Occasionally there is a change in executive leadership after a Process Triage. Naturally, the triagers wonder if their efforts will be supported, at best, or stalled out or stopped, at worst.
Since the process improvement proposals — the Small Now action items andBig Now project-size efforts are identified and prioritized bottoms-up, by the technical expert triagers, a change in senior leadership doesn’t invalidate the triage findings unless the enterprise is fundamentally changing what it must be capable of doing — certainly in the short term.
Consider using the triage results to onboard the new leader. Have the triage team lead this briefing as a individual and team development moment. First review the process map, then the Process Capability Goal, then the improvement proposals deck. Have the owner of each action item or project present their proposal and report its progress.
This is a great way to acquaint the new executive with some of their expert front-liners. No doubt the new leader wants some quick wins and establish credibility with your go-to experts. This gives the leader the facts, information, and situational awareness to immediately course correct (unlikely) and maintain the improvements momentum.
Here’s a video clip about this HERE, to explain it.
https://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.png00Joseph Rosenbergerhttps://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.pngJoseph Rosenberger2016-12-03 09:30:192016-12-03 09:30:19Use Triaging to Onboard Executives Faster
This thing called a BRAND means a lot of things. And a lot of noise is blasted about regarding how to design them, build them, exploit them — it’s like a discussion about God; there are few things as complex but everybody’s an expert.
Here’s what works for me, being the second son of a cowboy, born and raised with Border Collies, Blue Heelers, and Australian Shepherds. My first exposure to the word “brand” was feeling the white-hot branding iron head welded on the end of a fireplace poker, heat radiating onto my face and up my nose and into my eyes. Then the sound of it sizzling the flank of a tied-down calf and the sound of said calf bellowing out in searing pain and seeing its wild-eyed terror. That’s a brand!
I think our brand is that lingering feeling someone has, down in their lizard-brain after we’ve touched them. If we branded them correctly, it’s a pleasant feeling that, at its best, excites some sharing, and at least ends all that analysis hassle of the buying process. When they see us — the branding in our marketing, that residual feeling butterfly kisses their consciousness. They’ll do business with us when they need us, no analysis needed.
But…. Show me the money!
A simple way know if you have that kind of brand is separate your sales into two piles: the sales you won by out-bound selling activity and the sales you simply took the order with essentially zero selling. The sales from simple order-taking is the value of your brand. What’s your share of revenue is brand-driven?
P.S. And the Sales Process isn’t done until the next sale is simple order taking.
https://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.png00Joseph Rosenbergerhttps://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.pngJoseph Rosenberger2016-08-09 10:01:352016-08-23 11:27:26A Simple Way to Calculate Your Brand's Value
A client sponsored a triage of one of their high-value business processes, one that receives and evaluates eligibility requests for a financial benefit. One triager’s point-of-pain was an observation that 70% of requests required rework — reaching out and contacting the applicant for additional information. How or why this information was not captured at the first attempt became an improvement to analyze.
But what is the cost of 70% rework? Inquiring minds want to know. (You can be sure this 70% will be laser-focused fixed now that the team sees it. To their credit, it’s an all-hands-on-deck effort. Some of this rework is caused by unverifiable info from applicants — garbage in.)
I suspected it was exponential — at least non-linear, assuming each attempt had the same probability of failure for illustration purposes. Naturally, real data would adjust this accordingly.
What it tells us is you’ll process twice as many requests as you need to when your re-touch rates are 40% or so. You’re processing three times as many customer touches at about 70% rework. That’s two-thirds of your resources unavailable do something else! The chart gets crazy-ugly at failure rates above 70%, by the way.
We call that kind of process failure a dumpster fire. At 70% rework or customer re-touch, two thirds of your touches are avoidable if your process is designed to deliver a one-and-done customer experience.
The remedy is a blinding flash of the obvious: Reason-code every failure, sort the volume of these reasons using Pareto rules, resolve them in highest-volume order, and raise first attempt success to something less than 10% for starters. If automated systems are used to capture the required information, present it list or check boxes, mandatory field captures, use good scan-and-attach tools, and by all means attempt to educate the benefits applicant on what’s needed before attempting. Here’s my spreadsheet.
That’s what first attempt resolution is worth.
https://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.png00Joseph Rosenbergerhttps://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.pngJoseph Rosenberger2016-05-17 17:32:412016-09-07 15:18:34What Is the Value of 1st Attempt Success?
Process Triaging is a decision cycle leaders follow to generate purposeful improvement solutions and then select and implement the best of them.
The cycle works when its driven from deep within our leadership philosophy — our culture. A culture of continuous improvement that is not driven by surface events — by waves.
The improvements we find and undertake will shield our enterprises from storms and rough waters. Triaging is a tactic we apply as rudder adjustments at the helm — minor course corrections. But the practice of triaging — constantly cycling into the best ideas, keeps us centered in the most productive current. Something that carries us along in the right direction regardless of the wind and waves.
“The executive staff will be taking the improvements you triage today very seriously. After the host’s implementation plan is approved, the selected improvements will be part of our performance review and bonus schedule.”
Think about that.
The triage’s executive sponsor places so much trust and faith in the triaging process, that the CEO and principal staff will hold themselves accountable for improvement proposals nominated and prioritized bottoms-up, by those who live and breath the daily work — before they know what they are!
Here’s a video clip of this triage team ranking their improvement solutions. Notice how the culture created by their executives engages and empowers them.
This company will stay in the right currents.
Their culture is correct and runs deep.
https://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.png00Joseph Rosenbergerhttps://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.pngJoseph Rosenberger2016-05-09 22:21:072016-05-10 15:19:48Culture is a Current, Not a Wave
I’ve struggled with how to respond to the many requests for process triage support from entrepreneurs and managers who simply don’t have the budget for our flagship, facilitated workshop (on a napkin here). The short of it is the process mapping we do in the morning, as a team, creates a powerful end-to-end team identity and awareness that’s key to the triage’s final product. That level of effort takes an outside facilitator, especially if it’s a crisis situation.
Is there a way to triage without the team-created process map?
We think so, if its a very small team of no more than six people who know each other’s work and it’s not a break-fix house-on-fire situation. We’re talking about a generally capable team that welcomes more structure to a deliberate continuous process improvement culture.
The kit contains the information, job aids, and supplies to triage a process without a robust process map. Similar to our flagship workshop, the host manager presents their Process Capability Goal, then the triage team identifies Points-of-Pain. These pain points are addressed by the team’s nomination of Small Now & Big Now action items and projects, followed by their ranking of the entire set of proposals. It’s designed to be four-hour team exercise with some pre-work by the host. The host would still draft and submit their 90+Day Implementation Plan to their sponsor after the exercise.
This kit is only suitable for small teams that know each other’s responsibilities and don’t need more than a sketch of their process — something their manager / host could provide. It’s not designed for cross-organizational process triaging.
So, if you’re looking for a small team team-builder exercise that delegates and elevates your continuous process improvement efforts — deeper into your team, this kit’s for you.
For now, we’re shipping only a hard copy version that includes a 32 page workbook and the materials necessary to perform the triage, available from our website.
https://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.png00Joseph Rosenbergerhttps://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.pngJoseph Rosenberger2016-04-11 20:10:192017-08-29 21:34:06Can Process Triaging Work for Small Teams?
Leaders of a goal-oriented enterprises must design their organization to change.
While that sounds obvious, designing an organization to deliberately change is a remarkable idea. It requires one sustain a culture that welcomes and embraces adaptability. How else will we grow from less good to good, and from good to great?
One thing we know from process triaging is cultures that successfully improve processes empower the teams that run them. It’s all about delegate and elevate. Professionals will take risks and overcome fears if they have a sense of control over what’s changing, why it’s changing, and when they need to get involved.
Continuously successful process improvements need winning improvement ideas and a funnel that finds the best of the best of these ideas.
The ProcessTriage Cycle is an effective and proven way to fill a funnel with practical, actionable process improvements. Each idea solves a problem that prevents the process from performing to its goal. The quality of your improvement proposals reflect the quality of your best team’s thinking. So check the ‘Great Ideas’ box ‘Done!’
Our field tested (over 1000 times) triaging procedures are a model funnel, capable of processing about 25 improvement proposals per day with a dozen of your process experts — 25 ideas that more than fill up three to six months of improvement effort.
Great ideas + an effective funnel to find them. That’s process triaging.
https://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.png00Joseph Rosenbergerhttps://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.pngJoseph Rosenberger2016-03-26 23:05:062016-03-27 23:18:01Two Things Needed to Optimize your Process Improvements
We’re delighted to announce, by popular demand, our Small Team Process Triage Kit . It’s designed for small organizations and teams who seek a practical and effective team builder exercise that delivers a slate of process improvements to pursue.
Small Team Process Triage Kit
The kit includes a self-paced workbook for the host manager or moderator. It includes the necessary triaging materials including Points-of-Pain and Team Triage Proposal (Toe Tag) Cards. It requires about 2 hours of preparation by the host moderator (the manager), a three to four-hour team triage meeting, and a few hours of post-triage host work to craft an implementation plan (should the sponsor require it.). The kit does not include the signature Action>Result-style Process Mapping of our flagship full-day immersion workshop, so you’ll need to provide your own process map sketch.
The exercise reviews all the steps and deliverables of the ProcessTriage® Cycle and includes additional information about The Three Voices of High Performing Teams.
DISCLAIMER: The Small Team Process Triage Kit does not not include the Certified Process Triage Facilitator coaching and process analysis baked into our flagship immersion workshop service. It does not include the very popular team-binding process mapping exercise. The kit follows our established, robustly filed-tested process triaging method for identifying process points-of-pain and nominating and prioritizing their solutions.
https://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.png00Joseph Rosenbergerhttps://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.pngJoseph Rosenberger2016-03-24 14:15:332016-03-24 14:15:33Small Team Process Triage Kit now Available
One of Process Triage’s core values with our customers and clients is to Make Touches that Make a Difference. We listen and look for a moment in each triaging engagement to add something of delightful value, above our expected scope of work.
Tory’s an EOS Operator, meaning he’s adopted the Entrepreneur Operating System (EOS), introduced by Gino Wickman’s book, Traction. Tory, a visionary, sponsored a triage and tasked his integrator, Jeff King to host it. I blogged about their bi-lingual triage team here. (Visionaries and Integrators, the two C-Suite must-have roles are explained in Gino’s and Mark Winter’s book, Rocket Fuel)
To the point, Jeff was responsible for the 90+Day Post-Triage Implementation Plan. This plan is the signature-ready deliverable the triage host presents the sponsor to request resources for any Big Now project-size efforts and Small Now task-size actions the organization cannot complete. Jeff’s plan was, frankly, one of the best I’ve ever seen.
Process Triage Host Jeff King with his triaged process map (Courtesy Schwope Bros. Farms).
On a parallel narrative, I’m a Vistage International speaker. Vistage members benefit from guest speakers on about any topic related to running and growing an enterprise. It’s a privilege and honor to be on the circuit, noting speakers are not allowed to solicit — it’s a pay it forward opportunity with a very modest honorarium. It’s my practice to chat with the Vistage group’s chairperson to understand where the group is and how I may best tailor my talk on triaging. I’m looking for an opportunity to make a touch that matters. One such chair was Will Hindrickson, in the New London, Connecticut area. Will mentioned his entire chief executive group were EOS operators. So I read up on EOS, read Traction, and suspected there were synergies between Process Triaging and EOS immediately.
Seeking more info on EOS, I asked two Vistage Chair friends in Kansas City, Tony Lewis and Jeff Hutsell what they knew about EOS. Turns out Tony’s an EOS Operator himself, and said about half a dozen or so of his members were on EOS, namely Tory Schwope.
If you’re interested in EOS, Tory’s a case study success. Consider using an EOS Implementer (Tony Lewis asserts using an implementer/coach is the best practice, and their 90 minute overview is without obligation). I’m a believer because of the quality of Tory and Jeff’s post-Triage follow through.
If you’ve adopted EOS or are an EOS implementor (coach), and want to add a Moment that Matters touch in the EOS issues solving track, consider hosting our Process Triage Immersion Workshop. I’m best reached by text or email initially. (I’m focused to only answer cell phone calls from those in my contacts list).
Hat Tip, Tory.
UPDATE / P.S. 1/30/2016
The Process Triage immersion workshop is usually only one-day long and focused on an enterprise’s core driveshaft process. It generates a prioritized list of solutions to process points-of-pain. These pain points are recurring events or behaviors, as observed by the hand-picked process expert team who live in the trenches of the process– NOT the C-Suite’ers (who sponsor the triage). It’s the bottoms-up, bought-in list, not a top-down list you have to sell or direct. These solutions are, in EOS terms, pre-validated, pre-qualified issues with proposed solutions already nominated — in a “Bring me solutions, not problems” approach. Process triaging therefore drives the Issue Tracking dimension and value of EOS deeper into the organization, towards front line leaders. The EOS issue tracking method is, itself, a process that welcomes high quality inputs — high quality issues. That’s why Tory suggested a triage schedule a few weeks ahead of the quarterly pulse.
Not mentioned in Tory’s kind remarks was the process documentation produced by the triage team (as illustrated in Jeff King’s photo above). You can leverage the triage map into your process documentation.
Rosey
Disclaimer: The EOS Operating System is a copyright of EOS Worldwide. ProcessTriage LLC has no commercial relationships with EOS Worldwide.
https://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.png00Joseph Rosenbergerhttps://processtriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/logopng2-300x110.pngJoseph Rosenberger2016-01-29 10:18:342019-06-19 18:07:40Catapult your EOS Issues Solving Track with Process Triage
I’m not much on New Year’s Resolutions any more. Mostly because the passing of a year doesn’t excite me much, as I’m on my 63rd lap around the sun. I’m grateful and humbled to still be running laps, to be sure.
What I’m left with, then, is a bit banal and boring — and perhaps the essence of creating opportunities that are not boring, but inspiring and enriching.
So here are what I’m reminding myself about my habits this new year:
Habit #4: Show up where you’re supposed to.
Woody Allen is credited with saying “80% of success is just showing up.” Somewhere else he said it was just 70%.
James Caan said “Showing up every day isn’t enough. There are a lot of guys who show up every day who shouldn’t have showed up at all.” I get his qualifying point — show up where you’re supposed to.
Habit #3: Get back up. Just one more time than you fall.
That’s trite as well — trite and true. I’m not saying we keep doing what doesn’t work — that’s stupid, but I am saying, “Never. Give. Up.”
Habit #2: Habits create events. so get your habits right, and expect good, meaningful, joyful events.
This is similar to #1, in that our habits create opportunities and exacerbate failures. Wealth comes from frugality, industry, and integrity, not lotteries. Habits are the cement in our foundation’s concrete — what hardens us to handle our trials. And ‘NO’, playing the lottery a lot — a habit, does not increase the odds of ever winning it.
Habit #1: Part of getting your habits right is avoiding a focus on your failures and the associated anxieties and deliberately remembering your successes and the sense of fulfillment and contentment they continue to give. The former motivates you from fear; the latter motivates you from joy.
Like the joy waking up knowing my blog post needs polishing, to sharpen it.
My rabbi of almost 30 years, a genuine talmid chacham began a lesson saying, ‘Answers are easy, it is the questions that are hard.’ This speaks to the idea that questions are more elemental and full of potential, and in practice, ignite the imagination and inspire us to challenge our limitations.
For example, I like to reward myself after what I think has been a successful day of triaging an enterprise’s expert team. The work is intellectually intoxicating and fulfilling. The quip, ‘I can’t believe someone pays me to do this!’, attributed to the legendary novelist John MacDonald, fits my feelings. My at-a-boy is a nice steak at a recommended steak house. (I do not expense anything above my published per diem rate, to be sure).
So the first question is easy enough; “Where is a great steak house?” The answer typically offers a choice of two or three. But once seated and menued, the next question is prescient. It is ignitful — meaning it may ignite and explosion of superb customer service that sets a seriously succulent steak on your table. Like this bone-in Porterhouse filet at the Silver Fox in Richardson, Texas this week. (That is NOT Photoshopped!)
I asked my server, “What is the steak your chef would most like to serve tonight?”
She blinked, clearly not knowing. So I commanded her (yes, commanded) to go find out.
A few moments later she returned with a spring in her step and answered, ‘Sir, it’s off the menu. It’s a bone-in Porterhouse filet. How would you like it prepared?”
“Medium, thank you, with a side of grilled (brussel) sprouts.” (It comes with snap peas and mashed potatoes.)
She marched off to the kitchen, having bagged the elephant, so very, very pleased with herself.
She returned much faster than I expected, and placed the beautifully plated work-of-art before me. The fork leaned over to it in anticipation!
And Wow! — was it delicious. Howl-at-the-moon delicious.
So, I was a few savory fork-fulls from finishing it off, cleansing my palate between bites with a nice Pinot Noir to re-live the blossom of that first bite, when the chef walked up to my table and — grinning ear to ear, asked, “How do you like your steak? It’s hard to get this cut in the quality we require, so I thought I’d check.”
“It is wonderful!, I replied, mouth half-full.” Then we small talked for a moment as he was clearly pleased with the effort.
Afterwards, when the server returned with a concluding cup of coffee, she was beside herself that the chef had visited her table. And he was so pleased.
So I asked her one more question.
“What IF you asked your chef what he or she wanted to create and serve most during your shift, that would want them to go check with a guest — and then suggest it if it seemed fitting? What would your relationship with this chef grow into? What would your guests think of your service?”
She offered a very cute fist bump, fittingly returned.
So.
What are your questions that ignite the best from others?
