The Smartspeed Performance Improvement Blog

I was talking to a manager the other day about a lack of results from their team. We were standing next to a nice looking visual management board, and discussing the role of managers to kick away the obstacles for the team. So, when I asked them about what problems their team were facing they quickly gave me a list. "Who can resolve the problems that they are stuck on?" I asked. "Well, I guess that's my job to either coach them or to directly help when appropriate" they replied. "How much time do you spend on resolving their stuck issues?" "Well, I'm pretty busy with other things, so not much" I probed a little further and found out that they were spending time fire fighting because their team couldn't get their work done due to a lack of decisions being made elsewhere in the business. This kind of downward spiral isn't uncommon... A quick solution If you find yourself in a similar situation, why not try the following experiment? ...

Most leaders are good at providing feedback to their teams. Do more of this, do less of this... it isn't rocket science. But, what happens when you leave out the 'do more of this' statement? I see this from time to time. A busy and frustrated manager complains about what they don't want but fail to make it explicit what is wanted . All that happens in this situation is dwindling motivation. The people in question (it is rarely aimed at an individual, in my experience) start to wonder what is the right course of action. They second guess. They procrastinate. They doubt their own abilities. And, what's the result for the business? Whilst I can't guarantee an answer, it is likely that high performance is the default answer. So, what can you do if you see this happening in your organisation? Available from Amazon and other online book stores An easy first step is to make sure that clear direction regarding what is wanted is provided. The second step would be to loo...

The other week I was talking to a production supervisor about one of the business' recent recruits. The supervisor was grumbling about a mismatch in expectations. The new recruit had been with the business for about three months and was only running one machine. I asked what they should have been doing and the supervisor said 'at least two at once'. From a little bit of digging it became clear that this expectation was not mentioned, or documented, anywhere. It's what everyone else did in the business, it was the culture, but it wasn't obvious to this member of staff. Years ago I completed a project for a company that used the term ' reasonable expectations '. I liked this term as it sounds considered and based on facts. They used it to define the pace they expected their staff to work at. I think it is something that most of us could use. Being clear about what good looks like is an essential part of good management. Defining reasonable expectations for you...

Another weeks passes and another example of unnecessary fire fighting demonstrated by a business I have been to help. If you have this taking place in your business, let me ask you a few questions: 1. What keeps on happening? Regain control with this practical book Can you pin down what it is that you keep having to do, to get out of trouble? If you can't, is there a pattern you can observe? 2. Do you want it to stop? Is it causing you enough of a problem that you want it to stop? If the answer is yes, keep reading, if not park it for another day. 3. Find out what is going on Do you know why you are having this issue? If you aren't sure where the issue is arising from, then take a few minutes to have a look around. When you have some idea, go to the next step. 4. Cause and effect Do you know what is truly causing the fire fighting situation? If you spend the time to get to the root cause of the situation , you have a good chance of permanently eliminating this situation. Most p...

A manager at one of my clients came up to me at the end of a meeting. I had been talking about some of the factors that was stopping us from delivering on time and one of them was not making decisions in a timely fashion. Many of the people in the meeting put up some of their arguments about why they had so little time and email came up repeatedly. So, I asked them a qualifying question: "How quickly do you need to respond to your emails?" They largely looked at each other, rather than responding. I continued by asking them whether they were processing their emails in a systematic fashion, or being distracted by their email program (with their 'helpful' pop ups telling you that you have new messages). I got a mixed response to my question and observation, but a couple of them got the point I was making: email is a tool and you get to choose how to use it. In Lean manufacturing there is the reference to 'just in case' manufacturing; product being m...

I had a great time tonight watching my daughter and her peers at the ice skating competition. Some of the skating was great, some was less so, but every single skater performed which was brilliant to witness. Every skater, no matter their performance, got several rounds of applause and it was deserved in every case. Everyone wanted to see them win and communicated this with them through their applause. This got me thinking. I often ask my clients if they set their teams up to win, usually reflecting on a current performance objective or continuous improvement goal . In many cases the conversation raises a few opportunities that my client can look at that can increase the chances of their teams winning at the challenges before them. Considering this same topic, with the skaters I saw tonight they: Had been given / made time to learn and practice. Were supported by someone that could mentor and guide them. Their objective was crystal clear to them. A clear plan was in plac...

I have just re-published my guide: 7 Ideas to Gain Control and Improve Profit for Your Business You can download your copy by visiting:  https://mailchi.mp/smartspeed/7-ideas-to-gain-control-and-improve-profit-for-your-business If you are looking for simple but effective methods to drive up your business' productivity, performance and profits then this is a great resource to push you in the right direction. To get your free copy you just need to sign up for my email updates. Hopefully you will find them to be useful to you and your business and you can unsubscribe at any time. Enjoy, Giles About the author Giles Johnston is a Chartered Engineer who specialises in helping businesses to grow and improve through better business processes. Giles is also the author of Business Process Re-Engineering and creator of the ' Making It Happen ' continuous improvement toolkit.

Let’s be realistic, days very rarely run smoothly. Most teams have bumps in their day to day working, which need to be resolved . This is normal, but the effectiveness of a team’s ability to deal with this massively impacts the overall performance of the function they are responsible for. Making the issues (and corresponding actions) visible and ‘in your face’ is a big part of this effectiveness. An example of a simple approach to managing an action log When the actions are visible they don’t get lost. They are constantly in your line of sight and the actions required to close out the issues have a higher chance of being completed if they are in the front of your mind. Out of sight, out of mind is certainly true in this case (and strategy doesn’t often get results). If the actions are visible there is a great chance that they will get worked on during the course of the day and not five minutes before the next meeting (in a state of panic). Many people are bad at taking notes a...

Do you find your day being broken up by interruptions, stopping you from getting on with your work? Continuous improvement projects often fall foul of this. The day can become so inefficient through the constant stopping and starting that we only just seem to have enough time to get the 'day job' completed. I was in a meeting last week where this same issue cropped up. It also cropped up today. It's nothing new, but it is still a pain in the rear! So, let me share with you an approach that has worked for my clients - the 'Hour of Pain!'.

Is your business geared up to win? More importantly, are you team geared up to win? Setting people up to win isn't a common expression, but one that I wish I would hear more often when I work with businesses. The opposite, setting people up to fail, is a more common expression and might give us (as a culture) a clue as to one of the pitfalls of organising our business activities. There are a few different ways that we can set our business up to win . These include clear business standards, KPIs and corresponding targets and effective routines.

Whilst driving to a client's this morning I caught a few minutes of a debate on the radio about increasing productivity. It was a very general discussion, of course, but there was one part of the discussion that caught my attention. The host of the show asked the guest (a member of the UK government I believe) why productivity wasn't increasing in the country when we have so many devices available to us to allow us to work remotely and deal with our emails before normal working hours. As you would have noticed, productivity is not  measured as the host indicated: Productivity ≠ everything you do / the length of time taken I'm not sure how widespread this mis-understanding is, but it raises an interesting point about how many people are measuring the wrong things when it comes to either their own, or their business', productivity. When you work in a manufacturing environment calculating productivity can be relatively straightforward. You may measure the t...