Still not much time for blogging. But saw an article in The Wall Street Journal last Monday (January 25, 2010) that you may find interesting. It deals with the subject of "where process improvement projects go wrong." My professional career has involved a lifetime of special projects and this article confirms my long standing beliefs, not only about continuous improvement efforts, but about any type of change in an organization.
Click here to get the link.
p.s. readers: I've recently subscribed to WSJ and have found it be a very interesting newspaper for me.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
On a Timely Basis
I was reviewing goal statements, part of the homework requirements in our "Managing for Results" program, when I ran across a goal involved with reducing production losses (to increase yield). The goal statement was fairly good as was the specific measure of performance. But my eyebrows went up when I saw the frequency of performance measure: quarterly!
The purpose of work effort performance measurement is to identify deficiencies and, more importantly, to take corrective action to get performance back on track. The longer you wait to take performance measures, the greater the chance that the costs of the errors will mount up. And the longer you wait to check performance, the greater the chance that the cause of the deficiency will remain hidden.
For example, say you measure productivity and quality performance weekly. You do it on Monday morning for the previous week. During your weekly check, you run across a job that was way off in productivity. The job was started last Tuesday and complete last Wednesday. You now attempt to investigate what happened. Unless the situation was extraordinary, what's the chances of anyone specifically remembering what went wrong on a job completed almost a week ago? Indeed, how many of us have trouble remembering what we did yesterday? Yet if productivity performance was measured daily, the deficiency would have been identified on Wednesday. Investigating it then would give you a much greater chance of identifying causes. More importantly, if the job is still in process you could take corrective actions as well. If instead of daily performance measurement you tracked performance hourly, you could have acted on the deficiency even sooner.
So...should performance be tracked on a daily basis? Or hourly? Or even by the minute? Not necessarily. The frequency of performance measurement depends on the nature of the work. And the correct frequency of performance measurement involves a trade off between the cost of short cycle measurement versus the risk of long cycle measurement. The more frequently you measure performance, the more it costs you to measure that performance, but the less risk you'll have of higher costs due to non-conforming performance. Conversely, the less frequently you measure performance the lower the costs of measuring performance, but with a corresponding higher risk of greater costs associated non-conforming performance as well a possible restricting impact on cause identification that can lead to corrective action efforts.
Some jobs, especially long term projects, can be comfortably measured weekly and on occasion even monthly. Other jobs lend themselves to weekly, or daily or hourly measurement. Indeed, companies with a continuous manufacturing process or with high volume-short cycle-low margin jobs may find that immediate and continuous measurement is even more appropriate.
The answer for each of us is to choose a performance measurement cycle that creates the best balance between the costs and risks associated with different measurement frequencies.
About Pelleyblog: Pelleyblog is designed to be a resource for supervisors and other first line managers. Currently most of our readers are from Rhode Island (RI), Central Massachusetts (MA) and Eastern Connecticut (CT). But everyone interested in management topics is welcome. We also welcome your participation. Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
The purpose of work effort performance measurement is to identify deficiencies and, more importantly, to take corrective action to get performance back on track. The longer you wait to take performance measures, the greater the chance that the costs of the errors will mount up. And the longer you wait to check performance, the greater the chance that the cause of the deficiency will remain hidden.
For example, say you measure productivity and quality performance weekly. You do it on Monday morning for the previous week. During your weekly check, you run across a job that was way off in productivity. The job was started last Tuesday and complete last Wednesday. You now attempt to investigate what happened. Unless the situation was extraordinary, what's the chances of anyone specifically remembering what went wrong on a job completed almost a week ago? Indeed, how many of us have trouble remembering what we did yesterday? Yet if productivity performance was measured daily, the deficiency would have been identified on Wednesday. Investigating it then would give you a much greater chance of identifying causes. More importantly, if the job is still in process you could take corrective actions as well. If instead of daily performance measurement you tracked performance hourly, you could have acted on the deficiency even sooner.
So...should performance be tracked on a daily basis? Or hourly? Or even by the minute? Not necessarily. The frequency of performance measurement depends on the nature of the work. And the correct frequency of performance measurement involves a trade off between the cost of short cycle measurement versus the risk of long cycle measurement. The more frequently you measure performance, the more it costs you to measure that performance, but the less risk you'll have of higher costs due to non-conforming performance. Conversely, the less frequently you measure performance the lower the costs of measuring performance, but with a corresponding higher risk of greater costs associated non-conforming performance as well a possible restricting impact on cause identification that can lead to corrective action efforts.
Some jobs, especially long term projects, can be comfortably measured weekly and on occasion even monthly. Other jobs lend themselves to weekly, or daily or hourly measurement. Indeed, companies with a continuous manufacturing process or with high volume-short cycle-low margin jobs may find that immediate and continuous measurement is even more appropriate.
The answer for each of us is to choose a performance measurement cycle that creates the best balance between the costs and risks associated with different measurement frequencies.
About Pelleyblog: Pelleyblog is designed to be a resource for supervisors and other first line managers. Currently most of our readers are from Rhode Island (RI), Central Massachusetts (MA) and Eastern Connecticut (CT). But everyone interested in management topics is welcome. We also welcome your participation. Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
Copyright © 2010 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Its Been Awhile
Hi to everyone --
Its been a busy time since last October, but a productive one for me. Three of the five supervision series programs underwent some major changes in format as well as an upgrade in content. The changes were tentative, but so far the overall reaction of participants has been good. I plan to continue the fine tuning during 2010, and may expand the effort to the other two programs in the series.
Of course the holidays were a busy time, especially with three grandchildren under the age of five. There are also many birthdays in our family with December and January dates. Always good to get together with family and friends again.
I've also been busy on a cost accounting project for a Massachusetts manufacturing company, but that effort is winding down now and beginning to free up more time.
My programs begin again in February with "Leadership Skills" being offered in Lincoln, RI and Danielson, CT and "Proactive Leadership" also being offered in Danielson. To learn more about our programs visit http://www.danpelley.com/.
Although I don't plan to go back to blogging daily, I do have a number of blog posts stacked up as well as a constant stream of information to share. So look for more posts in the future. Let's see if I can get the one on my desk right now published for tomorrow.
Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year to all of you.
Dan Pelley
About me: Dan Pelley offers a series of five programs leading to a Certificate in Supervisory Management. The five programs are "Managing People,: "Leadership Skills," "Managing For Results," "Proactive Leadership," and "Participative Management." 141 companies in Connecticut (CT), Rhode Island (RI), Massachusetts (MA) and New York have one or more people who earned this certificate.
Its been a busy time since last October, but a productive one for me. Three of the five supervision series programs underwent some major changes in format as well as an upgrade in content. The changes were tentative, but so far the overall reaction of participants has been good. I plan to continue the fine tuning during 2010, and may expand the effort to the other two programs in the series.
Of course the holidays were a busy time, especially with three grandchildren under the age of five. There are also many birthdays in our family with December and January dates. Always good to get together with family and friends again.
I've also been busy on a cost accounting project for a Massachusetts manufacturing company, but that effort is winding down now and beginning to free up more time.
My programs begin again in February with "Leadership Skills" being offered in Lincoln, RI and Danielson, CT and "Proactive Leadership" also being offered in Danielson. To learn more about our programs visit http://www.danpelley.com/.
Although I don't plan to go back to blogging daily, I do have a number of blog posts stacked up as well as a constant stream of information to share. So look for more posts in the future. Let's see if I can get the one on my desk right now published for tomorrow.
Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year to all of you.
Dan Pelley
About me: Dan Pelley offers a series of five programs leading to a Certificate in Supervisory Management. The five programs are "Managing People,: "Leadership Skills," "Managing For Results," "Proactive Leadership," and "Participative Management." 141 companies in Connecticut (CT), Rhode Island (RI), Massachusetts (MA) and New York have one or more people who earned this certificate.
Copyright © 2010 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved.
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