A path to continuous process improvement

Every process can be improved! Every process!

It does take energy and time to inspect a process. You might need to overcome inertia (“that’s how we do it”). But it will pay off in the long run!!

It’s important to remind ourselves that process improvement is not a one-time thing; instead, it requires continuous reflection and ongoing critical assessment.

There are many different models, frameworks, and visualizations on process improvement. You can even earn martial-arts-themed belts in some (loving and practicing martial arts myself, I always found that silly, but that’s just me). The key point for all of them is never to stop critically looking at your processes and systems and to ask yourself how you can improve them constantly. What can you do to make the experience better for your customers? How can you simplify the workflow to make it easier for yourself? How can you make the overall system more efficient to reduce total operational costs?

If you want to get started on simplifying your processes, I would (strongly) recommend doing the following:

1. Start with documentation! – You don’t need to make this a scary huge project that you hope to never get to. Instead, just write down what you do, as you do it. Often you will have something to copy from to further lower the barrier – an email that you sent to the team, meeting notes, a brainstorming document, or your own mindmap. Take that content as the starting point for your documentation. Bonus points if you put your documentation somewhere, where people can find it. Simple documentation beats no documentation every single time!
2. Audit and reflect critically – Look at what you’re doing while you’re doing it. Ask yourself if all steps are necessary, or if some of them could be changed and simplified. Ask yourself if the customer experience is the greatest it could be. Think of customers as everyone that interacts with the process – true customers, your partners, and supporting resources. Step back and remove yourself from the process and your emotional attachment to it and take a hard look at what doesn’t make sense. Ask your customers what they think you should do differently, ask them what they like and don’t like about the process. In agile, we call this “doing a retro”.
3. Tweak and test – Try a new process improvement and see how it works. Is it better than what you had before? If so, keep it and keep going. If not, revert back. Try lots of different things and observe how they fare in comparison. Make small tests before you make a big change for everyone. Keep what works, discard what doesn’t. If you want to be fancy and show off, call it “experimentation”.
4. Update your documentation – Don’t forget this step! In step 1), you spent the time and energy to document what you had before. As you make changes to your SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), also update your documentation to keep it fresh. Few things suck more than out of date documentation.
5. Simplicity drives adoption – And here is my master rule for all processes: Keep it simple! The simpler, the better. The simpler, the more likely it is that your process will get adopted and followed consistently over time.

Things can always be improved. We might not have gotten it perfectly right the first time, circumstances might have changed (e.g. resourcing constraints), capabilities might have changed (e.g. technology advancements), or certain aspects of what you did before might just not be necessary anymore.

Everything can be improved. I’ve yet to encounter a perfect process or system. Take the time to reflect on what processes you can improve or help to be improved!

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A practical guide to living healthier, happier and more successful in 52 weekly steps
By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk
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Do you know your core values?

We had an IT Community Senior Leadership Team retreat this week during which we attended a workshop on the ‘New World of Work’. The discussions reminded me, among other things, of the importance of knowing your personal core values, the alignment of shared values in a team, and the power of working off those shared values.

Personal values have always been a huge guiding principle for me, and I make most of my big decisions relative to alignment with those values. While that usually happens subconsciously, the training reminded me to check in on my values again deliberately.

Our core values – whether we are aware of them or not – define how we think and guide our decisions. They also have a significant impact on whether we’re happy and satisfied or not. Core values made me seek new jobs and leave existing ones. They made me push for extensive life changes. Whenever my situation aligned with my core values, I was happy and felt accomplished. When I had made choices for other reasons (e.g., money), I usually was frustrated and often times felt miserable after a short time.

As I said, I was curious and revisited my values to see if they had changed. They didn’t.

Here are the core values I hold dear and close to my heart:

• Family
• Integrity
• Autonomy

I would encourage you to reflect on your core values as well if you haven’t done so lately. Share them with your coworkers if you feel like doing so, or keep them as your own personal guiding star.

Getting down to three core values is much harder than you would think. Most people can easily brainstorm their 10-15 most important values, but how do you pick the three that matter most (and if you’re like me, you cannot really consistently memorize or handle any list that is larger than three entries)?

Here are two ways to explore your three core values:

1. Write down your 10-15 values on flip cards – one core value per card. Then give away three of them. Then another three. Then two more. Keep going until you’re down to the remaining three that you would fight for really hard. You will see that it gets really painful as you get closer to the three. There are values that you really like, they’re just not your top three, and you have to give them away.
2. Use an app to guide (i.e., force) you through the process. On the iPhone, I found this free app that does a pretty good job: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/valuescardsort/id1510029675. What I like about the app is that it’s easy, quick, and intuitive. What I liked less is that you are limited to the values the programmer put into it.

Go explore or revisit your core values!

If you’re interested, here are the values that the app came back for me. Mostly the same; I think the difference is semantics. Pick whatever way of exploration you like best.

• Self-care
• Trust
• Honesty
• Authenticity
• Independence

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Check out our book for more thoughts and a week-by-week guide to make strategic changes to improve your health, career, and life purpose:

Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First
A practical guide to living healthier, happier and more successful in 52 weekly steps
By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk
ISBN 9781077278929

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.

Meeting effectiveness and efficiency

We all spend a LOT of time in meetings. That time is important and valuable, as meetings help us to discuss topics, get different opinions, resolve issues, and decide on actions. However, those meetings can also waste a lot of time.

So how do we make meetings more effective? Here are some things that I learned over time – 8 quick checks for your next meeting:

• Shorter is better – Humans have a tendency to always fill the available time (I think it’s a yet undiscovered law of physics). If you have 2 hours for a task, you will need two hours. If you have only 30 mins, you will focus on what’s most important and be done after those 30 mins. Likewise, if you have 1 hour for a meeting, you will fill that time. Think about what the absolute required minimum duration for a meeting is and then schedule for that time. That will force you and everyone else to stay on topic and move forward.

• Have an agenda! – If you don’t chart out the way, you will not reach your destination. Share a meeting agenda ahead of time to set proper expectations and get the results out of your meeting that you need. In a previous team, we had a rule to not join a meeting if it didn’t have a clear agenda and purpose.

• Define desired outcomes and manage towards those outcomes – If you don’t say what you need from the meeting, you might be surprised by what you will get. In tandem with the agenda, also define what the desired outcomes are (e.g. “In this meeting we will agree on the proposed project plan and develop a complete list of necessary changes to that plan. After the meeting, execution against that plan will start.”). If you define clearly what you want to achieve, attendees will be more focused on helping you to get there. It will also give you a way to redirect discussions if they get derailed (and they always will).

• Recognize sidetracks and get back on track – Every meeting goes sideways at some point. Identify discussions that are not critical to the agenda and your desired and stated meeting outcomes, suggest to move them offline, and politely redirect the group back to the actual agenda. Something that can be quickly solved in the room (2 mins or less) is ok; everything else should be dealt with offline.

• Know who should be there (and who shouldn’t) – It’s easy to invite anyone who could be even remotely interested. That is also very expensive and doesn’t really add to your credibility as a thoughtful leader. Decide who really should be in the meeting to make the desired progress. Send meeting notes to everyone else.

• Engage people by asking them directly for input – Many people join meetings, make up their own thoughts, but stay quiet. This is particularly pronounced in virtual meetings and the worst for attendees who join only on audio. It’s so easy to multitask, or just hide away. Ask people specifically for their opinions. Ask them by name. This is important if you need a decision, but it is also a critical tool to ensure that more introvert communicators are not drowned out in meetings – their thoughts and opinions are just as important but often harder to get.

• Drive for decisions – Be sure to get the outcomes you desired from the meeting. Drive for decisions, ask people by name for their sign-off or explicit disagreement. A little tip / dirty trick: how you phrase the question matters. “Are you all ok with this?” leaves ambiguity and wiggle room. You will never know for sure that you have full buy-in or a defendable group decision. “So in summary, the decision of this meeting is X, unless anyone voices any objections now.” removes ambiguity, and forces people to voice any concerns right now. They cannot say “I didn’t know or agree” later. Everyone needs to be clear that now is the time to voice concerns or rest their peace forever. This is not about forcing a specific outcome; it is about eliminating decision avoidance.

• Write the meeting notes – Everyone will have a slightly different opinion of what was discussed and decided in the meeting. And as time passes by and memory fades, those gaps will just widen. Write down all decisions to have them documented and make them stick. Plus, who writes the meeting notes controls the decisions to a large part. Bonus points if you take the notes in the meeting and share your screen so that everyone sees them and has an opportunity to jump in right away if they disagree.

Inefficient meetings have been one of my pet peeves for a long time (being a true introvert, I hate long meetings without clear purpose and tangible forward progress). Following the above rules can make all your meetings substantially better.

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Did you like this post? Want to read more?

Check out our book for more thoughts and a week-by-week guide to make strategic changes to improve your health, career, and life purpose:

Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First
A practical guide to living healthier, happier and more successful in 52 weekly steps
By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk
ISBN 9781077278929

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.

The Third Way

As some of you know, in my personal life, I have been passionate about martial arts for a long time (some 30 years by now). Studying those ancient arts taught me many valuable lessons over the years. One that I was reminded of just this week is the idea of “The third way” in Tai Chi.

In my earlier times of practicing the arts, my responses were limited to one of two categories: retreat or attack; submission or domination. Tai Chi teaches that in most cases, neither is the best solution, and one should rather look for a third way. You don’t surrender, and you don’t oppose; you find a way to embrace the energy and momentum and direct it in a direction that you deem valuable.

So how does this apply to work, and why am I writing about it here?

Well, very often, we are asked to add things to our already full plates or are confronted with situations that we don’t like or that even upset us. We usually respond either by saying ‘yes’ right away and then silently grumbling about yet another thing or by saying ‘no’ without further regard of the importance of the request.

Unless something is easy to do anyway (in which case we should just do it), or completely out of scope and unreasonable (in which case we should clarify why that is the case), it is usually worth to take a pause and to think about possible third ways. Ask yourself a few questions like:

• What do we want to achieve?
• Is there a simpler way to get there?
• Who is best positioned to achieve those outcomes?
• Who can we tap into for support?
• How can the requestor help to make the work more efficient or simpler?
• What aspects of the ask are hard requirements, and which ones are more flexible?

Don’t just say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ – take the time to work with the person who asked you to do something to gain a good understanding of the best way to achieve what they need to accomplish.

A recent reporting automation project that my team supports is one example of this. We could just take all requests for new reports, say ‘yes’, and hire more people to fulfill them. We could also cap the number of reports and headcount we are willing to fund and say ‘no’ after that. Or we can think about better ways to deliver what our customers want and need (i.e. good data to gain insights) – for example: where can we simplify (standard reports), or how can we enlist the requestor’s help (self-service dashboards).

Ask questions to understand. Ask questions to find the best solution. Ask questions to lead.

Don’t just say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, insist on finding the best solution for everyone.

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Did you like this post? Want to read more?

Check out our book for more thoughts and a week-by-week guide to make strategic changes to improve your health, career, and life purpose:

Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First
A practical guide to living healthier, happier and more successful in 52 weekly steps
By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk
ISBN 9781077278929

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.