SURVEYING CURRENT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

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SURVEYING CURRENT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

• This set of slides is intended to help explain
  why surveying the current Management practice is
  important, and how it can be achieved
• Please do not attempt to use these slides as part
  of a presentation until you have read and fully
  understood the relevant sections of Managing by
  Design, you know how each slide builds, and you
  are clear on the points you wish to make with
  them.
• Slides 2 to 6 are useful for providing an
  overview of the survey approach to management.
  Slides 7 to 18 may be used to supplement these as
  part of a process for preparing an internal
  survey team.

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PLANNING THE WAY FORWARD
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THE INTERNAL SURVEY

• Why do we need to undertake an internal survey?
• To fully understand current performance
• To provide evidence of particular issues
• What is the value of this?
• To focus improvement where it matters most
• To build on what is already good
• Why do we have to do it?
• To develop crucial local knowledge
• To establish our credibility for driving change
• And why is that important?
• To enable us to stimulate support change
• To make change efficient through aligned efforts

4
INFORMATION WE MIGHT NEED

• Against the Business Plan
• Current performance
• Evidence of particular issues
• Management Approach
• Current position
• Examples of issues problems
• Examples of good practice
• Other
• Confidence capability for change
• Learning from the past

5
POSSIBLE APPROACHES

• Interviews (Individual or Group)
• Opinion/attitude based
• Investigative, evidence based
• Questionnaire
• Perceptions (of self or others)
• Criteria based
• Audit
• Analysis of data from existing records - QMS
  type investigation (Show me)
• Performance data
• Discussion
• What else?

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SOURCES OF INFORMATION

• Customers
• Internal, External, End-users, Directors...
• Ourselves
• Staff, Contractors, Suppliers, Management team...
• Records
• Case histories, paperwork, QMS
• Operations
• Observations, measures, problem track
• ?
• Anything else?

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HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT TO SURVEY?
Who is we?
Dont forget to bring the client along in your
thinking
And... Who is your client?
What can you achieve if your client doesnt own
it???
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INTERVIEWING
What are the barriers to an accurate picture?

• What are the main barriers?
• How should we overcome them?

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INTERVIEWING

• Consists of 5 distinct and different stages
• Preparation
• The Beginning
• The Middle
• The End
• Afterwards
• What should we use each bit for?

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INTERVIEWING PULSE
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TYPICAL INTERVIEW STRUCTURE(Internal)

• Introduction General Background
• The Company and what it is trying to achieve
• Departmental purpose and role
• Targets and objectives
• People and teamwork
• How work is structured
• Information and its application
• How improvements are made
• Facilities and equipment
• Previous Initiatives
• Personal Aspirations
• Anything else

12
TYPICAL INTERVIEW STRUCTURE(Customer)

• General Background?
• What for you is the Nature of Quality?
• How would you describe Service Quality Currently?
• How is the Service Delivered?
• How would you describe the Relationship?
• How Forward Thinking are they?
• What is the scope for them to transform your
  work?
• How would you most like to see them improve?
• What do you like most about them?
• What do you like least about them?
• What would they need to do to delight you?

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DELIVERING QUALITY DATA
Issue If the interviewee uses phrases like
Unspecified Reference too much, too often,
too Unspecified Nouns it, they, the
others Unspecified Verbs arrives, comes, force
us Implied Necessity cant, shouldnt,
must, Universal Quantifiers never, always, all,
everybody Assumed Standards the right way, It is
wrong Nominalisations verbs transformed into
nouns Unspecified Cause cause.., makes, keeps

• What is the problem for the final data quality
  ?What challenges could the interviewer use ?

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UNDERTAKING A SURVEY

• Pros
• Anonymous, provides some security of
  confidentiality
• Clinical and easily focused on your primary areas
  of interest
• Quantitative it provides a datum and is
  relatively easy to analyse
• Cons
• Unlikely to provide evidence that you are not
  already specifically looking for
• Can, too easily, annoy the recipient

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UNDERTAKING A SURVEY

• Common to get people to express their view of
  predefined statements according to a scale
• E.g. Statement The sky is blue and you
  respond

0 You believe the statement is, as near as
possible, totally false - in fact the converse is
true 1 You believe the statement is largely false
though it may contain an element of truth 2 You
believe the statement is, on balance, slightly
more false than true 3 You believe the statement
is, on balance, slightly more true than
false 4 You believe the statement is largely true
though not entirely so 5 You believe the
statement is, as near as possible, totally
true X You have no views on the truth of this
statement, and would prefer not to comment
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PROCESS ANALYSIS AND AUDIT

• What is a process?
• What is important in a process?
• Evidence
• Paperwork, recording, changes, .
• Appropriateness
• Reasoning, motives,...
• Implications
• Deficiencies, lost opportunity, knock-on
  effects,...
• Risks
• Accident, waste, disruption, error,...
• Result
• Actual effects - waste, failure,
  dissatisfaction,...

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PROCESS ANALYSIS AND AUDITFor all processes -
direct indirect

• Evidence of customer requirements being examined
  formally how the information is used
• Evidence of target setting and applied standards,
  and of linking these to the business need
• Evidence of training, and how the required skills
  for the process are identified and developed
• Evidence of mechanisms for ensuring consistency
  and for defining roles and process approach
• Evidence of performance measurement, and analysis
  of adverse variations to prevent problems
• Evidence of improvement effort, and learning from
  elsewhere in the organisation or outside

Evidence, Appropriateness, Implications, Risks,
Result
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NEXT STEPS

• What is that we want to know? (And why?)
• Who are the best sources of the information?
• What approaches will we use to obtain it?
• Who will do what?
• By when?
• How will we pull the information into a coherent
  and compelling picture?