Getting A Stalled Project to the Finish Line

I’m sure we have all had the experience of working on a project that seems like it will just never end.  When that happens each team member has a responsibility to share in ownership  of the problem and the solution.  In highly analytical environments just getting a project approved or started can seem daunting.  Once it is approved, however, tight execution and driving to the finish line should be everyone’s focus.

Why is it then that some projects, even those with solid work invested in them, can’t seem to finish the last five percent of the course?

When a project is stalled project leadership or organizational management have the primary responsibility to get it back on track.  What can they do to get it reinvigorated?   Let’s start with these…

• Ask the hardest question first:  What am I doing or not doing that is contributing to the delay?  Leadership’s number one responsibility is to remove obstacles to the success of others.  Are you really doing that?  Are you getting past the happy talk and searching for root causes, then taking ownership for those that only you can effectively mitigate?  Better yet, are you the root cause because of indecisiveness or lack of attention?

• Use analysis as a decision tool, not an implementation tool.  Once the project is authorized and funded the time for analysis paralysis is past.  If you did not take the time beforehand to conduct thorough due diligence then it is probably too late to do it now.  When projects are approved they come with a schedule that has consequences for late delivery.  Post-approval is not the time to be developing options – it is the time to get the project done.

• Change the mindset of the project team.  If they are bogged down they know it without you telling them, and they likely aren’t feeling very good about it.  Here you need to be a bit of a cheerleader while also instilling a new sense of urgency.  As a leader you can step in to motivate, assist and remove barriers, but avoid the urge to take over at all costs unless absolutely necessary.  Let the team retain accountability for the outcome but help them get to it successfully.

• Augment skills or knowledge.   You may find that the team has designed a good project but does not have all the skillsets/knowledge it needs to implement it successfully.  For example, solving a vexing process issue may require the intimate knowledge of those closest to the process to investigate, process map and re-engineer a solution.  As good as that solution may be it is useless if not implemented correctly.  If implementation requires technical expertise, say developing or modifying an application, then the team may not have the requisite expertise.  Get it for them.

• Re-plan the project.  Refusing to recognize reality by sticking to a plan that everyone knows is not working only further demoralizes the team and adds unnecessary pressure.  This is where leadership must be candid with itself.  Take a breath.  Recognize reality.  Develop a new plan to complete the project from its current state, communicate and vett the plan with the team to achieve their buy-in, then work the plan…and work it hard. 

• Kill procrastination.  If you were too uninvolved in the initial effort then pick up your game.  If you were indecisive then make this project a priority and move it along when it is in your own space.  Stay better informed and create a sense of urgency by requiring frequent status updates.  Ask what the team needs from you to break current deadlocks and then deliver the goods.

Not every project (at least in my world) runs perfectly.  That does not mean, however, that they must be unsuccessful in the end.  In fact, overcoming the challenges of difficult projects is a big learning tool, experience addition, and character test.  Successfully recovering a project in trouble is a big plus in any project manager’s toolkit.

Business Agility: A Model for Improving Responsiveness – Pt. 1

This post begins a short two part series, continuing the subject of business agility first examined in my March 25 post.  Part One of the series addresses the theory behind agility.  Next week’s Part Two will focus on the practice of agility.

AGILITY IN THEORY

Business agility has long been the hallmark of successful organizations, and its importance in contemporary business is growing.  True agility, however, often requires a mindset and operational dynamic that is counter intuitive given industry’s penchant for quick fixes and control.  Real agility requires a business culture and strategy that is sustainable over the long haul.  Typical business reactions such as reducing headcount and services, de-emphasizing customer service, or deferring projects and initiatives that create capability and capacity will work for the short term, but they are not generally sustainable.  These strategies consume or discard resources that may be better used creating and re-energizing.

Defining Agility – An Elusive Quest

One of the problems with “Agility” is defining exactly what one means when one uses the term.  It is a common term and strategy in the IT world, but focuses almost exclusively on IT systems that improve communication and data sharing to speed processes. Manufacturing types express agility in terms of customization and last responsible moment commitments.  Knowledge management professionals describe it as using knowledge management systems to provide greater or faster awareness of changes.

In their paper “Understanding Organizational Agility: A Work-Design Perspective” Holsapple and Li suggest a homogenized definition that can be applied in most cases, identifying alertness and response capability as key dimensions of agility. 

“Agility is the result of integrating alertness to changes (recognizing opportunities/challenges) – both internal and environmental – with a capability to use resources in responding (proactive/reactive) to such changes, all in a timely, flexible, affordable, relevant manner.”

Another important characteristic of agility is recognized in the statement,

“Business Agility is in the mind of the organization and comprises an absolute willingness to constantly monitor one’s position, in a timely and appropriate manner – not just to respond quickly.” 

This statement makes the explicit and often misunderstood point that agility is not just about speed.

Three Levels of Agility

Strategic, Operational, and Episodic agility comprise the agility spectrum.  Each is achieved intentionally through work design that promotes organizational and cultural drivers which are supportive of agility.

Strategic agility can be identified as maximizing organizational alertness to business changes and integrating response capability.  Its purpose is to structure and govern operational work to assure alignment with organizational mission and strategies, thereby enhancing the organization’s ability to identify and take advantage of business opportunities.

Operational agility derives from this integration of alertness and response capability, governing episodic work by allocating resources and setting schedules in the most efficient manner.

Episodic agility refers to what we may more colloquially describe as transactional or task-specific work.  This is where work processes produce tangible value.  It may be intellectual collaboration in the case of knowledge workers, or the fulfillment of specific service or production processes.  Importantly, it is at this level where alertness to task level environmental conditions may lead to process variance.  There is an interesting dichotomy here between agility, which emphasizes alertness and appropriate response to changing conditions, and process management which generally emphasizes control and stability.

The three levels have definite boundaries, support each other, and when taken as a whole permeate the entire organization. In this manner they provide the combined alertness to changes and response capacities that enable taking advantage of opportunities, or adjusting to threats in a nimble manner.

Next week we discuss three specific strategies that help improve agility.

Count the Paper Clips

If you read this blog even occasionally you know that I am a big fan of data and metrics in managing the FM domain.  Our group routinely tracks, analyzes and reports data on the full breadth of services we perform.  As a result we are tuned in to the pace of our business and can almost feel minute shifts that signal change we should be aware of.

We are now reaping the daily dividends of a grass roots effort begun several years ago when “count the paper clips” first came into our lexicon.  That was the direction given when a manager asked, “What should we count?” upon hearing that we were going to undertake a metrics program.  It was a brilliant answer.

That response started us immediately.  If we had said, “Let’s design a program.  We need a system before we can start,” or asked “Who has the knowledge and skillsets we need?” we would have been stalled at the start.  The answer “count the paper clips” mobilized us to immediate action.  We did not have a system, program, or organizational structure, but we knew we could count them and we did.  While we were at it, we counted everything else.

As a result, we now have data going back several years on every facet of our operation.  Over time our capabilities and sophistication have grown.  When we started we knew how to count.  Today, we capture, analyze, project, and plan strategically based on what we know for certain and can predict with high accuracy.  We can anticipate shifts in business patterns before they occur based on well established relationships between disparate data points.

The payoff for us is not simply that we are able to do a better job with greater accuracy.  The job is also more fun.  By enabling our staff with training and giving them a vision we have allowed them to learn, participate, discover, and grow.  The great bulk of the work is accomplished by line staff who are in direct contact with systems, processes, and customers.  Virtually all team members have been trained in basic statistics including data gathering, data structure, pivot tables and pivot charts, data smoothing, analysis, and how to format and report operational data.

This metrics initiative fueled the start of our Continuous Improvement initiative when it came along soon after.  Unlike some others, the Facilities staff knew and understood the importance of data driven planning and were familiar with the routines and discipline required to be effective in the quality improvement effort.

Every month line managers gather to review metrics and analyses that have been produced by staff.  We track and analyze details to identify trouble spots and opportunities.  We investigate causes, analyze data, and adjust operations. We have seen our Customer Satisfaction scores improve markedly while getting more done and focusing our efforts on what really matters.  We work hard at it and the results show it.  Our group is rightfully proud of their abilities and we serve our organization better than we did before.

And it all started with counting paper clips.  

Agile FM

You hear a lot these days about “agile” project management.  This term is generally used by IT project managers to describe software development and system roll out projects.  The general sense is that agility improves project outcomes by valuing open collaboration, speed of process, and transparency.  While “Agile Project Management” is an important and valuable tool in the PM context, even in non-IT environments, I do not believe this limited scope should be taken as the definition, or necessarily even the goal of what we might call “Agile FM.”

Given FM’s scope of responsibilities and today’s business climate with limits on capital resources, changing priorities, new competencies and more, it is important that FM be agile in the way it approaches its responsibilities and delivers services.

At a recent meeting I heard what I think is a very good articulation of an agile organization, and I think it can be directly applied to the FM function in nearly any enterprise.

Become More Efficient at Everything We Do

Efficiency is key to optimizing work processes in a manner that improves speed, quality, cost, and customer satisfaction.  The greater the gain in any of these dimensions the more efficient a process is.  Efficiency is not always about speed, rather it is about the time and/or cost of the process relative to the quality of outcome.  Anything you do to improve the quality in those dimensions makes it more efficient.

Aside from providing better outcomes to a process, improved efficiency also delivers another benefit – opportunity.  The financial and human resources freed up by more efficient processes are available for application to other areas.  The accumulated savings of multiple efficiency gains can be deployed against other processes or problems.  In effect, the organization self-funds improvement activities.   Continued over time this behavior will develop into a culture that thrives on innovating solutions and creating new opportunities.

Accelerate Transformations

Accelerating the pace of transformation provides a needed sense of urgency to help overcome resistance to change, and supports the development of favorable expectations.   This cannot happen without a focused plan and executive sponsorship that demonstrates steady commitment to transformation processes. 

Transformation is often about simplifying, creating clear pathways through complex systems and processes.  When thought of this way transformation doesn’t seem so daunting.  At its base it is about making work, and therefore life, easier.  Who doesn’t want that?  But initial changes that improve processes and systems are not the goal.  True transformation changes organizations in ways that encourage and support future transformation.  In many ways it is about creating a new culture, one that accepts constant change throughout the organization without paralyzing it.  By leveraging the existing culture and organizational values a new culture of transformation is established and nurtured.

Two final points on transformation:  First, this new culture will need to be nourished.  Abandoning efforts to validate it after the first few wins risks a quick, and likely painful regression.  Secondly, a key deliverable of any transformation initiative should be the building in of change tolerance to all core processes.  This enables the kind of continuing change that keeps moving the organization forward.

Illuminate Trade-Offs, Make Decisions

Agile organizations are by definition constantly evolving organizations.  That means that there is a never ending process of discovery, investigation, option analysis, decision making, implementation, and feedback. 

The importance of objective trade-off analyses cannot be over stated - the commitment to objectivity is a critical part of agility.  It places less value on assumptions and personal power and more value on transparency and fact-based evaluation.  In the quest for objectivity there is empowerment that supports the asking of tough questions, the kind that might not get asked if the security of that value is not present.  Answers to those questions present and illuminate facts that might not be known if the questions were never asked.

Once the objective analysis presents clearly defined options it is time to decide.  The speed of decision making is important because it helps maintain or diminishes momentum.  On the other side of the coin, the speed of decision making can be largely affected by organizational risk tolerance.  Some organizations have a culture that allows making decisions as quickly as possible, accepting that there is more risk of a wrong decision than if waiting until more facts are available.  Organizations with this model tend to be entrepreneurial in style if not practice.  Other organizations may require nearly all or all known available information before making decisions.  These tend to be long-view oriented and institutional in nature.

Generally, it is better to make decisions at the earliest possible moment in order to accelerate the benefit of those decisions.  Organizations that fall into the latter category mentioned above, those that require greater amounts of information and never ending analysis before making decisions, handicap themselves in the effort to be agile and nimble.  Unless they are in a very protected class they run the risk of analyzing themselves into irrelevancy, or worse.  Today’s world does not coddle those who cannot look, decide and act with precision and speed.

Start Now – Don’t Wait

Agility is about movement and momentum.  Waiting to start only perpetuates the present and loses the opportunity of the future.  Once you’ve made the decision (there’s that word again) then get to it.  Don’t become paralyzed by planning, scheduling, convincing and all the other reasons you could think of to wait until you can get it perfect.  Don’t worry about perfect.  Worry about getting started…now.  Start small if you must, but start now.  Start with small projects, celebrate success, build the culture, change your future.   Develop momentum - you can worry about perfection later.

Applying Lean Six Sigma to Facilities Management - Pt. 2

Two Disciplines with Common Goals Combine to Improve Operations and Profitability

This is the second and final installment on applying Lean Six Sigma in Facilities Management organizations.  Last week's post defined Lean and Six Sigma and discussed their histories.  This week we look at how the two disciplines can be integrated and how one FM organization used Lean Six Sigma to solve a long standing problem.

Combining Lean and Six Sigma

The advantage of combining Lean and Six Sigma is in simultaneously improving the speed of work (Lean) and the quality of work (Six Sigma).  This dual-purposed approach integrates initiatives to improve process efficiency and effectiveness as measured by quality, speed and cost.  Critically important is the vision and leadership of senior management.  Without visible commitment from the top Lean Six Sigma risks succumbing to the pressures that endanger all change management initiatives.  For the initiative to be successful the attention to it must be consistent and long lived.

While both Lean and Six Sigma take a customer first approach the perspectives are slightly different.  It is important that a combined program make customer driven requirements, specifications and expectations a pre-eminent part of enterprise culture.  This is not always easy to do and it should be expected that there will be challenges.  Old attitudes must be changed and operational protocols adjusted.  Services that once focused on cost reduction alone while maintaining an acceptable level of quality must now deliver customer driven results of higher quality with lower cost.  Functional or vertical boundaries must take on open characteristics so that cross-functional improvements can reach the breadth of the enterprise.  Attaining this will mean a fundamental analysis and streamlining of every process involved and a willingness to let the facts and data take you where they will without dilution by old issues of turf, inter-departmental competition and the like.

Goals of Lean Six Sigma

Because they are both quality initiatives the goals of Lean and Six Sigma also have much in common.  They strive to increase the importance of customers throughout the value chain by taking a customer focus on process improvement.  Further they strive to drive these changes throughout an enterprise both vertically and horizontally.  The result is that a successful Lean Six Sigma organization is attuned to and indeed driven by customer requirements, dictating a unified and synchronized provision of goods and services in a manner that reduces or eliminates the normal friction of business.

Eliminating waste, streamlining and synchronizing processes across organizational boundaries, and making objective decisions based on hard data are the hallmarks of successful initiatives.  While Kaizen seeks to make incremental changes that result in immediate improvement which often come from front line workers, Six Sigma looks to institutionalize and maximize gains.  Both seek to change corporate culture in fundamental ways.

Implementation Case Study

Shared services organizations are good candidates for Lean Six Sigma programs.  As service organizations they serve internal customers but never the less have great leverage on the corporate bottom line.  Facilities management is nearly always the second largest cost center on a balance sheet and IT is also a giant.  In many shared service organizations these two reside under the same leadership, presenting an opportunity to join forces to improve the quality, speed and cost of services to the larger organization.  Such was the case when the Facilities and IT groups of a mid-sized company teamed up to tackle a vexing problem.

For years the two groups had struggled with aligning data center operations.  One was responsible for providing and operating the physical infrastructure, the other for equipping and managing data center operations that served the global enterprise.  Frequently there were disconnects in project planning and communication.  The key individuals in the two groups, however, had good relationships and jointly recognized the opportunity to investigate and resolve this issue.  Working inside an organization with a strong commitment to Continuous Improvement and in which resources and tools were available gave these practitioners the tools and management commitment they needed to attack the problem.

Working as a joint team this group used a number of Lean and Six Sigma tools to identify, investigate, and analyze root causes.  Using an Ishikawa diagram (Fishbone) they brainstormed issues that contributed to the problem.  The X-Y Matrix tool then led them through a process of scoring and ranking the issues they identified, resulting in a short list of high value opportunities to affect change.  The Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) identified individual failure modes, thereby informing the redesign of the processes involved.

As is usually the case these investigation and analysis tools identified causes that team members were already aware of.  In these cases the issues were quantified and documented to make them visible, understandable, and actionable.  As is also usually the case, this disciplined process of objective investigation revealed causes they were casually aware of without recognizing their full importance, or had been completely blind to.  One such key realization was that annual budgeting cycles for the two groups were not synchronized, with the facilities group being well down the budgeting pathway before the IT group began developing its annual project plans.  The obvious result was that facility budget decisions were made before IT projects and their implications to data center infrastructure were known.  As a result projects were often debated and delayed, preventing IT from providing services internal customers were waiting for. 

While this example may seem obvious that is often the point in these exercises.  The obvious becomes the norm, gets locked in and becomes a part of corporate rubric where it is all but forgotten except in times of stress.  But when discovered these issues can be dealt with and turned from red to green on the process status dashboard.

Keys to Success

As I mentioned this organization enjoyed a long standing commitment to Continuous Improvement and is familiar with Lean Six Sigma principles and protocols.  Over time these have become an ingrained part of their culture.  The environment established by leadership, the continuation of the commitment and the tools provided are all there.  But this is not an organization that has a large quality department.  Rather, Continuous Improvement has been made a requirement of all - it is largely a home grown bootstrap type of initiative. 

That said, tools have been provided.  Key individuals with Six Sigma experience from previous jobs have taken leadership roles as a collateral duty, functioning as coaches and mentors.  All staff in the entire shared services organization down to the first line supervision level (and often beyond) receives training in CI, Lean and Six Sigma courses taught on site by co-workers.  There are no consultants in sight.  Finally, CI project teams and their projects are periodically recognized.

The advantage of adopting Lean Six Sigma in your organization is that it provides a structured set of methodologies and tools which allow you to identify and remove obstacles.  While it is a disciplined approach it is not complicated and need not require a unique set of resources.  Indeed, the best results come from within based on commitment and perseverance. 

Re-Capitalizing FM's Future

Our world and profession find themselves at a very interesting nexus.  Political, economic, generational and demographic shifts of large independent scale and interdependent relationship are occurring simultaneously.  The stress we feel in our personal and work lives shows no signs of diminishing any time soon, and the expectations we must meet seem to be on an ever increasing upward curve.

I believe FM is one of the professions that is most profoundly affected by the current state.  With an average age profile that is higher than many professions and the ensuing turnover, the challenges of increasing effectiveness and productivity in an era of severe fiscal constraint, and the continued globalization of business even while reducing costs we certainly have our hands full.

But, there is good news in the midst of the realities of the day, and it is this:  We get to make the decisions that influence outcomes.  Organizations of all sizes and shapes are looking today for primarily one thing; leadership.  In that, we have opportunity to demonstrate FM’s value to our organizations and society.  It is not a small thing.  It is not an easy thing.  It is, however, a very important thing.

One of the knocks against recent governmental economic stimulation strategies is that the programs were often short sighted.   Billions of dollars were spent but most of it was spent, in our language, on “deferred maintenance” as opposed to “revenue enablement.”  A frequently cited example is allocating money to repair existing transportation infrastructure instead of building new.  Yes, it provided temporary jobs, but it has not developed new transportation routes and nodes that encourage business expansion.  Regardless of the degree to which this claim is actually true it raises a telling point.  What are we doing to make the future better, not just more of the same?

The question I have is this:  What are we in FM doing to recapitalize our profession, and are we being smart about it?

If we try to solve this problem on a grand scale it will overwhelm us and we are likely to mimic ineffective strategies that others have tried.  I suggest a better approach is a focused attention to the strategies of our unique businesses with a goal to evaluate them candidly, allocate resources where the most potential exists, and to take smart risks where the payoff is probable enhancement of key business objectives.

While there are any number of strategies you might consider, these that follow are universal in nature.  These are common sense things that all of us can do.  Your own business will have other facets, risks, opportunities and avenues of approach; but virtually all of us can make progress by doing these things well.

Make Sure Core Business Fundamentals are Strong

• For most of us our key asset is our people, and it is important that the value of that asset be maintained and enhanced whenever possible.  For example, reducing the training budget during tight economic times is a common strategy.  It is also a wrong strategy.  Training staff to maintain currency with industry standards and knowledge growth is an important part of projecting your organization forward.  This attention to staff development will not go unnoticed, sending a strong positive message about your commitment to them and to future successes. 

• Conduct a candid review and SWOT analysis of your operations.  Identify those areas where you are weaker than you should be or face external threats of significance.  I’ve always found that this kind of matter-of-fact self-analysis is healthy and helps sharpen focus and direct allocation of resources.  It is also an opportunity to be honest with your staff and leadership, and often leads to a partnership based on common objectives.

• Step back and take a hard look at your planning and budgeting processes.  Is energy and time being spent on issues that really matter?  Are there opportunities to reduce red tape to increase effectiveness and throughput?  Are interdependencies with other departments properly aligned and communicated?  Are decisions provided in a timely fashion allowing best possible execution?

• Emphasizing the value and quality of services demonstrates an understanding of your business and protects against budget reductions that can lead to diminished services which may have important impact to corporate goals. 

Sustain Excellence to Maintain Momentum

• Begin by demanding excellence from your own operations and then drive that culture through your entire supply chain.  Strong standards and diligence are the keys here as you work to educate those who need help understanding the importance of the initiative.  Improving efficiencies for you will pay dividends for all of a provider’s customers, improve their own bottom line, and be a part of their future success that you will benefit from.

• Develop the habits and culture of a learning organization.  Investing in training, knowledge expansion, staff certifications and other learning initiatives will pay dividends in improved operations and staff morale.  Valuing inquisitiveness and curiosity and allowing people the freedom to investigate will enable discovery of improved processes and new opportunities.

• Know your business by the numbers.  Understanding enterprise financial and production metrics will give you context in which to understand your own metrics, helping you relate value and scale to internal customers who may not understand how FM influences their operation.  More importantly, however, a strong metrics program allows you to evaluate FM performance objectively and focus on improvement initiatives that will make the most difference.

• Consistent attention to Continuous Improvement (CI) initiatives allows you to take advantage of information and knowledge assets to improve cost, time, quality and overall value.  While it is tempting to let these kinds of programs slide with the pressures of tight budgets and higher workloads, doing so is anathema to the kind of incremental changes that will keep you moving in the right direction.  It requires management focus and discipline but the payoffs; optimized processes that provide higher yields, improved customer satisfaction, workforce empowerment and the experience of shared success are all positive outcomes worth the effort.

Invest in Talent

• Take a “best available talent” approach to find quality people who can bring expertise and potential into the organization.  Worry less about filling specific needs and more about increasing the overall talent and intelligence level in your group.  Deal with niche technical needs when you have to but prioritize intelligence, curiosity and energy.

• Take advantage of others’ losses by keeping the pulse of organizations around you.  Your networking efforts will pay off here as you learn of those who are forced to make staff reductions.  With the right relationships you will be able to get solid information on the talent coming out of their system.  If you have a short term need or want to try before you buy, consider renting employees that others are faced with letting go.  This type of arrangement is not unusual even in good times.  If the other company does not want to lose the employee it offers them a way to keep them in play while shifting a portion of the cost to you.  From your perspective, you should get the other company to carry the cost of employee benefits, thereby increasing the value to you.

• Build relationships with universities to identify and pre-engage with the best young talent.  Don’t expect this to be free.  Universities will want to develop funding streams for research and partnership activities, but these are often very reasonable in scale and well worth the time effort and cost.  One way to do this is by engaging a university to provide specific project research, policy information or hard engineering in a shared effort.  Aside from the value of the project outcomes you will develop relationships with young people about to enter the workforce.

• Making good use of interns is an under-utilized strategy that you can use to advantage.  This is a natural extension of the university engagement strategy discussed above, but is available to you even without direct university engagement.  If you elect to pursue interns, however, you should start early in the year and have your selection in place about a month before the term ends.  Specific scopes of effort, a discussion of expectations, and an interview process that challenges them will benefit the student and you. 

Put the Power of Many to Work

• Take advantage of professional associations (IFMA, BOMA, CoreNet, IIDA, NACORE, IREM, et al).  Networking within these associations is an idea factory for your organization as you hear of and take advantage of ideas and strategies others are using.

• Be intentional with your networking effort and time.  Merely sitting in the audience is not going to yield near the benefit that getting involved will.  Don’t wait to be asked.  Introduce yourself and volunteer, you will be amazed at the long term impact to your company and your career.

• Be strategic with networking.  Anyone can have an account on any number of social media platforms.  But that isn’t really networking in the sense your business and career need.  It’s all about face time, but choose the right faces.  Evaluate your options and select the one or two organizations that offer the most potential benefit.   If you choose more than one be wary of getting too deeply involved with more than one.  Participation at a meaningful level requires a time investment.  Volunteering to help at an event will lead to committee membership, which may in turn lead to committee or local chapter leadership and beyond.  This type of engagement requires that you exhibit integrity.  Do what you say you will do and do it well.  If you can’t, be honest about it.

Control What You Can

• Be accountable and responsible for your commitments and actions.  Whether it’s at work, volunteering with an association, or working with your kid’s youth sports program – be dependable.  When people know they can count on you they will.  When they learn that you cannot be depended upon they won’t.  You will be the one that loses the most in the end.

• Be honest, candid and genuine.  Speaking with respect, clarity and transparency shortens the process between any two points and builds the kind of trust that super-charges organizations.  When tough issues come up deal with them constructively and fairly.

• Improve your value proposition.  Learn what challenges your internal customers are facing and create ways to help them.  Help them solve their problems and you will have a friend.  Friends come in handy.

• Do whatever it takes.  The world is full of people who don’t want to get involved, who offer excuses, or fail to live up to their end of the bargain.  Don’t be one of them.  It is not necessary to say yes to every request and you should learn how to say “no” when needed.  But when you do make a commitment then get it done.  It doesn’t matter what the obstacles are….find a way.

There you go – a few simple ideas on how to extend your influence and assure that your FM group is equipped for the present and prepared for the future.  Take advantage of them and the host of others like them and press on.

Someone I know once said during an especially rough time, “Times are tough, get over it.”    That bespeaks a focus and determination that is admirable, even if sounding a bit gruff.  I believe it is a valid perspective.  However, as leaders we have a responsibility to offer a path forward amid the unsettledness of the day.  We have the responsibility, the opportunity and the capability.  It resides inside each one of us and to a large extent is a matter of will.

It is not a time for wavering.  It is a time for encouragement, leadership, and determination.  Reinvest in your profession, your community, and yourself.  Make a difference.

A Primer on Project Retrospectives

We've all heard the terms "post-mortem," "lessons learned, and "after action" in reference to project reviews.  If you are like me these reviews are an important learning tool but all too often turn out to be less than they could be.  I like the concept of project "retrospectives" a lot more.  The term itself implies a different kind of experience.  What I like even more is the structured approach demonstrated in Esther Derby's presentation below.  It includes the use of tools that will help pull information and concepts forward, defines an inquisitive approach, and offers good do/don't guidance.

Remember too the value of conducting these retrospectives at the start of a new project.  Take the time to refresh team member memories of learnings from past projects and discuss them in the context of the coming project.

Agile Retrospectives

View more presentations from Esther Derby

Using the Balanced Scorecard to Improve Strategic Alignment

The building blocks of strategic alignment; business strategy, FM strategy, organizational infrastructure and processes and FM infrastructure and processes, combine with strategic fit and functional integration to act as the foundation upon which real alignment is built.  While understanding this conceptual base is necessary, it is only the base.  Strategic alignment is an ongoing process and can sometimes be hard to discern, given its conceptual nature.  That is where the balanced scorecard comes in, providing a way to measure FM strategies and outcomes in a way that is clear, relevant to the business, and actionable.

A balanced scorecard measures four dimensions; financial, customer, internal processes, and innovation/learning.  This broad view of the business, as opposed to a traditional financial or operational metrics only view, provides a deeper perspective of current operating performance and future performance drivers.  Because of this broad view perspective, the balanced scorecard is best viewed as a management system, not a performance indicator.

To build a successful balanced scorecard for FM organizations you must address each of the four dimensions.

• Financial Perspective:  How is FM maximizing shareholder value?
• Customer Perspective:  How is FM performing in ways that matter most to its customers?
• Internal Process Perspective:  What are the factors needed to build strategic capabilities and efficiencies?
• Innovation and Learning Perspective:  What are the knowledge, skills, and systems needed to sustain continual improvement?

You can see how these four dimensions act upon each other.  Learning, for example, supports continuous improvement of internal processes which in turn results in higher customer focus and satisfaction.  By linking the four dimensions of the FM balanced scorecard to enterprise strategy FM’s help align their unit strategy with the overall strategy of the business.

This linkage to enterprise strategy is critical.  Many FM’s have balanced scorecards that are FM centric, focused primarily on traditional FM metrics.  While this may indeed indicate how well your operation is performing in relation to broad based FM benchmarking metrics, it may do little to illustrate how your FM department is supporting or hampering the overall goals of your specific business. 

And that is the point, isn’t it?  Understanding how FM relates to your overall business, how you can provide positive support to the enterprise, how you can leverage FM to the benefit of your business are all good things to do. 

In today’s business world being able to demonstrate value and leverage are two critical elements of success.  Those who do these well are at a strategic advantage.  They can explain FM value and importance in specific business-centric terms, they demonstrate attention to improving customer outcomes, they learn and innovate to the benefit of the enterprise.  In doing all of this they act as thought leaders, anticipating and fulfilling the needs of their organizations, aligning FM with the enterprise at strategic and operational levels.

Is that you?  Does it sound like your FM group?

It should.

Aligning FM with Enterprise Strategy – What Works?

Aligning functional operations and strategy with enterprise strategy first requires correctly understanding what alignment is.  I think the best practical definition I’ve run across is from Y.E. Chan who says,

“Alignment is best described not as a uni-dimensional phenomenon but as a superset of multiple, simultaneous component alignments that bring together an organization’s structure, strategy, and culture at multiple levels, with all their inherent demands.”

Multi-dimensionsal, simultaneous, and I would add, ongoing alignments.  Sounds like a messy process and it sometimes can be.  But there are a number of tactics that will help to make the alignment process successful.

A top down approach with a clear focus on business strategy is essential.   The changes required during serious alignment projects often require top-down motivation to overcome inertia and turf issues.  Senior executives are closer to enterprise strategy and have the ability to exert influence across the organization, and the ability to fund technology and other initiatives. 

The alignment framework must be strategy driven.  It’s all about consistently applying the same key strategies across the organization in a manner that maximizes adoption, market reach and shareholder value.  If the framework is focused on non-strategy issues then the lack of a unifying driver can present obstacles that stymie the effort. 

Operational metrics and customer satisfaction help to drive alignment initiatives.  Metrics to the rescue, again.  It’s hard to align something that you do not clearly see or understand.  Correctly quantifying operations and customer satisfaction provides a way to measure alignment gaps and prioritize projects based on expected benefit and importance to successive alignment initiatives.

Adopt continuous improvement and six sigma as alignment tools.   Hopefully you have already been using continuous improvement and six sigma protocols to optimize your own processes.  Alignment initiatives present the opportunity to take this to the next step, expanding the boundaries around your processes to include outside functions in which there is an important relationship in either direction.

Revisit mission statements to assure relevance and alignment.  It may sound obvious (because it is) but many organizations have not aligned their mission statements to be complimentary of each other.  If these statements are indeed the pointer on your compass to success, then different parts of the organization are moving in different directions at different speeds and with different levels of concern.  Making sure that mission statements express common values and outcomes all the way down the line helps everyone keep their eyes on the same goals.

Make alignment important to everyone.  You think it is now?  Maybe.  Making alignment a reportable element that influences performance reviews and compensation will guarantee it gets the attention you want it to get. 

FM Alignment with Enterprise Strategy

Strategic alignment of facilities management with core enterprise strategies may seem an obviously desirable state but it often remains an elusive one as well.  Recent surveys around the alignment issue indicate we still have a ways to go.

• 80% of senior managers (all support functions) believe that their function and the business is aligned, only 30% of corporate executive managers agree  (CIO magazine survey)

• 65% said ineffective communication of business strategy and goals between business management and functional management is a significant or moderate challenge (Deloitte Consulting)

• 60% of organizations reported a misalignment between the workplace and business operations because there was no integration with overall business strategy (Business Week)

The “why” of our misaligned state is a bit perplexing, especially given the attention given to business integration over the last several years.  I am willing to make a guess, however, that the following can be counted among the culprits.

• More attention has been paid to integrating functional silos than strategies
• Lack of leadership on the issue  - allowing alignment initiatives to languish
• Tyranny of the Urgent syndrome – “survival” mentality during the economic downturn
• Lack of buy-in for alignment initiatives below the top levels of management

FM’s operational and support function nature often separates us from being considered a core part of the core business.  FM work is largely transactional (projects, work orders, services) and not viewed as strategic.  Our main measurements are usually expressed in ways that do not relate to the core business ($/sq. ft., BTUH/sq. ft., etc.).  Further, our outlook is mainly short term, focused on asset development and management, cost reduction and capital minimization.

In short, we too often think about ourselves in terms we understand but which are largely irrelevant to our business partners.  That is not helpful to alignment .

Shifting our focus from operational outputs to business outcomes changes our perspective.  It reframes FM projects, services and processes as key business enablers; and encourages us to measure our performance impact upon business strategy and outcomes.  Attention is redirected to alignment, adjustment and continuous improvement in support of core business goals.

Shift your focus, FM.  That is the beginning of relevancy in today’s business world.

Using Metrics to Enhance Continuous Improvement

If you are like the vast majority of FM’s you are now much more familiar with Metrics and Continuous Improvement programs than you once were.  Hopefully you have metrics that measure the important parts of your business accurately, and a system for routinely analyzing and reporting data.  Good data collection and analysis practices are at the very heart of meaningful metrics outputs.  Measure the wrong things or measure incorrectly and you are at risk of making wrong decisions.  Measure correctly and you have a gold mine of opportunity.

Ah, but that is the rub, isn’t it?  We have all of this information now, but what are we supposed to do with it?  Simply making charts to flash on the screen doesn’t seem like much value for the investment made in developing the data.  It’s not.  The real value of metrics programs is in the change they lead to.  Change, as in “Continuous Improvement.”

Organizations that link their Metrics and Continuous Improvement efforts take advantage of the knowledge gained through data to direct efforts to improve operations.  This is a key linkage that increases the return on investment from the metrics program, helps fine tune data processes, and increases the speed of Continuous Improvement.

Continuous Improvement programs that are targeted based on accurate data yield far more beneficial results than those that are not.  This is because data driven Continuous Improvement projects apply leverage to those processes in an organization that really matter and have the greatest potential to improve performance. 

As an example, let’s take a look at a classic FM service issue through the lens of a data-targeted Continuous Improvement process and one that is not.

The Issue:  Customer Satisfaction ratings on hot/cold work orders appears to be declining over time.

Untargeted Approach:  Analyze hot/cold work orders for Mean Time to Repair, Mean Time Between Failures, Mean Down Time, etc. to determine which sub-processes appear to be out of control.  Investigate and revise those processes.

Data-Targeted Approach:  Analyze Customer Satisfaction rating data at a fine level to determine which element(s) of the process is driving the rating decline.  Develop a Continuous Improvement project to address those elements.

The difference between the two approaches is that the untargeted approach assumes the entire process is part of the problem, while the targeted approach looks at data to identify the key elements(s) of the problem, thereby concentrating improvement efforts where they matter most.

Interestingly, the untargeted approach may indeed improve the overall process yet not improve the Customer Satisfaction rating.  For example, a targeted approach may identify that customer dissatisfaction is based in lack of communication and ambiguity regarding the work order status or close out. 

Metrics programs are about discovering data, seeking knowledge from the data, and then turning the knowledge into actionable wisdom.  Continuous Improvement programs are about applying systematic problem analysis methodologies to important issues in order to effect positive change in the Quality, Time, Cost and Customer Satisfaction dimensions. 

Using data to target Continuous Improvement efforts increases the metrics program ROI and accelerates the pace of operational improvement.  That seems like a positive outcome for both, and for you.