The Low-Tech, High-Touch, Experimental Approach to Business Improvement

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The Low-Tech, High-Touch, Experimental Approach
to Business Improvement
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• The team at Expert Toolkit see all too often
  businesses take the "quick plunge" into a large
  technology-based solution to fix a business
  problem.
• The urge to buy a new piece of software, take on
  a big implementation, utilize a new shiny widget
  seems to have a magnetic, irresistible draw at
  times.
• Perhaps it is the excitement, the challenge,
  ambition to be the pioneer, the innovator.

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• The temptation to commit to a solution before the
  problem and options have been fully explored can
  be too, well, tempting.
• The "big bang" technology solution looks ideal,
  benefits exactly as needed (hoped for!) and risks
  (at least the ones we are know about) look
  manageable.

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The Current State

• But, before proceeding vigorously into that big
  technology investment, take a moment to reflect
  on what's actually known about the situation and
  the problem.
• Does everyone really (quantifiably) understand
  the problem? Are the root causes clear? Is it
  clear what business metrics are being impacted?

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• Has an quantified baseline been captured so that
  everyone is looking at the same picture of
  current performance?
• Is it clear what measures would move if things
  did improve? By what level would things need to
  improve to be in line with business objectives?
• What's it worth to the business to take those
  metrics from their current level to target level?

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What's been tried?

• Once the current state is clearly understood,
  think about the options that lay ahead.
• Has the organization tried to solve the problem
  in a low cost, minimal risk manner first?
• Has any solution experimentation, testing and
  learning been conducted to evaluate what might
  work and if there are any unintended consequences
  on other performance measures?

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• Have any prototypes been utilized to gain
  confidence and understand the risks of employing
  specific solution strategies?
• The time and energy invested in experimenting
  with cheaper approaches will vastly enhance the
  understanding of the problem which will allow
  much greater clarity around what's needed
  leading to a much better outcome, with less risk.

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When things go wrong

• When large technology investments go wrong the
  underlying root cause is almost always due to a
  lack of true, shared understanding of the problem
  and the risks (and implications) associated with
  the solution strategy being adopted. Also, once
  the journey commences, it is very hard to turn
  around and walk back through the door that was
  entered. Various cognitive biases kick into gear
  and there is typically a huge inertia pulling the
  program forward to maintain consistency with
  publicly declared commitments, even though
  significant obstacles have been encountered and
  unexpected risks have materialized (with no plan
  for mitigation)

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• Perhaps the high availability of extremely
  powerful technology solutions has influenced
  thinking of what an innovative solution looks
  like?
• Perhaps skills in solving problems without "big
  T" technology have diminished?
• It's difficult to say. What does appear to be
  clear is companies the worldover are missing the
  opportunity to drive major business improvement
  in a way that minimizes significant financial and
  business risk.

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An example

• Recently some of the team at Expert Toolkit had
  the opportunity to work with an organization to
  deliver a significant improvement in business
  performance with a clear constraint from the
  outset - "we have no money or time for a
  significant investment in technology to help
  here".
• Using a variety of methods (many described on
  this site - including visual management, brown
  paper process mapping, value stream mapping) we
  worked with the organization to improve
  productivity by 50 all while lifting customer
  satisfaction by over 10 points and reducing cycle
  times by 30.

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• On reflection, the "capital constraint" helped
  significantly - it forced everyone to think about
  the problem differently, look at the process and
  people dimensions, explore alternative
  approaches, all the while testing and learning,
  testing and learning.
• So before you or your client launches into that
  major technology investment,

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• Ensure there absolutely is a shared
  (quantifiable) understanding of the problem
  trying to be solved and objectives being sought.
• Ensure that lost cost, low-tech, "test and learn"
  solutions have been evaluated where practical.

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