possible, talk to the author. Find out the root causes behind the steps of the method, so you can make sure that your adaptation is consistent with the root causes.
IVI from various improvements do not add up, they interfere with each other. Focus on the problems you want to solve, and develop a plan (as a leader) on how initiatives contribute to solving. Determine where initiatives seem contradictory to employees and reconcile them. Show employees a solid front.
Do not expect that IVI from other companies will suit you. They started from a different perspective and made other investments [1].

How to use Silver Bullets

Much has been written about suitable ways to optimize processes. You need to focus on business optimization purposes, not just methods (for example, CMMI) or intermediate indicators (for example, Level 3) [2, 3]. Managers must allocate the necessary resources, not to withdraw from further [4]. Managers must learn to highlight the important and respond accordingly [5, 6]. The technology group should analyze the true causes of the problems [7], plan for changes, approve them, control that the process moves according to [8]. And everyone is obliged to make sure that the changes really improve the process of creating a product, do not interfere with it.

Here are specific instructions on how to avoid mistakes with silver bullets:

Everyone : To realize that the result of all methods must be improvements in the company, the method is not an end in itself. You can not blindly apply optimization - you need to look at how the company works right now and how this method can change it.
Managers : You need to develop your own idea of what is preventing your company from entering the bright future and deciding what actions can remove these obstacles. Before applying any initiative that came from outside, take time to think about it and understand it. And in general, make sure that your company has the same problems as those that successfully implemented the method?

To realize the true problems, an upward communication is necessary. Knowing that upward communication can be risky, will not your managers report only good news [9, 10]? Find out what happened to the bad news and where it left off. Find a way around these obstacles, otherwise you will never hear what is really happening in your company.
Managers : You need to understand the method (s) you implement. The need to do really quickly does not mean that for the sake of speed you have to sacrifice everything. Determine what is most reasonable and do not ask to cut a path.

Understand the connections between initiatives that compete for people's attention. Explain these links, coordinate among the other initiators and reconcile the performers with all initiatives. Your products make money, not your governing initiatives. You must be sure that the initiatives do not impede the production of the product.
process groups : Send away managers who require the same results as other companies, but in less time, less resources and without unnecessary mental effort. Indicate why this will not work. Then offer something that works. Do not alleviate the problem by reporting only good news.
And finally : Real success will come when the company develops its own solution, taking into account its own peculiarities. Applications of the second order of these methods will work only if they have been studied in order to find out where the benefits come from and intelligently applied with the appropriate investment of funds. But the company will get a straw house if it believes that it can be used by someone else for a penny.

Special thanks

Special thanks to Cathy Kreyche for contributing to the article.