Process Design – Page 18 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

February 3, 2020

Beware the black box.

The great thing about a musical score is that it tells you what to play, not how. It tells you which notes, in which order and at what speed. It can also give you hints about the mood you’ll be trying to create.

What it doesn’t tell you is how to play those notes. It assumes you know. Neither does the score dictate what instrument is used. As long as you produce the right notes, in the right order and at the right speed to produce the required mood, you can play them on anything – from a crumhorn, to an electric guitar, to a computer – and the listener will probably recognise the music.

This is what gives a musical score longevity. It can be picked up centuries after it was originally written, played with completely different instruments by completely different people, yet sound broadly the same as when it was first performed.

Imagine what would have happened if Mozart had simply taught his musicians their parts by rote, tightly coupling the ‘what must happen’ with the ‘how we make it happen at the moment’.

He would have created a black box, that could make music only for as long as the specific players he taught could remember it, or the instruments they used were available. A black box limited by the number of people Mozart could physically teach; that would be impossible to interrogate, update or re-interpret; that would quickly become obsolete.

If you seek longevity or scale for your enterprise, keep ‘what must happen’ separate from ‘how we make it happen at the moment’. Given the ‘what’, future generations will be able to work out ‘how’ for themselves.

January 30, 2020

Playing with change

Aversion to new kinds of food is an instinct that kicks in for humans at around 2 years old. It’s a safety mechanism, evolved to protect the species. Just when they start toddling about, beyond the immediate reach of adults, children become extremely wary of whatever goes into their mouth.

As all parents know, this causes huge problems, when you’re just trying to get them all fed properly. This wariness can fossilise into a refusal to try anything new, leading to a choice between becoming what my mum used to call ‘A Marks and Spencer cafeteria’, or turning mealtimes into battles.

A non-stressful way to handle this wariness, is to give it its due attention, and give children time to overcome it themselves. Instead of putting new foods in front of them and expecting them to try them immediately, you introduce new foods as part of play.

Playing with carrots, broccoli, blueberries, with no expectation of having to eat them seems to release a child’s natural curiosity, and from painting with beetroot, it’s a small step to tasting it. Before you know it, your children are happy to try new things, mealtimes are enjoyable again, and you’re cooking the same meal for everyone.

Once you understand why children get fussy about what they eat and take it seriously, the right approach becomes obvious.

As I was watching this on TV, I wondered whether a similar approach might work with adults and work. Perhaps, if we can find ways of letting people play with changes, with no obligation to make them, we might unleash their natural curiosity and creativity and so not only end up with happier people, but better changes too.

January 27, 2020

Self-service

My friend Mary Jane Copps (aka The Phone Lady) sent out a brilliant tip for delighting prospects today. It got me thinking again about self-service.

When supermarkets first arrived, housewives were delighted. No more queueing at counters to be served, you could just pick and choose whatever you wanted from the shelves of one shop and check out. They could work to their own timetable. They were empowered.

The same is true of many online services. I can renew my passport, book train journeys, order print, buy tyres, whenever I want to. I’m no longer tied to someone else’s schedule – in some cases not even for physical delivery. I’m empowered in ways that I never dreamt of as a child.

There is however, one place where self-service really doesn’t work well, and that’s when things go wrong – when I make a mistake, or something doesn’t arrive on time, or I’m not sure what to type.

Cycling through frequently asked questions that aren’t my question, or being directed to a forum that shows hundreds of others with the same (un-addressed) problem is disempowering, and disenchanting. I want to follow my own schedule – I need help now. Forcing me to spend the first 60 seconds of a call to the helpline listening to instructions to visit the website is disrespectful.

Of course self-service reduces costs for the provider. If you make it obvious that’s the only reason for it, you’ll disgust your customer.

On the other hand, if you make sure it enables them to follow their own schedule in every scenario, you’ll delight them.

January 21, 2020

Civilisation

Once people had seen a wheel, they didn’t have to invent it. They used it to improve a process – moving heavy things, hunting, war, playing.

Once people in England had seen a brick house, they didn’t have to invent it. They used it as a model for building new, bigger, more comfortable houses. Then they used it as a model to build more comfortable and permanent houses for more people.

Once people saw the internet, they didn’t have to invent it. They used it to re-invigorate old processes – shopping, talking, sharing information.

Once you have a process for doing something, you don’t have to invent it. You can build on it to regenerate old processes you want to keep, or to create new processes that were not possible before. You can use it to come up with a much better version.

Our civilisation is built on streamlining processes to make room for inventing new ones.

Many people see ‘process’ as restrictive, stultifying, oppressive.

That’s not because it’s process, it’s because people are inventing the wrong things.

October 7, 2019

Ups and Downs

Quiet weeks, when nothing much happens, drag by while we’re in them. Afterwards, they almost disappear from our memories. We tend to remember the last interesting event before that quiet week as if it was only yesterday.

This is understandable. We are constantly bombarded with information, and most of the time what this information is telling us is boring – its OK, everything is normal, no need to worry. The unusual or extreme is what we need to take note of. Up or down, good or bad, high or low.

So while of course we should constantly measure what matters to our business, it makes no sense to report it if everything is normal. Let’s save our energy for dealing with the highs and lows.

October 4, 2019

Unscripted

Too often we think that treating customers the same way means putting them through the same mechanical process. In doing so we mistake customers for widgets. We also mistake our staff for widgets.

Much better to exploit the possibilities offered by human beings to create processes that are consistent without being mechanical.

The trick is to think about what must be covered as part of the process, then find a way to help the human being running that process to remember that, while giving them freedom as to how they cover it.

Take a phone call for example. Rather than scripting a sales or customer service call, why not create a simple prompt sheet, that lets the person making the call remember what must be covered, while letting them cover it as part of a natural conversation with whoever is on the other end of the phone. I’ve written an e-book showing you how.

Both sides of the conversation will feel more natural, and that makes both sides much happier to make and receive your calls.

September 25, 2019

Design is for people

“You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people; design is made for people.” Dieter Rams ‘Design by Vitsoe’, 1976

The hard part is making sure we understand the people we’re designing for.

We can at least try.

September 19, 2019

Good design is as little design as possible

“Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.” Dieter Rams, Design principle number 10.

Over-elaboration is something we humans like to do. To demonstrate the attention we’ve lavished on the thing we’re making and by extension on the person we’ve made it for, or to show off just how skilled we are. Or most likely, for both those reasons.

The trouble is the result is very often impractical – even unusable, and difficult to adapt when things change around it.

Keeping things simple is the hardest thing, because that means truly focusing on the other person, the one who has to use it or look after it.

September 16, 2019

Taking chances

It’s impossible to predict every possible scenario. So instead of trying to plan for every eventuality, it’s much better to simply keep your options open.

The trick is to minimise the possible downside, while allowing the upside to take care of itself. So, if you can protect your restaurant from the worst effects of a storm, you can stay open, when others around you don’t. If everyone is evacuated (including you), you’re no worse off than if you had closed anyway. If they aren’t, you’re going to be popular.

This is what it means to be antifragile – the downside won’t kill you, while the upside benefits you significantly.

The beauty of this idea is that it makes dealing with risk much simpler. All you really need is to understand what might kill you, and mitigate the effects of that – creating a floor, below which nothing can go, while leaving the ceiling open to the sky.

You can do this with business processes too. Specify “the least that should happen”, and let humans beings find new ways to add the delight.

Then ratchet up the floor.

September 13, 2019

Infrastructure

Those country lanes we love to drive down in summer were mostly built back in the 1920s and 1930s.

They were an investment in the future, both as physical infrastructure that opened up the countryside to new markets and as employment for men and their families who would have otherwise starved.

They have lasted much better than most canals and railways, because they are less prescriptive about what can travel on them, or for what purpose, which means they can cope with all kinds of traffic, from milk-cart, to ramblers to country commuters.

They form a network, combining direction and connection with flexibility. They enable autonomy.

Pretty good characteristics to aim for in a business infrastructure too. Expensive to build, but well worth the investment.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

Musings from The Disappearing Boss on People, Process and Responsible Autonomy for small-business employers.

Category: Process Design