Shipulski On Design

Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category

Some thoughts on no:

• Yes is easy, no is hard.
• Sometimes slower is faster.
• Yes, and here’s what it will take:
• The best choose what they’ll not do.
• Judge people on what they say no to.
• Work and resources are a matched pair.
• Define the work you’ll do and do just that.
• Adding scope is easy, but taking it out is hard.
• Map yes to a project plan based on work content.
• Challenge yourself to challenge your thinking on no.
• Saying yes to something means saying no to something else.
• The best have chosen wrong before, that’s why they’re the best.
• It’s better to take one bite and swallow than take three and choke.

Fun is no longer part of the business equation. Our focus on productivity, quality, and cost has killed it. Killed it dead. Vital few, return on investment, Gantt charts, project plans, and criminal number one – PowerPoint.  I can’t stand it.

What happens when you try to have a little fun at work? People look at you funny. They say: What’s wrong with you? Look! You’re smiling, you must be sick. (I hope you’re not contagious.) Don’t put us at ease, or we may be creative, be innovative, or invent something.

We’ve got it backward.  Fun is the best way to improve productivity (and feel good doing it), the best way to improve work quality (excitement and engagement in the work), and the best way to reduce costs (and feel good doing it.)  Fun is the best way to make money.

When we have fun we’re happy. When we’re happy we are healthy and engaged.  When we’re healthy we come to work (and do a good job.) And when we’re engaged everything is better.

Maybe fun isn’t what’s important. Maybe it’s all the stuff that results from fun. Maybe you should find out for yourself.  Maybe you should have some fun and see what happens.

Although it’s more important than ever, trust is in short supply. With everyone doing three jobs, there’s really no time for anything but a trust-based approach. Yet we’re blocked by the fear that trust means loss of control.  But that’s backward.

Trust is a funny thing.  If you have it, you don’t need it.  If you don’t have it, you need it. If you have it, it’s clear what to do – just behave like you should be trusted. If you don’t have it, it’s less clear what to do. But you should do the same thing – behave like you should be trusted.  Either way, whether you have it or not, behave like you should be trusted.

Trust is only given after you’ve behaved like you should be trusted. It’s paid in arrears. And people that should be trusted make choices.  Whether it’s an approach, a methodology, a technology, or a design, they choose.  People that should be trusted make decisions with incomplete data and have a bias for action.  They figure out the right thing to do, then do it.  Then they present results – in arrears.

I can’t choose – I don’t have permission. To that I say you’ve chosen not to choose. Of course you don’t have permission.  Like trust, it’s paid in arrears.  You don’t get permission until you demonstrate you don’t need it.  If you had permission, the work would not be worth your time. You should do the work you should have permission to do.  No permission is the same as no trust.  Restating, I can’t choose – I don’t have trust. To that I say you’ve chosen not to choose.

There’s a misperception that minimizing trust minimizes risk. With our control mechanisms we try to design out reliance on trust – standardized templates, standardized process, consensus-based decision making. But it always comes down to trust.  In the end, the subject matter experts decide. They decide how to fill out the templates, decided how to follow the process, and decide how consensus decisions are made. The subject matter experts choose the technical approach, the topology, the materials and geometries, and the design details. Maybe not the what, but they certainly choose the how.

Instead of trying to control, it’s more effective to trust up front – to acknowledge and behave like trust is always part of the equation.  With trust there is less bureaucracy, less overhead, more productivity, better work, and even magic.  With trust there is a personal connection to the work.  With trust there is engagement.  And with trust there is more control.

But it’s not really control.  When subject matter experts are trusted, they seek input from project leaders.  They know their input has value so they ask for context and make decisions that fit.  Instead of a herd of cats, they’re a swarm of bees. Paradoxically, with a trust-based approach you amplify the good parts of control without the control parts.  It’s better than control. It’s where ideas, thoughts and feelings are shared openly and respectfully; it’s where there’s learning through disagreement; it’s where the best business decisions are made; it’s where trust is the foundation.  It’s a trust-based approach.

The No. 1 reason initiatives are successful is support from top management. Whether it’s lean, Six Sigma, Design for Six Sigma or any program, top management support is vital. No argument. It’s easy with full support, but there’s never enough to go around.

But that’s the way it should be. Top management has a lot going on, much of it we don’t see: legal matters, business relationships, press conferences, the company’s future. If all programs had top management support, they would fail due to resource cannibalization. And we’d have real fodder for our favorite complaint—too many managers.

When there’s insufficient top management support, we have a choice. We can look outside and play the blame game. “This company doesn’t do anything right.” Or we can look inside and choose how we’ll do our work. It’s easy to look outside, then fabricate excuses to do nothing. It’s difficult to look inside, then create the future, especially when we’re drowning in the now. Layer on a new initiative, and frustration is natural. But it’s a choice.

We will always have more work than time….

Link to complete article

Our organizations are set up in silos, and we’re measured that way. (And we wonder why we get local optimization.) At the top of engineering is the VP of the Red Team, who is judged on what it does – product.  At the top of manufacturing is the VP of the Blue Team, who is judged on how to make it – process. Red is optimized within Red and same for Blue, sometimes with competing metrics.  What we need is Purple behavior.

Here’s a link to a short video (1:14): Organizationally Challenged

And embedded below:

Let me know what you think.

Design is typically limited to function – what it does – and is done by engineering (red team).  Manufacturing is all about how to make it and is done by manufacturing (blue team).  Working separately there is local optimization.  We must broad to design to include both – red and blue. Working across red-blue boundaries creates magic.  This magic can only be done by the purple team.

Below is my first video post.  I hope to do more.  Let me know what you think.

We live in a strange time where activity equals progress and thinking does not. Thinking is considered inactivity – wasteful, non-productive, worse than sleeping. (At least napping at your desk recharges the battery.) In today’s world there is little tolerance for thinking.

For those that think regularly – or have thought once or twice over the last year – we know thinking is important. If we stop and think, everyone thinks thinking is important. It’s just that we’re too busy to stop and think.

It’s difficult to quantify how bad things are – especially if we’re to compare across industries and continents. Sure it’s easy (and demoralizing) to count the hours spent in meetings or the time spent wasting time with email. But they don’t fully capture a company’s intolerance to thinking. We need a tolerance metric and standardized protocol to measure it.

I’ve invented the Thinking Tolerance Metric, TTM, and a way to measure it. Here’s the protocol: On Monday morning – at your regular start time – find a quiet spot and think. (Your quiet spot can be home, work, a coffee shop, or outside.) No smart phone, no wireless, no meetings. Don’t talk to anyone. Start the clock and start thinking. Think all day.

The clock stops when you receive an email from your boss stating that someone complained about your lack of activity. At the end of the first day, turn on your email and look for the complaint. If it’s there, use the time stamp to calculate TTM using Formula 1:

a

TTM = Time stamp of first complaint – regular start time.  [1]

a

If TTM is measured in seconds or minutes, that’s bad. If it’s an hour or two, that’s normal.

If there is no complaint for the entire day, repeat the protocol on day two. Go back to your quiet spot and think. At the end of day two, check for the complaint. Repeat until you get one. Calculate TTM using Formula 1.

Once calculated, send me your data by including it in a comment to this post. I will compile the data and publish it in a follow-on post. (Please remember to include your industry and continent.)

You know you’re out of gas when:

• You answer email punctually instead of doing work.
• You trade short term bliss for long term misery.
• You accept an impossible deadline.
• You sit through witless meetings.
• You comply with groupthink.
• You condone bad behavior.
• You placate your boss.
• You write a short post with a bulletized list — because it’s easier.

You are you, and work is work, but work must fit you, not the other way around. Yet we hose it up most of the time. Most of the time it’s: “improve your weaknesses” or “close your gaps”.  Make no mistake, this is code for “change yourself so you fit our work.”

I say we flip it on its head; I say change your work to fit you;  I say do your work differently; do it in a way that takes advantage of your strengths; do it the way you think it should be done. It’s your work; you’re the expert; you know it best.  You choose.  Change your work.

With an uncertain economy and high unemployment, this change-the-work stuff sounds scary, but it’s scarier not to do it. Your company’s global competitiveness is weakened when you’re asked to change to fit the work; but when work changes to fit you, your company is more competitive.  Think about it – you’re more engaged, you’re happier, you’re more productive, and you do better work.

What could be better for your company?

What could be better for you?

We all want to increase profits, but sometimes we get caught in the details and miss the big picture:

Profit = (Price – Cost) x Volume.

It’s a simple formula, but it provides a framework to focus on fundamentals. While all parts of the organization contribute to profit in their own way, engineering’s work has a surprisingly broad impact on the equation.

The market sets price, but engineering creates function, and improved function increases the price the market will pay. Design the product to do more, and do it better, and customers will pay more. What’s missing for engineering is an objective measure of what is good to the customer.

To read the complete article, click this link.

We’re too busy. All of us. Too busy. And we better get used to it: too busy is the rule. But how to make too busy feel good? How to make yourself feel good? How to make the work better?

Pretend there is abundance; plenty for all; assume an abundance mindset.

There’s a subtle but powerful shift with the abundance mindset. Here’s the transition:

me to we

talk to listen

verify to trust

fear to confidence

comply to embrace

compete to collaborate

next month to next week

can’t to could, could to can

no to maybe, maybe to how

The abundance mindset is not about doing more; it’s about what we do and how we do. With the abundance mindset everyone feels better, our choices are better, and our work is better.

Lincoln said “Happiness is a choice.” I think it’s the same with abundance. We’ll always be too busy, but, if we choose, there will always be an abundance of thoughtfulness, caring, and mutual respect.