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SQDC for Enterprise IT – Cost, Next Steps (3 of 3)

Jim MacLennan — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:00:11 +0000

Click to enlarge …

Cost

At once the most and least understood, the Cost section is what everybody focuses on (specifically: cost reduction!) but also what controls our ability to do more project and support work with the resources in Enterprise IT.

The sample graph show 13 months – we are including Dec 2012 just to get a decent picture for the first part of the year. Along the top, we show monthly budget performance (green = savings, red = over budget).

Note the big red “miss” in January that stands out so well; the graph design nicely focuses the attention on exceptional events / situations, ad the conversation need only hit the high points.

The second graph (bar chart underneath) is a picture of the IT Budget Forecast; the red bits in the months at the end of the year shows budget cuts already made since the first of the year. If your process is sophisticated enough to incorporate a rolling 18 months forecast, this won’t be an annual picture – we like to show last three months Actuals and next 9 months Forecast.

Why so Terse?

As I review these with some IT veterans, I hear the feedback – these are amazingly terse pictures, potentially glossing over some important details. This is very much by design – in my experience, IT folks tend to get into too much (or the wrong) detail, and are not as sensitive to that glazed look in the eyes of the audience. The idea here is to provide a quick overview at how we are doing – details can be made available if people are interested, but if the overview is sufficient – we move on.

Next Steps

We’re still working to figure out how to incorporate these metrics in a “live” manner on our intranet pages – the challenge is not technical, but behavioral (daily snapshots do much better posted on bulletin boards – especially in a manufacturing environment). The communication culture of the organization is the real determinant of the best way to make this stuff public and accessible.

If you like the reporting style and would like to use it for your organization, let me know – I can create templates for the graphs shown.

The complete series …

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Post tags: graph, Next Steps, picture, SQDC

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SQDC for Enterprise IT – Quality, Delivery (2 of 3)

Jim MacLennan — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 19:38:24 +0000

Click to enlarge …

Second in a series of posts on presenting a summarized view of Corporate IT using SQDC-style KPIs; in this post, I’ll explain the metrics we use to express Quality and Delivery.

Quality

I’ve seen a range of KPIs in the Quality column on different manufacturing plants’ SQDC boards, but nothing as consistent as the Safety Calendar in column #1. If I try to identify a general theme behind the Quality KPIs that I’ve seen, it would be “reliability” – so for Enterprise IT, I want to focus on an important risk issue – the reliability (and lack thereof) of the data center (DC) and network .

To the right – a sample version (last 30 days) I might show in the monthly Executive Staff Meeting …

… but to better illustrate, let me expand that picture a bit, showing the last 60 days …

Click to enlarge …

In the graph above, we display Quality of Service over the last month or so. The horizontal red line indicates 99% uptime – a typical guaranteed SLO (Service Level Objective). The green line indicates actual quality of service – and this data shows a DC and network that have been experiencing an inordinate number of performance and system availability issues. The red and yellow dots below the graph are a count of unique Severity 1 (sev1) and Severity 2 (sev2) incidents. In a well-run data center, these should be few and far between – the number shown should be somewhat alarming – and this simple graphic representation helps make the point.

If this were your corporate network, you probably need to get the right level of awareness for your audience – without diving into all the techie details of root cause (unless there are follow up questions, of course). You are trying to show the amount of attention being paid to this area by internal IT – that’s why the overall indicator would be Red.

Delivery

Delivery is all about expressing your Enterprise IT projects with an on time delivery mentality, while balancing the competition between “delivery date”, “requirements”, and “resources”.

Click to enlarge …

The graph shows the count of projects in each of the phases in our IT PMO. There’s actually a lot of information squeezed into this graphic (it’s hard to communicate complex information in a 1.5″ square) …

Demand: We show each phase of our project methodology, and a raw count of projects in each phase. We also show the previous months’ count and directional trend, so we can get some idea of progress.
The Funnel: The picture is supposed to look something like a funnel – lots of projects in the early Opportunity (OPPT) phase, just trying to get visibility and traction. As ideas are fleshed out, resources prioritized, and attention is focused, the numbers should reduce as you drive farther into the project phases.

We’re still noodling around with this graphic – it’s a bit of a journey, as we work to figure out the best way to illustrate IT Project delivery

In the next post, I’ll explain the last KPI – Cost – and talk a bit about what comes next.

The complete series …

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Post tags: data, metrics, project, SQDC

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SQDC for Enterprise IT – Introduction, Safety (1 of 3)

Jim MacLennan — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 02:03:31 +0000

For the last few months at our Executive Staff Meeting, I’ve been presenting a summarized view of what is happening in IT – and stealing ideas from the many Daily Management boards that I’ve seen during my visits to the plants.

Click to enlarge …

I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback on the SQDC graphics that I’m using; these are the same four KPI categories used in all Daily Management meetings. Expressing IT performance using this approach has been well received, because the intent of the metrics are quickly meaningful to the operations-minded folks that we are communicating with.

Never heard of SQDC, not sure what it means? The acronym comes from the world of Lean Manufacturing, and it stands for Safety, Quality, Delivery, and Cost – four cornerstone KPIs of many manufacturing organizations. I’ve taken the classic focus for these KPI categories and applied them to the work we are focusing on in the IT group – not a one-to-one transform, but with a little imagination and design, you can develop a better connection with the other functional areas of your business by speaking their language.

Safety

A primary focus for the manufacturing floor is safety. In our organization, we value people and their contribution to the company – one of the reasons we stress Great Global Teams as a critical high level objective. It’s also one for the most unique and recognizable metrics displays – the Safety Cross (or Safety Calendar), aptly named because it’s a calendar in the shape of a cross. We color in each day green for zero incidents, or yellow / red if there are any safety issues.

For the IT group – well, what sort of safety events are we going to track, a paper cut? Dropped a server on your foot? Safety incidents don’t happen very often for IT, so we are focusing on another critical resource for IDEX – our information, and specifically the security of our Information. For Corporate IT, the Safety Cross is replaced by the Security Cross; same look-and-feel, but the topic is security incidents. Green is all clear, while Yellow means there was some sort of contained incident, and Red indicates that a serious data security breach or loss has happened.

Click to enlarge …

As you can see, we had a few minor incidents in January – a stolen iPad and a lost notebook computer – but February and March have been quiet. Note that for the monthly report-out (above), I only show current month – just like in Daily Management!

In my next posts, I’ll explain the other three metrics (Quality, Delivery, and Cost) and talk a bit about what comes next.

The complete series …

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Post tags: IT, metrics, Security Cross, SQDC

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Innovating with Ideas – Real World Remixing

Jim MacLennan — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 20:22:11 +0000

Three good stories from the past week – great for me, since I am hearing feedback and “remixing” for things published here on this blog. But good, because they are nice examples of people taking ideas and tweaking them to fit their particular situation:

Phil saw my presentation earlier this year on IT Strategy, and latched on to the bridge between the tactical “run the business” (RTB) work (for IT, operational support tasks), and the strategic “enhance the business” projects (implementing new capabilities to drive the top line). He used it recently in conversation with folks in Marketing, trying to define a mental model for the balance between Messaging (getting the word out, awareness and education – for Phil, “RTB”) and Lead Generation (of real, actionable, top-line driving opportunities – for Phil, “ETB”). He saw the lights going on for his audience …
From the same presentation – Julie took the idea of “focus on the Top Line” to heart when having marketing planning discussions with her tech firm. Too often, Enterprise IT (their target market) focuses on the old Cost Reduction thing – and so do tech firms, when selling to Enterprise IT. Rarely does anyone come in with concrete ideas on how to help Top Line (unless they are doing an end-around, direct to the non-IT areas of the company. Want to really differentiate with Enterprise IT? Propose projects driving revenue (and help the IT guys communicate it correctly to the Sales and Marketing folks). The sales folks liked this approach …
Dawn let me know she borrowed a line from an old EDI initiative a few years back; for “traditional” electronic commerce like EDI, or the more service-oriented integrations of today, the critical justification doesn’t come from the transaction costs . The key is that once these connections are established, it becomes a barrier to exit for the customer. A more positive spin – it makes it much easier for the customer to do business with us (with a potential volume increase …). The customer-focused point of view goes over well with Marketing management …

Pass those good ideas along …

I’ve got another example on the way – over the last few months, I’ve been experimenting with IT metrics that can really resonate with the operational folks. I’ve done internal presentations on this stuff, but someone from the outside saw and asked for a copy. I’m finishing up a series on SQDC metrics for Enterprise IT- coming later this week …

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Post tags: customer, EDI, IT, RTB

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A Practical Reason for Moving Beyond Smart Part Numbers

Jim MacLennan — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 02:29:32 +0000

During a process review session this week, I got involved in a terrific conversation about Smart Part Numbers. You know what I’m talking about – those cryptic SKU identifiers so popular with the folks in the warehouse, on the shop floor, in production planning. There is logic and structure to the characters and the numbers, structure that codes identification and classification details onto those bin labels.

We are having problems with item WC1-644-A019910

Oh, that’s because the trim press is down in building A

Smart Part Numbers serve as a handy shorthand – you, the observer, may not understand that WC1 obviously refers to Trim Press 43, and the 4 in 644 (no, not that 4, this 4) meant it was in building A, and the 4 (yes, that 4) indicated it was a fast moving product. Your understanding doesn’t matter, the folks on the floor know what they are saying to each other.

... wrapped in an enigma ...

This is why it is so difficult to dissuade the organization about the need to eliminate Smart Part Numbers. Sure, the data base architect and the query / report developer can detail all of the technical overhead introduced with this approach. It doesn’t matter – all of our internal processes and communications rely on these patterns and codes. (and besides, I don’t understand all of your techno mumbo jumbo).

Ah, but the local GM came up with a breakthrough insight. He is relatively new to the company, and did not “grow up with” the internal codes and special language of the legacy Smart Part Numbers. His point – we have to see this from the viewpoint of our Customer.

Our Customers have no idea what the Complicated Part Numbers mean, or how we use them for our internal process flow. In fact, the Complicated Part Numbers are a hindrance for the Customer – locating the right products and finding the right parts in our catalog, or decoding the bill of lading or the invoice we send them.

To our Customers, our Complicated Part Numbers are our own brand of techno mumbo jumbo.

To drive out the reliance on Smart Part Numbers, all areas of the business (customer service, operations, and IT) need to work together to define streamlined material handling processes and technology-enabled, attribute-based part number lookup solutions to deliver the same operational efficiencies. A learning process, a big change for many organizations – but the key insight that triggers the need for this effort – seeing ourselves through the eyes of our Customers.

Of course, if the Voice of the Customer is not a driving force in your company, you may have deeper problems …

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Post tags: Complicated Part Numbers, internal, Smart Part Numbers, structure

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Suburban Robots that Monitor Reality (The Internet of Things)

Jim MacLennan — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 03:03:32 +0000

Another month, another presentation – something I am trying to do more of this year, somewhat to the detriment of my blog post frequency. However, I may have one or two new posts to put together based on the content of this deck.

Here’s a link to the slides I am presenting this week (Thursday 14 Mar 2013) in Rolling Meadows, IL and next week (Thursday 21 Mar 2013) in Chicago. The title is The Internet of Things – part of a Game Changers series of presentations being done by the members of TEPEE, a Chicago-area professional networking group.

Take a look – and if you are reading this before 5PM on 14 March, are in the Chicago area, and would like to see the presentation in person, just drop me a line – I’ll put you in touch with the organizer of the meeting. Alternatively, I’m happy to connect and present this material (or my previous desk on IT Strategy) for your group – just let me know!

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Post tags: Chicago, Game Changers, Rolling Meadows, TEPEE

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IT Strategy for the Fast Twitch Crowd

Jim MacLennan — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 02:59:12 +0000

This evening (Monday, 11 Feb 2013) , I did a presentation on Developing IT Strategy in a “Consumer IT” Environment – an expansion on some of the ideas that I have written about previously.

I’ve posted my slides here – I realize that they do not “stand on their own”, and need some explanation, but if you weren’t in attendance and are interested in hearing more, let me know in the comments – happy to review with anyone interested.

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Post tags: comments, slideshare

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Ten Bucks in Ten Minutes

Jim MacLennan — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 02:37:40 +0000

I want to party with you, cowboy.

I really do like networking events – group meetings with other with other IT professionals, discussing topics of common interest, with a reasonable amount of vendor / consultant-sponsored gentle selling, and/or some solid job networking with fellow techs looking for their next successful step along the career path.

However, I admit to a wee bit of boredom with buzzword-laden presentations or war stories focused on project successes that mean so much to you (but nothing to me). We are all experiencing the same kinds of frustrations on the job – how about some specific give-and-take designed to stretch our communication skills, in an way that delivers 5x the value that you put in to it. Wouldn’t that be cool?

While sitting in a [moderately interesting] presentation a few years ago, I jotted down some notes about a different way to run a networking event – thought it might be fun to make a little game out of it (probably since I had just played neighborhood poker the weekend before). So here it is – something I like to call …

Ten Bucks in Ten Minutes

A simple process, really – a group of (say) ten willing participants, sitting around the table. Each kick in a buck for The Pot, and then they take turns making a mini-presentation off the cuff, solving a problem, asking a question – whatever. Once around the table, and after a lot of lively discussion, the table votes for “the best” – who then picks up their $10 for 10 minutes of effort. And everybody wins, really – the winner may get their gratis Guinness, but we all just got to hear nine other smart people take their best shot.

To amp the return a bit, make sure folks know that you’ll be “playing” one of these variations beforehand. Some take a minor amount of “pre-work” – but you’ll give folks plenty of opportunity to decline to participate, so odds are that those who show up will each make a reasonably good pitch.

Simple – and it should kill a serious chunk of time; 10 people at 10 minutes each, plus some pre- and post-networking – that’s two hours well spent!.

Specific variations

Nice Hack / Model Citizen: Each person delivers a quick presentation / hand out; single page. Something like a well-laid-out dashboard or management report, a well-structured spreadsheet, a clean document – anything that you have developed and can make available to all. Pot awarded to the best hack.
Not My Job: Talk about a non-IT management issue/task facing you or your organization; something that would not be considered a “traditional” IT skill, but you have to do it anyway. (Examples – End-User Psychology, Consumer Expectations, Establishing Participation and Ownership, Culture Clash in M&A, End-User Training, etc.). Pot awarded to best participation / response(s) – or best stories.
Free Consulting: Bring to the group one current problem / issue / question. Everybody takes a turn giving you feedback / advice. Pot awarded to best participation and/or best aggregate response(s).
Stump the Band: You already know the answer – let’s see who can meet or beat it. Each person tees up a particular situation / challenge, plus what didn’t work or stuff you already tried. Each person round the table tries to address the problem – you give the answer that ultimately worked. Pot awarded to best participation / response(s).
Woulda Coulda Shoulda: A simple “war story” game – each tells their short story of personal, technical, project woe, plus the biggest insights / lessons learned. Pot awarded for best storyteller.
Oops: A war story variation; each tells their short story of their biggest backfire / humbling experience. Pot awarded for best storyteller.
No, we Really Are Unique: We all love to point out that “every company thinks they are unique – but they are not”. But truth be told, we all have examples of things that really are unique, odd, different, intricate, amazing – maddeningly, unsolvably complex or stunningly sublime – about our business / organization / market / vertical. Pot awarded for best storyteller.

Get the gist of the game? Try it out – and let me know about more ideas in the comments!

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Post tags: complex, IT, networking, project

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Reading for Understanding – Business

Jim MacLennan — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 17:46:32 +0000

Rommell …

You are only as good as what you know, and half of what you know comes from books

Truth be told, it’s not an original thought – I heard it many years ago, but it rang true for me personally. I still have many of my old college textbooks – engineering volumes bound in impressive faux leather, including a massive, near-mint copy of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics - 60th edition (note: collectors, make me an offer!). Over the years, I’ve amassed a reasonably large collection of bound print; the obvious computer tech stuff, and some history for reading fun – plus a diverse selection from other functional disciplines. This does not reflect a lack of personal focus – many of the titles on my shelf were selected by peers, mentors, and supervisors over the years, as I got exposure to and sought to understand different functional areas of the business.

This is a pretty important point – you really can’t pick it all up by osmosis, you need to invest some time for book learnin’. I’ve found the most valuable aspect of this is the chance to learn about different areas of the business from a practitioner’s viewpoint. Have your ever read something focused on your preferred field (tech, hobby, etc.), written by a fellow enthusiast, that really nails it (… that’s exactly how I would do it …)? Books, as captured thought, are a terrific way of getting to the facts about a particular field – but they also provide insight. The incredulous may ask why is that idea preferred? And what path could they possibly have taken to get there? If you’ve read their book, you will have a better feel for how they got there – and why it makes sense.

Some examples …

Operations: The complexity of orchestrating a Sales and Operations Planning cycle is something to be appreciated; you must start with an understanding of how Sales, Operations, and Finance all depend on each other. Enterprise Sales and Operations Planning (Palmatier/Crum) use the same storytelling method of The Goal (Goldratt) (another great read, by the way) to lay out the interrelationships – but also give insights into the (sometimes competing) viewpoints of the multiple stakeholders. Are you frustrated trying to pin Operations down? They are working in a tightly integrated “real-world” version of ERP.

Sales: Bullet points are not the sole province of PowerPoint – books like the Little Red Book of Selling (Gitomer) make good use of the technique, while How to be a Fierce Competitor (Fox) uses short stories (a la Dale Carnegie, perhaps?). Does this mean sales reps have short attention spans? No, it probably means they are more focused on specific goals and short-interval steps. Remember, they are right at the top line – the focus of most attention.

Design: At first I was struck by the visual consistency between the Universal Principals of Design (Lidwell, Holden, Butler) and the Gof4 tech classic Design Patterns (Gamma, Helm, Johnson, Vlissides) - but the real fun was diving in to the details. It’s really a reference book, but the sections are denoted by questions like How can I enhance the usability of a design? and How can I influence the way a design is perceived? It’s also not just about the design of “things” – sections on the 80/20 Rule and the Law of Pragnanz are directly applicable to systems and interface design. Still think the creative team is unfocused? Maybe it’s just “creative differences”.

Finance: Different corporate structures have broadly different operational styles. Public companies might focus on dividends and the long term, closely-held companies may seek to minimize taxes, start-ups on basic survival and meteoric growth. When you get into the world of Private Equity, you are exposed to a focus on “sweating the equity” and leverage that is (in a word) intense. But is it inconsistent, short-sighted, wrong? Lessons from Private Equity Any Company Can Use (Gadiesh, MacArthur) is a terrific book for you – it lays out the fundamental thought process of why Private Equity firms do what they do – a laser-like focus on making a company more valuable – and unlocking true potential. Dismayed by aggressive tactics? It’s probably very different than “how things used to be around here” – but it iss spot-on correct based on what the management / ownership team are asked to do.

Next – tech reading recommendations for the non-technical

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Post tags: Design, idea, Private Equity, usability

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Four tools to bridge from Raw Productivity to Sustainable Results

Jim MacLennan — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 01:58:38 +0000

Three per day? Well , #3 and #5 don’t count …

I’ve noticed a definite trend in the “best practices” wing of the Productivity building; it goes by many names and takes on a few different forms, but the idea is rooted in a few simple concepts:

Focus on the Critical Few: Multitasking does not work – plan for doing three things per day, and allocate your time accordingly

Done is Better than Perfect: Learn to recognize “good enough”, perfection is the enemy of progress.

Ignore Details Early On: Get a skeleton out there to start – leverage iterations

I’ve been incorporating a lot of this style of thinking into my professional and personal life, and I am definitely seeing results. However, sometimes I listen to folks that are really dedicated to these ideas, and I think some want to take things a bit too far. “Done” doesn’t necessarily mean “complete” - read the Done manifesto, which calls out important ideas like the power of iteration and the idea that failure counts as done.

I also think these ideas can get oversimplified to the point where getting things “done” becomes a form of robbing Peter to pay Paul – trading future time and productivity for short term check-offs on the punch list at hand. The most impressive and valuable completed work results in something that is sustainable. This process should get easier each time I do it, more people can be cross-trained, and the organization is not dependent on a critical few people.

How can we bridge the gap between Raw Productivity (getting things done as fast as possible) to Sustainable Results (delivering the same fast results with more people, less effort, and lower cost, reliably and repeatably, over time)? Here are four important ideas to keep in mind …

Standard Work: Strive to do tasks in the same way, every time. If the process is standardized across multiple people / groups / locations, it’s easier to find someone who can get the thing done. With predictable results.
Documentation: The best way to enable Standard Work is to document the process – so you don’t have to rely on word-of-mouth to relay the process each time (which is a very lossy process, anyway). And – the easiest way to spread the knowledge across multiple locations, multiple timezones? Yup – write it up in the corporate wiki - it’s instantaneously global.
Templates: These as simply manifestations of the Standard Work principle for office documents. A key skill is to learn about true templates - don’t find a previous version of the document and copy / rename it - learn about creating, using, and maintaining templates so that each standard document gets smarter, better, and is completed in less time.
Automation: Everybody understands that computer programs can automate repetitive tasks – but few realize how easy it is to use basic tools like VBA in MS Office for process automation. Excel may be the blunt instrument that “power users” like to use – but ask them how much VBA they’ve written. It’s actually an amazingly powerful programming platform.

To apply these ideas, you need to invest some time – looking for the Standard Work before you reinvent another wheel, completing the process Documentation, learning how to build and use Templates, and learning how Automate things. Yes, this will add some time, may reduce your productivity – in the short term. On the other hand, leveraging these tools will reduce duplicate work – and free up your key resources (time and people) for more value-creation.

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Post tags: Documentation, Raw Productivity, Standard Work, Sustainable Results

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