Process Diagrams

Process diagrams can be a very helpful tool to explain procedures. I've found many benefits to charting out even the most basic of systems:

1. Having to describe the steps in detail and place them in proper sequence helps all the people involved identify inefficiencies and redundancies. No matter what the system is, you can't fix it until you can define it.
2. A picture really is worth a thousand words. A couple of visuals can easily capture the most important points from pages of text describing a system.
3. It's much easier to collaborate using a diagram than a document of text.
   

I've been evaluating a tool for creating and sharing process diagrams at gliffy.com.

The product works great so far. I've really only had one complaint and it's that you can't seem to change a shape type after it's created. The most important things for me are that you can share access and you can publish links to the most current version of a diagram. So I can link to the diagram directly from a KMX operational document even if the diagram is not complete. This mean that I don't need to go through the process of manually saving an image of a diagram and re-inserting it into my documentation every time it's changed or updated.

Managing Projects by Boulder Control

I don't know where I first heard the air-traffic controller analogy to project management, but it's a good one. If you manage multiple projects at once you've got all these planes (projects) you need to keep safely in the air and you've also got to focus on getting planes to a safe landing (i.e. completing projects). You can't neglect one or the other, but you've obviously got to pay special attention to the planes that are landing. From a time standpoint this means to me that you've got to allocate a little time on a daily or weekly basis to keep all projects moving forward and allocate more time to the projects you're trying to complete first.

I like to think of a different analogy wherein each project is a large boulder in a field and I'm trying to clear the field of boulders from the center outwards. Picture a game where the score is a combination of how many boulders you get off the field and how large of a space in the middle you can clear of boulders. I have the choice of trying to pick one boulder at a time and roll it all the way off the field or I can just try to move many boulders a little way at a time to create as much space as possible in the middle. Some boulders are small and I can quickly roll them all the way off the field. Some are really large and take a lot of effort to move even a little way. There may be many boulders very close to the edge of the field that can all be moved off easily.

So how does this translate to managing tasks and projects on a daily basis for me? Using the concepts from David Allen's Getting Things Done I review each project and designate a next action. The problem for me is that it's difficult to break actions down for each project to where they will take an equal amount of time. Some next actions may take a few minutes and some may involve a couple of hours. Thus, I create a list of next actions making sure there is an action from every project. The daily discipline is to spend enough time on each next action so I am moving the project ahead but not too much that I can't at least do something on every critical project. After I at least touch on every next action I spend larger chunks of time working on the next actions for priority projects, or projects that are very near to completion. To go back to the air-traffic controller analogy; I check to make sure all the planes in the air are safe and then focus on the ones that need to land.

This concept is implemented in KMX using tags and the ASSIGNMENTS view. I tag the 'next action' activities for each project with a 'current' tag. Then my ASSIGNMENTS view is filtered to this tag, with all activities sorted by 'Last Activity' column. The activities that have had the most time lapse since there was a comment or time entry posted are sorted to the top of the list. I start with those activities and utilize whatever time I have at the moment to move the activity closer to completion.

At the end of the day the main benefit of this method is making sure that no projects are going stale when there is an opportunity to be doing something (even if it's very minor) to move it forward. At the very least, taking time to think about a project helps to flesh out specifics on what it's going to take to finish vs. procrastinating because your next actions may not be well defined.

One Inch at a Time

Reading Jack Vinson's article 'Perfection is the goal, not the first step' brings to mind one of the concepts we discussed here in '4 Quick Ways to Get Your Business Documentation Rolling'.

The concept is to spend at least a few minutes every day working towards your goal. This idea is especially relevant when discussing the documentation of business operations because:

1. It's not something that you're likely to see immediate results from.
2. It's not a particularly fun process.
3. It's easy to put off because there won't be any immediate impact.
4. A lot of people literally don't know where to begin.

There are many approaches to business improvements that discuss the benefits of committing a certain amount of time every day to document and analyze your operations. I've found this approach to be much more beneficial then setting aside a certain block of time each week (or month!).

By using the tools offered with KMX to organize tasks I have our entire business innovation approach divided into several small objectives. My KMX dashboard allows me to view these objectives sorted by date according to the last time there was anything done with the objective to move it forward. I make it a priority to start off my day by reviewing these activities and 'doing something'. Some days this activity is just a few minutes to review some notes someone has left and some days it's a couple of hours fleshing out a system innovation.

I'm finding a lot of success in other areas of my life as well following this concept. By focusing on doing something every day - even if it just takes a couple of minutes - to move my 'someday maybe' projects forward I see a lot more things getting done.

Measuring Performance

The Center for Management & Organization Effectiveness describes the effectiveness of scorecards to establish individual accountability.

Scorecards serve as a good summary for monitoring expectations, but without the critical component of clear documentation of expectations, scorecards do not fulfill their potential.

I once heard an analogy about typical management practices. The illustration depicted a bowling scenario in which the employee was rolling the ball at the pins. Management would stand in front of the pins with a blanket. The ball would roll under the blanket and knock down the pins. Management would keep the blanket up and look at the pins and try to tell the employee how many were still standing, etc. The employee has to keep rolling the ball and try to knock down all of the pins without eer seeing them.

I see this type of scenario playing out often in the 'real world'. You have a conversation with someone describing some outcome and defining the tasks required. Without clear, written instructions it is almost inevitable that two people in a conversation like this will walk away with two different ideas of what the end product will look like. Then you end up with the employee doing what they think is needed and the manager being unhappy because the end product isn't exactly what they envisioned.

Clear documentation for business processes and responsibilities is a sure-fire way to bypass this disparity and drop that blanket so employees know what their targets are and what management expects from them.

Metrics for Process Improvement

Many people seem to have an aversion to tracking metrics related to business processes. Perhaps it's from a misunderstanding of the intent. After all, people use metrics all day long. How much money did I make, how much did I spend, how much do I weigh, etc. etc. The whole point of 'metrics'is to be able to quantify something you want to change.

If I want to lose weight, first I must know how much I weigh now. Then I go through a fitness program. If I come back at some point and my weight has not changed I can draw a conclusion that the fitness program is not helping me lose weight.

This viewpoint applies directly to business process improvement. If I want to decrease the amount of time it takes from the time a client calls in with a work request to the time I write up a contract, I first must know how long it currently takes.

Gary Comerford, in The Unseen side of Process Projects - Part Four:Measures, notes that implementing a new process without proper measurment is a 'fatal mistake'.

Of course, measuring data can become a process in itself that needs analysis and improvement. Do you have the resources to keep tracking your metrics as you work on the revised process? This is something to consider when choosing the technology you use to implement business improvements.

Jack Ivinson's article KM is about linking people...and lots of formatting opens up the idea that retrievable pieces of information, such as document, may not necessarily provide all of the information you needed when you set out to retrieve the document.

In the context of managing a project this idea is critical. A person may be able to find a document they need in a folder, by iteself. However, there may be additional information surrounding that document that has an impact on the project. Who received the document? Did they respond if a response is required? Were there other meetings or discussions happening at the time the document what created or received? Who was involved and what were those individuals doing?

There is a tangible benefit to having a complete overview of a project that places any piece of information in it's correct context. This means being able to look at the trail of information that a project creates in a linear fashion.

Digital project documents, internal information exchanges, time entries, etc. all need to be collected in the same portal.

KM Executive approaches project knowledge management with a set of tools designed to collect information during the course of a project as a natural function of the organization. This collection creates a chronoligically ordered knowledgebase allowing users to understand the context of the information they may need to retreieve.

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