It takes work to make the hard & complex simple

Ironically, simplicity first requires diving into the noise.

Process vs. Content Consulting

Content consultants offer expertise in one function (i.e. accounting) or industry (i.e. aviation). My most successful consulting engagements—where I really improve my clients—come as a process consultant, where I help them with strategy and change. Companies are full of content experts. What they really need help with are identifying and processing change / improvements

Uber, Lyft, and City Congestion:The Future of Urban Planning

Chicago, and several other big cities, have found that Uber and Lyft have increased urban congestion.

The thinking had been that these services would replace drivers.

Instead, people are also using them as a convenient substitute to mass transportation.  Ridership on CTA buses and trains are down, while downtown roads are getting clogged with drivers picking up and dropping off passengers.

Today, I had the idea that one future solution would be to convert strategically chosen parking lots into drop-off zones.  They could also create ride share-only lanes which connect these drop off lots.

Then, while regular traffic flows on the main roads, Uber and Lyft drivers can traverse downtown by these side streets and pick up/drop off in the closest drop off lots.

Stop Creating To-Do Lists!

I learned this strategy from Alan Weiss.

I Stopped creating to do lists.  Instead, I create appointments to do important tasks, and schedule them on my calendar, as if they are a meeting.  When the "appointment" occurs, I do the task.

How companies often waste time and money

As a consultant, I find these three areas as the biggest cause of business waste:

1. Meetings - Inevitably, meetings in organizations become inefficient, dragging on affairs.  Why?

     

     a. Managers focus on inputs (bureaucracy) vs. outputs (customer value).  They equate meetings with accomplishment.

     b. Over-scheduled Managers send subordinates who can't make decisions.

     c. Risk adverse employees continually rehash discussions rather than commit to taking action.

  

2. Documentation - While documenting procedures are important, companies fail in this area because:

     a. Over-documenting—even trivial procedures are formally documented.

     b. Over-complicated formats—resulting in the actual task being easier than its documentation.  This causes project delays.

     c. Documents tend to be officially stored on overcrowded servers, making it difficult for employees to retrieve.

3. Failure Work - Work is not done right the first time and needs to be redone because:

     a. The outcome and/or process wasn't originally communicated properly.

     b. The proper resources (people, time, budget) weren't originally sufficiently allocated.

     c. Subordinates did not understand, but were afraid to ask questions.

Best Practices for Businesses to Create Standard Operating Procedures (SOPS)

As a business consultant and specialist in simplicity/productivity, I've worked with many fast-growing clients to create SOPs.

1. Why SOPs:

    If operations and knowledge aren't written down, then they will live in the heads of a few, key employees.  This results in those employees being overworked while other employees are underutilized due to lack of knowledge.

2. Priorities:

    SOPs should first be used to create those processes which are used 80% of the time during the workday.  After that, the less common (usually more complex) tasks can be written down as they occur.

3. How To Get Started:

   Have the person who is currently knowledgable of the task write down the steps as they are actually performing the task.  This way, they are less likely to leave out any steps.  Then, the next time the same task needs to be done, a new person should do the task while following the SOP, with the expert observing.  This will help them streamline the process and discover any missing steps.

4. Important:

  One important thing about SOPs, that I have learned from some of my clients, is that the SOP should be written simply, and be easily accessible to all necessary employees.  

I once had a bank as a client who recorded SOPs in a formal, wordy format (with unnecessary details) and stored it on a crowded internal network.  People didn't use it because it was much easier to ask people informally than to locate and read through the entire document.

Examples of Work Simplification

The Wall Street Journal recently had an excerpt from a new book called "Good at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More" by management professor Morten Hansen.

Hansen's work overlaps my own work as a consultant specializing in Strategic Simplicity® and business simplification.

He discussed how most office super stars don't work longer hours than their co-workers—in fact, it's the opposite.  They focus on, and prioritize, a smaller number of tasks, which they excel at.

If their manager tries to pile more tasks on them, they don't meekly accept them.  Instead, they ask their manager what they should prioritize on.

Hansen gives some examples of how simplicity and focus can help an organization:

1. A manager at a Maersk terminal focused his attention on one activity—how crews moved containers on and off ships.  He ended up noticing that the drivers would unload a container, drive it from the pier to the container lot, then would drive back empty.  The process would then repeat with another container.

Instead, he asked the drivers that, before driving back from the lot, they find an outbound container destined for a nearby ship and drive back with it to the pier.  They ended up adopting a motto "Never drive empty", and their productivity increased substantially.

2. A business analyst at an insurance company noticed that one type of product was growing in popularity, but the online application process for this particular product was buried under several layers of menus.  She asked the software people to change the process for this product to allow it to be filled out with only a few clicks.

Joe Flacco: Like Business, NFL Quarterbacking Depends on Time Management, Simplicity

Since Mitch Trubisky, the #2 pick in this year's draft, is now starting at quarterback for the Bears, the Chicago media is asking opposing quarterbacks about their rookie experiences.

This week, it's Joe Flacco of the Baltimore Ravens.

Flacco was drafted in 2008, started all 16 games, and got the Ravens into the playoffs.

His advice: Don't make football bigger than it is—just play the game you love, practice time management skills, and "finding ways to keep everything simple."

These are the same traits that will help you lead a successful business in today's Attention Scarcity Age, where your customers and employees are overwhelmed with information and speed of change.

Old Joke Contains A Serious Business Lesson

There is the old joke about the plumber who gets called to fix a water heater:

He listens to the heater for a few seconds, taps it with his hammer, and it starts working!

The plumber then gives an $80 bill to the homeowner, who then complains that the plumber didn't do anything.

The plumber then writes up an invoice and gives it to the homeowner:
          
          $1 to hammer the heater

          $79 for knowing where to hit


Interestingly, this joke actually contains an important business lesson.  Business should be about generating results for customers, not in methodology or outputs.

In other words, the value to the homeowner is to get the heater working.  The value doesn't depend on   what the plumber actually did or how hard he worked.  In fact, getting it fixed quickly is more valuable for the homeowner.

Yet, in our society, we value hard work.  Even worse, we (the service provider) feel that, unless we generate enough work, we haven't given value to the client—even if they are happy with the results.  We are our own worst enemy!

In the joke, the plumber was pressured to generate a simple invoice. But, in the real world, many companies would go further, and, under self-pressure, add even more unnecessary deliverables such as power points, documents, etc.

If your company wants to be productive, agile, and innovative—in other words, strategic simplicity℠ —then it should focus on generating results, and resist the urge to justify value through busy work.

Three Productivity Hacks

1. Don't make a to-do list, instead make a don't-do list of time wasters.

2. Schedule tasks (such as writing an article) as an appointment on your calendar.  Treat it like a meeting.

3. The cure for procrastination is to "micro" something by breaking it down. Ex: write a micro-article, or do a micro-task.

How To Write An Effective Email in 3 Steps

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Praveen Puri <praveen@puriconsulting.com>
To: "john_doe@acme.com" <john_doe@acme.com> 
Cc: "jane_doe@acme.com" <jane_doe@acme.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2017 6:25 AM
Subject: How To Write An Effective Email in 3 Steps

John:

1. Get right to the point.

2. Only cover one issue in one email.

3. Be brief.  Err on the side of less background / info.  Recipient can always ask for more.

Regards,

 

Praveen Puri

Strategic Simplicity℠

President, Puri Consulting LLC

http://www.PuriConsulting.com

Six Steps For Streamlining Business Success

1. Focus on results / outputs, not inputs or processes.


2. Treat co-workers / internal customers as well as external customers.


3. Focus on 80% success—not perfection.


4. Continually raise the bar on providing value to customers.


5. Focus your efforts on your best 20% of customers.


6. Use micro projects to continually test / fail / iterate new forms of value.

Six Causes of Productivity Loss at Large Corporations

1. Conference calls where too many callers are multi-tasking and not paying attention.  When they are asked a question, they need information to be repeated because they weren't listening the first time.

2. Internal applications which are slow and do not have well-designed interfaces.  IT departments tend to devote the best resources to customer-facing (external) applications, but give too little importance to internal ones.

3. Overkill on documentation.  Forced to create large, formal documents which are then filed away.  Where as, a less formal one page document or spreadsheet would actually be used and consulted more often.

4. Not enough up-to-date communication between important groups on a project.

5. Roles not clearly defined.

6. Gaps—important tasks not assigned to a specific team.

Quick and Dirty Expert Systems Get Used

When I was a vice president at a large bank, I had a team that was responsible for production support for an online corporate banking application.  We had 1 or 2 people on the team who were experts (with years of experience supporting the application), while the other members were inexperienced.  

We found that the inexperienced people kept asking the 2 experienced people for help, and they were tremendously overworked.

As a solution, we created a very simple, informal wiki that was only accessible to the group.  Then, after every incident where a junior member needed assistance, they created a quick note with key words on how it was solved.  Also, whenever the senior people solved a problem on their own that they thought might be hard for the junior members, they took a few minutes after solving the problem to write up a quick note with key words.

The key was that we didn't mandate a format or make it complex.  The support people were busy and did not have the bandwidth to either write a document, or read through one.  It had to be a quick and dirty note, or else it wouldn't get done and/or wouldn't be used.

The result was that, in about a month, we had an expert reference system that reduced the junior's need for senior support by 80%.

My advice is that I've seen many internal documentation systems at companies that are not updated and aren't used, because they are too complex.  Teams need the ability to share quick and dirty notes that can be quickly created and quickly accessed.

Four Micro Strategies For Productivity and Success

1. People say "Life is Short". Wrong! Life is long. Achievement happens in sudden bursts, so there is plenty of time to succeed and be happy.


2. Quality always beats quantity. It's better to enjoyably write one great paragraph than slog through writing a mediocre article.


3. The cure for procrastination is to "micro" something. Ex: write a micro-article, or do a micro-task.


4. Don't make a To-do list. Make a don't-do list.

Partial Internet Voting: 80% of the Benefit Without The Security Risks

Everybody talks about internet voting and, while a few places have implemented it,  most elections don't allow it because of the security risks.

But, what about the efficiency of partial internet voting?

By this I mean that, the election commission could create a website and application that lets people vote, and then print out their ballot. Security wouldn't be an issue because you still have to physically show up, check in, and turn in your ballot.

At the voting places, they could replace voting machines with computer/printer combos, and set them in front, before you check in with the clerks.

Then, people who printed their ballots at home could walk right up to the clerks, check in, show ID, and submit their ballots.  Done!

Meanwhile, the people who want to vote at the voting place could simply line up at a computer, fill out the website, print their ballot, and then walk up to the clerks, check in and turn in their ballots.

This would get people in and out quickly.