I was reading this week* that Apple’s newly anticipated handsets will probably not feature the cutting edge, “delighter” led, technology features we have come to love in their iPhone products over the years. This got me thinking about Kano Thinking and it’s relevance in 2019.

When Noriaki Kano published “Attractive quality and must-be quality” in 1984 he used the term ‘Attractive’ to describe a product or service’s ‘delighter’ or ‘exciter’ features. These are the opportunities for unknown needs that could Wow a potential customer, engaging their imagination and increasing their demand for the product, driving higher gross profit margin.

Delighter features support the core value proposition of the product, expressed in the “must-be’s/hygiene factors” and “one-dimensional/more-is-better/competitive” features…this thinking is so well known that it’s become part of our everyday language…so what’s the problem?

The concept of delighters is useful and powerful, but have we lost our way in applying the thinking? We know that today’s Delighter become tomorrow’s One-dimensional feature and next week’s Must-be, and that the marketplace ensures that this movement is no longer a slow drift but an accelerating drag race. This acts to suck every new feature rapidly into the set of Must-be’s and consequently there is a vacuum at the Delighter end of the Kano model. This vacuum has become filled by a series of novelty innovations and there don’t seem to be any useful delighters left to find; in that situation is there a use for Kano?

Shipments of Smartphone handsets are dropping around the world. Data from the International Data Corporation in April this year showed a ~6.6% year-on-year decline and six consecutive quarter declines**. Focus is now on average price with Apple now reporting $ value of shipments, not units.

I have an iPhone SE; I like it very much. It’s my only handset for business and personal use; I have my music on it and use the camera a lot. However, it has all the features I feel I need…none of the gimmicks currently on offer from any handset provider generate enough excitement in me to motivate a change. Value add delighters are now provided principally by the software and services that the platform supports, and are we likely to change our handset for an app?

…Perhaps I’m not the customer segment handset designers are interested in…segmentation, there’s another vital use of Kano thinking!

Alf Rehn has recently*** highlighted how innovation focused on Novelty generates Show-off and Shallow innovation cultures, rather than the Deep and Social cultures innovation generated by a focus on Impact. When we see what the handset providers are offering; folding screens, 3D cameras and other attention grabbers, I think ‘Show-off’ is the right phrase. We need value-adding delighters.

How about some Voice of Customer…When I’m training improvement practitioners with Catalyst I ask the group to create a Kano Model for their phone experience…I’ve done this regularly for several years so let’s compare two examples from Dec 2013 with April 2019, more than 5 years of development, which is “forever” in consumer electronics.

Phone Kano – Dec 2013

Look at what users felt had low functionality: camera (over 3Mp, now we are being offered ~40Mp!), video, memory, battery life, internet functionality, large keys!

Phone Kano – Apr 2019

All the old must-be’s remain, battery life, make calls, text etc are still there; but they have been joined by play music, social media apps, internet access and a good camera.

The only dysfunctional delighter opportunity on this horizon is “waterproof”, everything else has moved to the positive functionality side.

When Brandt (1988) and Venkitaraman & Jaworski (1993) further developed Kano Thinking they used the terms “Value enhancing” and “Value-adding” to describe delighters. I think that’s the key.

When we are thinking about delighters they must come from the reality of the customer experience for the product or service. The user story scenarios we consider must be driven by real Gemba work and by depth of understanding of what is of true customer Value.

A Kano approach is useless if you don’t do it and use it, at the right time. In other words do it early before the ideation has generated concepts and solutions that rapidly become frozen in place.

Kano thinking, both via the basic Model and the numerical Survey technique, are still relevant in 2019 but we need a fresh focus on delighter value. Our innovation cultures must be nurtured and managed to be centred on Value and Impact, and not just Novelty.

Many pundits now predict the death of the Smartphone in the period 2020-2025…It would be interesting to hear what Professor Kano thinks of that!

*Forbes “Apple’s iPhone Nightmare is Coming True”. Ewan Spence, 12^th Aug 2019

**https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS45042319

***Innovation for the Fatigued – Alf Rehn, 2019

The post Apple and the end of Kano Thinking? appeared first on Catalyst Consulting.

On our theme of ‘getting started’ this month, we always recommend listening closely to the ‘voice of the customer’ to understand the experience of using products and services from their point of view. Catalyst Director, Mark Jones, recently had a holiday in Cuba but couldn’t switch off completely prompted by his experiences, as he explains in this blog by using the GEMBA.

A few weeks ago, we took a week’s holiday in Cuba to escape the UK winter weather and relax. We spent four nights of the holiday in Varadero, if you’re not familiar with it, imagine a twelve mile white sandy beach that pokes north of Cuba into the Caribbean. It has recently been rated by Trip advisor as one of the Caribbean’s five top rated Beaches.

The hotel we stayed in was excellent, all-inclusive and well-known for its service. At several points during the stay we were asked to provide customer feedback. One of these opportunities was a one-to-one with a senior service manager…. Here is what happened…..

Using the Gemba

I was asked to attend an interview in the hotel lobby at 11:45 AM, which I did, and I made myself known to a member of the reception staff. By midday nobody had come to talk to me, so I went back to the reception desk to give them a final chance before I went back to enjoying the bar and grill! Five minutes later, the reception manager appeared with a notebook in her hand and we started the conversation.

“What do you think of the restaurants, what do you think of the facilities, how is your room, what do you think of the bar, how is the food…..? The questions went on like this for a few minutes, all standard stuff, but none of it earthshattering or really important and all of it missing some fundamental thinking.

I couldn’t resist going into consultant mode explaining the importance of being in the place where the customer experience takes place to get the richest feedback – the Gemba.  Ask me about the food in the restaurant, ask me about our room in the room, let’s have this meeting in the bar and talk about the bar service and experience. Fundamental truths about the guest experience are less likely to be surfaced sat in the lobby. Above the reception desk is the office of the General Manager and I could see him while we were talking, I wondered how many hours a day he spends in there?

I presume the staff at the hotel are reasonably paid by local standards, but they clearly appreciate tips from the guests. I made the point to the manager that they don’t make it easy for guests to reward staff. When money is changed at the hotel, like most hotels and Exchange Bureau, you receive a lot of large notes and being an all-inclusive hotel the opportunity to get smaller change is limited. I was told that guests can go to the Bureau and ask for change, but I didn’t know that and it’s not exactly easy or in the Gemba. I made a suggestion that at one end of the bar (not the reception) they put two small plates, one with a couple of larger notes and the other with many small notes and coins; above the plates would be a small sign highlighting that guests can simply obtain change here without having to ask a member of staff or make it obvious….. put down your large note and take some change. The business risk would be small, the cost of setting it up would be negligible and it is a quick win experiment…. Why not try this and see what happens? Ask the staff if they see a change, and if not fail fast and take away the plates…. I think a week would do it!

How to use your Staff for feedback

We talked about how ideas for improvement are solicited from staff; I can’t remember the answer, which tells me it wasn’t very inspiring. Early in December the hotel was busy but nowhere near full….. if a staff member is highlighted for exceptional service, or suggests a great improvement idea, why not say thank you by letting them stay in the hotel with a partner for a couple of nights? They would get to have the “guest” experience and customer journey, be recognised for their contribution, be served by their colleagues and managers, have some fun and a new experience, and perhaps relax a little as well. The cost to the business would be small and the only requirement would be that the staff member and their partner provide some detailed feedback afterwards. Again, a short experiment would easily show the value (or not) of this concept.

I did give them some more traditional feedback of the kind they were expecting, about specific restaurant issues and some great staff members. However, the point I was trying to make was that this sort of feedback, although useful, doesn’t tend to create lots of innovative ideas and make a step change in performance compared with using a Gemba approach.

I finished our 30 minutes, which I actually enjoyed (I can’t stop myself), by pointing out to them that during any particular month they probably have hundreds of experienced business people from across the world staying at the hotel. Why not set up a facilitated session, maximum 60 minutes, and invite them to share some of their knowledge and ideas that could relate to their experience of the hotel……. it might just make a nice change from the beach and the spa!

The post An example of using GEMBA to listen to the customer appeared first on Catalyst Consulting.

Martin’s article has been featured in the following publications:

Hotel Business – 22 November 2016
HRM Guide – 9 January 2017

What does the future hold for the UK’s hotel industry? This year’s PwC UK hotel forecast predicts that UK hotels will continue to see further RevPAR growth in 2016, but at a much slower pace.

So, what can hoteliers do to overcome this slowdown?

Although PwC’s forecast is positive, and the UK’s economic performance has been strong throughout the year, there have been a number of external factors causing the slowdown. A lack of large events for UK hoteliers to leverage rates over the summer, coupled with a weak pre-Brexit euro challenged London’s competitiveness for Europeans seeking a city break.

[box style=”rounded”]approaching the EU referendum RevPAR growth was recorded at a high of 2%[/box]

Furthermore, since the Brexit decision, although the hotel sector will face opportunities, the industry must also be prepared for long-term alterations that will arise once the direction of Brexit becomes more apparent. Fluctuation in the market is already evident; European security concerns in 2016 caused UK hotel performance to decline, yet approaching the EU referendum RevPAR growth was recorded at a high of 2%.

Opportunities for the UK hotel sector could also be created as a result of Brexit. Most significantly, a weak pound – dropping to a 31-year low against the Euro, Dollar and other world currencies – has made Britain a more attractive destination for foreign visitors. Hotels outside of London, have also benefited through a resurgence of the ‘staycation’ – British people holidaying in the UK, rather than opting for foreign travel due to the poor exchange rate. The decreased value of the pound also provides the opportunity for increased long-term overseas investment in the UK hotel industry.

[box style=”rounded”]During times of uncertainty it is vital that every organisation define its goals and streamline the processes required to achieve them[/box]

Ultimately, much uncertainty lies around the future of the UK hotel industry, one of the consequences of this is that problems dealt with on a daily basis in ‘fire-fighting mode’ are never tackled at the root-cause. During times of uncertainty it is vital that every organisation define its goals and streamline the processes required to achieve them. When budgets are tight, it is the perfect time to reduce internal waste and improve customer satisfaction.

It is key to continue to offer an outstanding service to ensure that rates, reviews, and re-bookings do not decline.

Process Improvement

As little as 10-15% of process steps actually add value in an organisation. Conduct a performance review of internal processes to serve as a baseline to measure future improvements against.

An Improvement Charter is  a great starting point to document the purpose and goals of the improvement project, creating an understandable framework that everyone can follow, outlining clear roles and responsibilities.

[box style=”rounded”]It is important to complete this project with a team, enabling key staff to voice their opinion in an open forum[/box]

Three key questions must be asked:

1. What needs to be achieved?
2. What needs to be resolved?
3. How does this affect the customer?

It is important to complete this project within a team, enabling key staff to voice their opinion in an open forum. This document must be concise and simple, providing a helpful template to reference throughout the process.

Once the Charter is agreed, formulate how the work will be deployed, completed, and how the success will be measured. Thinking about how the process links to the customer and their needs will help to determine this.

Heading in the right direction

Develop a ‘storyboard’ summary of the key decisions and outputs to review progress, capturing outputs and findings from the improvement journey to communicate progress within the business.

The what and the why

Data collected throughout the project is crucial in helping hotels to improve processes, generating ideas for possible solutions and then implementing and testing these. Weekly reviews are important to measure progress; hoteliers should evaluate themselves with the following questions:

1. What is going well and what is not?
2. Will the project achieve its initial goals?
3. Is value being added for the customer?
4. What conclusions can be drawn?

Take this time to re-evaluate and improve processes that underperform. Do the customers notice an improvement? Can these new improvements be applied elsewhere in the business?

Regard the slowdown in growth being predicted as an opportunity to act now ; improvements made at this time are key to foster and encourage growth. Additionally, with the uncertainty caused by Brexit and the potential implications of the decision being far-reaching for the UK hotel sector; there is a greater incentive for hotels to act efficiently and effectively to ensure competitiveness within the market.

Read our luxury hotel industry case study here.

The post What hoteliers must do to avoid a post-Brexit slump appeared first on Catalyst Consulting.

Martin’s article was published in the August 2016 issue of theHRDirector. Read Martin’s article on theHRDirector website here, and a PDF version of the August issue can be found here.

Future proofing your business is one of those massively laudable aims that seem crushingly simple in theory but are a little more difficult in practice. All you need to do, after all, is replicate the successes and avoid repeating the mistakes. Over and over again. The entire raison d’etre of Lean Six Sigma is to create precisely that kind of virtual circle – breaking down the processes upon which your business relies into their smallest component parts, pinning those parts down in order to examine them minutely, and using this analysis to remove anything which isn’t entirely necessary to the success of your business, this success being defined via customer satisfaction.  Once these lessons have been learned they are then inculcated throughout your business, on a cultural rather than simply managerial level, and the process, rather than beginning again, simply carries on rolling forward, feeding off itself in order to maintain continual improvement.

Put simply, mistakes cannot be learned from and avoided unless they are recognised and owned up to in the first place.

There are two main obstacles to this process being as simple in practice as it is when set out on paper, however. The first is that, like any system, Lean Six Sigma is only ever as effective as the individuals applying it – even if promoting individual buy-in is a built-in component of said system. Whilst the second obstacle lies in the problems associated with differentiating success and failure. Highlighting the successes within your business is generally a simple process, being the stuff of every performance review, award ceremony and bonus scheme. Identifying the failures and mistakes can be more difficult, not least because people are generally loathe to admit to getting things wrong, either to themselves or, perhaps more pertinently, to their colleagues and superiors.  Put simply, mistakes cannot be learned from and avoided unless they are recognised and owned up to in the first place, while lessons learned don’t count as lessons unless they are then put into practice, and the HR department of your company can play a key role in dealing with both of these issues.

The culture of your business, spreading from the HR department outward, becomes a non-judgemental culture in which ‘mistakes’ can be admitted without fear of blame or scapegoating.

The clue is in the name. The Human Resources department, thanks to its continuous contact with individuals working at every level of an organisation, can play a key role in both gathering the relevant data on the problems which stand between you and the future proofing of your business, and then in spreading the solutions to these problems through every level, from management to ‘shop floor’. The fact that the purpose of the HR department is to keep the people charged with delivering your business strategy happy means that it is a focal point through which they are most likely to give genuinely honest and insightful feedback regarding the things which your business could be doing better. However, this is only going to be the case if the culture of your business, spreading from the HR department outward, becomes a non-judgemental culture in which ‘mistakes’ can be admitted without fear of blame or scapegoating, and in which it is realised that every example of a process going wrong, once it has been eliminated, was simply a step toward the process being perfected.

There are examples to be taken from the worlds of both business and sport of this approach being used to aid the drive toward success. The most striking and probably well documented field within which the reporting of mistakes has become a virtual reflex action is aviation, a fact which is doubtless a reflection of the genuinely catastrophic consequences which can arise when the people in charge of an airplane in transit make mistakes. Pilots who do so – by flying at the wrong altitude, for example, or suffering a near miss – are given a ten-day period during which they can file a report of the incident under conditions of anonymity and immunity. Thus the more traditional approach toward the making of mistakes, which might be characterised as ‘What went wrong, who was to blame and how can we punish them’ (which generally leads to never even finding out that anything did in fact go wrong), is supplanted by ‘What went wrong and how can we stop it happening again?’. Ally this to the fact that the vast bulk of planes also automatically record data detailing and reporting problems, and you have an industry in which, in 2013, there was a global accident rate of just 2.8 per million departures. This is clearly an approach which is HR driven, treating the staff in question – the pilots – as both a valuable source of data collection and as the driving force behind spreading the practices suggested by this data.

A similar approach was adopted by Virginia Mason, a hospital based in Seattle. The HR approach was, again, altered in order to encourage staff to report incidents when things went wrong. As with aviation, medicine is a field in which mistakes, due to the gravity of their possible impact, are less easy to own up to, whilst being, conversely, the kind of field in which the honest reporting of mistakes is of the upmost importance. After all, mistakes in the average business may well impact upon the bottom line or customer satisfaction, whilst those within aviation and medicine are, quite literally, a matter of life and death. This is all the more reason why it is a matter of some surprise, not to say embarrassment, that so many businesses still cling to the old approach of dealing with mistakes and of spreading a ‘blame culture’ from the HR department and its dealings with staff, on throughout the organisation.

This change in culture was an increase in patient safety which heralded a massive 74% reduction in the liability insurance premiums.

The approach taken by Virginia Mason produced rapid and easily recorded improvements. The labelling on drugs being dispensed throughout the hospital was altered in order to reduce the likelihood of the wrong prescriptions being delivered under high pressure situations, whilst the system of giving coloured bracelets to patients upon admittance was changed to one of text based bracelets when it was realised that colour blind nurses might confuse, for example ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ with ‘Allergic to Penicillin’. Checklists were introduced in the operating theatres (an example of the kind of improvement which seems blindingly obvious when viewed from outside the maelstrom of day to day operations), as were ergonomically designed surgical tools. The overall result of this change in culture was an increase in patient safety which heralded a massive 74% reduction in the liability insurance premiums the hospital was paying.

One company which is famous for creating an in-built system via which members of staff can report problems before they become a cemented part of the process is Toyota, which, under the auspices of the Toyota Production System, encourages even the smallest failure to be notified as soon as it occurs. Workers on the production line, upon spotting a mistake, were encouraged to pull the ‘andon cord’ suspended above them. Thus, a diagnostic process kicked off and help was summoned and, if the problem could not be solved more or less immediately, the production line was halted, under the reasoning that it was better to delay production and lose a strictly defined amount of revenue than to leave a mistake unreported and risk a much greater, less predictable loss in the future. It’s interesting to note that the overhead cords themselves, from 2014, were being phased out in favour of waist high buttons, in order to create a more comfortable, less visually cluttered and, above all, safer working environment. A genuine example of a part of a process of continuing improvement actually being improved itself and, once again, with a HR focus – the comfort, safety and working conditions of the members of staff being the driving motivation for the change.

Martin Brenig-Jones

The use of the andon cords (or wireless buttons as they will now become), the reporting of aviation incidents and the changes brought about at Virginia Mason hospital are all examples of how systems need to be put in place, but will then only work if the culture of the organisation is such that no member of staff will be fearful of metaphorically ‘pulling the cord’. Your HR department can play a vital role in ensuring that this is, indeed, the case. Not only should processes such as recruitment, training and staff reviews be subjected to the process of continual improvement – deciding whether it’s necessary to have a three stage interview process, for example, or whether just the one interview, providing it asks the right questions, will suffice – but the HR department should be seen as a focal point for staff feedback and a department within your organisation through which staff will feel able to admit to things going wrong or challenges being impossible to surmount. The problems sometimes associated with bringing about change within an organisation will be minimised somewhat if the department tasked with pushing through that change is one which is regarded as being ‘on the side’ of the individuals responsible for embedding said change.

Time and again, the lessons learned from process analysis and the changes decided upon flounder in the cold light of day, when the next bout of firefighting has to be engaged upon before genuinely new ways of thinking can be embedded. Putting your HR department at the heart of such change will help to ensure root and branch reform, driving your organisation into the future with a set of processes, and a workforce, ready and able to deliver.

Find out more

• Lean Six Sigma Training
• What is Lean Six Sigma?
• About Catalyst Consulting

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This is neither the time nor the place to rehearse the rights and wrongs of the government policy of austerity, but it is probably worth pointing out one rather salient fact; it seems to be here to stay. There may have been a time when austerity – in simple terms the government spending less and less public money on a wider and wider range of services and activities – was presented and generally thought of as being a temporary solution to a severe but particular crisis.

That time appears to have passed. With the Chancellor shortly due to unveil a spending review prefaced by a request for unprotected departments to draw up plans for cuts of 40%, the withdrawal of public cash from broad swathes of life looks set to continue. Not only will this have an immediate impact, but it will also entrench the effects of lower spending on a more or less permanent basis, even allowing for the possible change in the political complexion of any future government.

Bearing all of this in mind it seems to be imperative that vital public services get to grips with this changed and difficult environment as quickly as possible, and nowhere is this more the case than in the realm of local government. The Local Government Association (LGA), in a submission made as part of the forthcoming spending review, has predicted that councils around the country will face a shortfall of almost £10bn by 2020 due to a variety of factors and before any further cuts are even made. Once the cuts begin to bite, it’s feared that this figure might rise as high as £20bn.

Given that the LGA is a bi-partisan umbrella organisation, chaired by Conservative Lord Gary Porter, it can be assumed that the comments they make regarding the impact of funding shortfalls are, at least, not aimed at political point scoring. When the LGA warns that councils could stop providing refuse collection and recycling, road maintenance, arts and leisure services, subsidised bus services, trading standards oversight, parks maintenance, street cleaning and street lighting and still not cover the looming funding shortfall, it’s a claim which simply has to be taken as more than the standard scaremongering of a lobbying group.

The wider point of the situation is that this isn’t simply an issue affecting those directly involved. The people who run, work for and access local government services will feel the full force of any funding shortfalls, clearly, but the impact will resonate throughout society as a whole. To take a small example, the longer waiting times often experienced at hospital accident and emergency departments can be directly traced to the phenomenon of ‘bed blocking’ – the situation which arises when people, often older people, having completed their course of treatment, can’t be released from hospital and free up a bed because of a lack of services in the wider community. These services, often something as simple as fitting a handrail to allow a person to access their own front door, are provided through local government funding, and the fewer such services there are, the longer people have to wait in their local hospital. This is despite the fact that spending on the NHS is, nominally at least, protected from cuts.

The question which arises, therefore, is how exactly local government and other public services can survive or even flourish in an age of austerity, and what processes can be utilised to minimise the wider effects of increasing and ongoing funding cuts. The answer to these questions, or at least a very large part of that answer, is provided by the Lean Six Sigma methodology, and promoting the use of Lean Six Sigma methods and practices throughout the realm of local government is something which would reap benefits for all concerned.

Put simply, Lean Six Sigma is a means via which the workings of an organisation can be broken down into their component parts, and then each of these component parts examined in depth and through statistical analysis with the intention of maximising efficiency. It should be noted that ‘efficiency’, in terms of Lean Six Sigma, is always looked at through the prism of value as it is perceived by the end user. It might not, therefore, always be more ‘efficient’ to simply do things more quickly, even though Lean Six Sigma is targeted at stripping away any wasteful activity or process. Whatever is most efficient is whatever delivers the most value to the end user, and as far as possible, anything which gets in the way of this will be identified and eliminated. This is often most easily understood in terms of a manufacturing process embodied by the traditional production line and a physical product moving through the various stages. The same principles, however, can just as easily be applied to a public body such as a council, with the services provided being broken down into individual steps, from procurement or commissioning to delivery – from a service user making a phone call, to a hand rail being fitted by a front door – and each step analysed to see if it is both truly necessary and being delivered in the most efficient and effective manner possible.

The process utilised to revamp this ‘production line’ is known as DMAIC, standing for Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control. Define and Measure involves identifying the problem hindering service delivery, and doing so through a careful analysis of all available statistics and the transparent and open input of staff involved at all levels of that delivery. The Analysis which then takes place is the thorough examination of exactly why the things which go wrong are going wrong, and this is followed by Improvement, which is when solutions to the problems are crafted. Control, the final process, involves setting up frameworks through which improvements can be implemented, measured and monitored in the future. This last phase is vital in that it embeds change in a permanent manner, rather than simply creating a temporary spike in efficiency.

Lean Six Sigma and DMAIC are being utilised by North Ayrshire Council. One of their improvement projects centred upon the provision of Occupational Therapy equipment, a vital service and one which was experiencing long delays of a kind which impacted negatively on service users’ quality of life. The results of the project – which involved workshops, data collection and focussed input from the team responsible for delivery – were hugely impressive.

Benefits included the following:

• The average lead time was reduced from 34.5 days to 1.5 days
• 76% of priority requests were receiving equipment within a day, 100% within 2 days
• Communication with service users was increased and improved
• 95% of all requests were met within a period of 7 days
• The steps involved in the process of service delivery were taken from 57 to just 30

Indeed, the results of the project were so striking that the Quality Scotland Awards for Business Excellence 2015 awarded it the prize for best Lean Six Sigma project.

Below is a diagram of North Ayrshire’s DMAIC process. Find out more about North Ayrshire’s Lean Six Sigma project here.

The sheer size and culture of local government makes it the ideal sector for the implementation of Lean Six Sigma. Within a council as a whole and the individual departments which comprise it, processes will have developed over years of incremental change and amidst the culture of an organisation constantly working at crisis point. With management too busy firefighting to step back and take an overview and staff too busy coping with limited resources to take the time to share their valuable experience of life at the ‘coal face’, the chances of analysing and improving performance are naturally strictly limited. Until, that is, the framework, discipline and focus of Lean Six Sigma is imposed.

To tackle a body as large as the average local council as a whole would require a full transformation programme requiring complete buy-in from the leadership and staff. It might be therefore that the North Ayrshire approach signposts the way forward. By dealing with individual departments, a council will not only gradually introduce the principles of Lean Six Sigma but it will also have a success story to point to and a culture of good practice to share. Some people involved in local government may well be wary of a process which promises ‘efficiency’, due to the fact that the word has often been used as political spin for funding cutbacks. It’s all the more important, therefore, to ensure that the nature of efficiency as it applies to Lean Six Sigma is clearly understood and that every member of staff involved is fully on board. Only by truly engaging staff will councils gain the insight needed to develop the right solutions and the sense of ownership required to deliver those solutions.

Councils hesitant to embrace the principles of Lean Six Sigma should be reassured that it is not primarily about saving money as an end in itself; rather, it is about instilling an ethos of everyday operational excellence in a manner which will, almost by default, result in less money being spent on the delivery of better services, to the benefit of both the council and the wider community.

The post Cutting costs and time: the benefits of Lean Six Sigma in the public sector appeared first on Catalyst Consulting.

The control stage of the DMAIC process continued after project handover to produce the procedure manual and assess the benefits which are summarised below:

At the recent Scottish Awards for Business Excellence 2015, we are delighted that North Ayrshire Council took the prize for best Lean Six Sigma project. Read our blog post to find out more here.

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How to process map

Process maps can take a number of different forms and, depending on complexity, involve numerous sub-processes. Commonly used forms include swimlane diagrams, value stream maps, organisational process structures and the more comprehensive ‘SIPOC’ models (which details the interplay between Suppliers, Inputs, Process steps, Outputs and Customers).

Regardless of the type of map deployed (and it is usually beneficial to deploy more than one), it is important to start by mapping the current contract process, ‘warts and all’. As tempting as it is to sketch out the ideal state, it is vital to understand the current state and set the baseline to get the most out of the exercise.

Getting off a blank page

One popular method used by Lean Six Sigma (LSS) practitioners to get off a blank page and start to understand the current state is called ‘process stapling’. To do this, simply imagine yourself being stapled to the thing that goes through the process and follow it each step all the way through to the end.

Martin Brenig-Jones

In the context of producing and reviewing commercial contracts, the first major step in the process is likely to be intake; how, and by whom, is the legal team instructed? For many legal departments, the form of instructions varies wildly depending on who is leading the deal for the company, which may be a contract from the sales, procurement or other business team.

Does the legal team receive all of the instructions it needs to begin the process in one fell swoop, or are the background and business requirements relayed over a series of disjointed calls and e-mails attaching out-dated or incomplete documentation? After the matter has landed in the legal department, how is the work triaged so that it is undertaken by the right level of resource?

Next, examine how the work gets done. Likely sub-processes include:

• Selecting the correct contract template / playbook and completing the first draft;
• Marking-up and negotiating the terms (multiple drafts);
• Capturing and escalating outstanding issues; and
• Proofing the final wording and tidying the contract.

When the content and wording or the contract are settled, there will likely by further sub-processes including:

• Internal approvals, signature and exchange of executed versions;
• Extraction of contract data for management reporting; and
• Uploading the contract to contract management system and related administrative efforts (such as filing related e-mails)

Each of these steps must be documented.

Focusing on value

Jason McQuillen

Once you have mapped out the steps in your current process, turn your focus to the qualitative aspects of those steps. Which actually add value? As stated earlier, this is typically only 10-15% of steps, and these may represent as little as 1% of the total process time (taking into account delays and the time where the product or service is static).

LSS practitioners use various acronyms to remember the categories of waste in a process, such as ‘TIM WOODS’ or ‘DOWNTIME’. In the context of production and review of contracts, waste may commonly include:

• Transport: movement of contract parts between stakeholders (eg, for input or approval);
• Inventory: WIP and completing contract parts ahead of time;
• Motion: looking for information (eg, due to a poor contract management system or contract template library);
• Waiting: waiting for stakeholder inputs and approvals;
• Over-production: too much volume and detail beyond that required;
• Over-processing: too many turns of the contract and double checking;
• Defects: use of inappropriate contract template, unclear drafting or invalid sign-off; and
• Skills: using senior lawyers when talented juniors (or non-lawyers) could deliver to requirements.

It is not the case that every step in a process that is does not add value should be automatically deemed to be ‘waste’ and discarded. There will be some steps which, although not value add according to the strict LSS definition, are nevertheless essential. This may be for regulatory, policy, health and safety, or similar reasons. For these steps, consider if they can be moved to a separate process, or at least how to complete them in the most efficient way.

Remember that it is the customer’s perception of value that is important. Will the customer care (or even notice) if a step is undertaken by a different resource, is automated, or is removed altogether?

Getting the most from your map 

Process mapping will often draw out areas of ambiguity and misunderstandings around handoffs and dependencies between various business functions and stakeholders. For example:

• When is the legal team involved in drafting the services description and service levels?
• Is it the responsibility of the legal team or the business team to obtain necessary approvals from the IT security team?
• Who is accountable for getting the contract signed?

Use your better understanding of the process to not only remove waste, but also to build more transparent and sustainable working relationships. It may be useful to develop a RACI chart (outlining roles and responsibilities) to sit alongside the new process.

The process map can also serve as a data point for making investment decisions aimed at minimising defects and improving overall quality. For example, should the legal department be spending more on its contract template library, both in terms of content and accessibility?

Final word

Process mapping is one tool in the LSS toolkit for process improvement. Its power lies in the benefit for the user in having a visual depiction of a process, end to end. Whilst individual steps may seem sensible on their own, this holistic view quickly demonstrates how waste, rework and unnecessary movement can so easily creep into any process over time, resulting in inefficiency and unnecessary cost as well as increasing the likelihood of defects.

In the production and review of commercial contracts, a process in which quality of output and quick turnaround are at the heart of client needs, it seems only too right that Lean Six Sigma methodologies and process mapping is now ‘on the map’.

Jason McQuillen is head of managed legal services at Radiant Law and a commercial law specialist, and Martin Brenig-Jones is Managing Director at Catalyst Consulting, an expert in Lean Six Sigma, and co-author of Lean Six Sigma for Dummies.

The post Efficiency improvements in the Legal profession : making it real appeared first on Catalyst Consulting.

Why map process flow?

Not many lawyers would consider themselves masters of process. When lawyers talk about their work, they typically focus on ‘high-value’ activities such as advocacy and counselling. But the truth is process is a massive part of what lawyers actually do on a day-to-day basis.

Process in the practice of law, stated simply, comprises collating information, packaging it and delivering it to the client as a legal product. It’s obvious that good process is critical to the effective practice of law – it just seems that lawyers don’t think about it so much.

Jason McQuillen

Historically, lawyers have been accused of resisting change and being slow to adopt initiatives and ideas from outside the profession. Efficiency and standardisation is looked upon with suspicion, with a perception that it is some kind of trade-off between efficiency and quality, and that the law is somehow ‘too complicated’ to be standardised. Hardly fertile ground for introducing Lean Six Sigma, one might think.

A deeper consideration of the principles and motivations behind Lean Six Sigma demonstrate that it has a natural synergy with law and, applied with thought, can deliver significant benefits to clients.

The relevance of Lean Six Sigma and process mapping

Lean Six Sigma is the coming together of two methods with a combined focus on:

• Understanding the customer’s perception of value;
• Improving process flow to reduce defects and waste; and
• Using data to fuel continuous improvement in a systematic way.

It can be said that ‘Lean’ is about identifying and removing unnecessary process steps and reducing delays and ‘Six Sigma’ is about consistently getting products and services right for the customer. It provides a toolkit for analysing and improving any process, whether that be production of automobiles, financial transactions, customer service centres, sales and marketing campaigns, HR processes such as recruitment – or production and review of a contract.

Process mapping is one tool for understanding how work actually gets done. It provides a visual representation of every step, task, input and resource used to complete a business process. Production and review of a contract is just a process with a beginning (taking instructions and understanding objectives), a middle (exchange of contract drafts) and an end (finalisation and sign-off).

Benefits of process mapping

Process mapping leads to better resource management through:

• Identifying duplication and wasted effort;
• Providing opportunities for disaggregation of tasks to ensure that the right level of legal resource is used at each stage; and
• Better understanding and clarifying handoffs and internal/external relationships and interfaces.

Martin Brenig-Jones

Law firms are sometimes scorned for cracking an egg with a sledgehammer. Clients are often left wondering whether it is really necessary for the highly paid (and expensive) partner to complete a given task, or whether a more junior lawyer could do it just as well. Pursuing that line of argument further, is a lawyer actually needed? In fact, does the task even need to be done? Process mapping flushes out this type of inefficiency and over-resourcing.

The opportunities for law firms to gain efficiencies through a more transparent process are clear. The elephant in the room, however, is that sometimes law firms are incentivised to duplicate effort (eg, have multiple lawyers attend a meeting) or aggregate tasks (have the lawyers proof-read) as they charge their clients by the hour.

In addition to better resource management, process improvements in contracting also leads to more consistent outputs, taking the ‘art’ out of contract reviews. This in turn reduces risks as process becomes standardised with clarity of steps.

William Edwards Deming, the father of quality evolution, placed enormous emphasis on the importance of process. He said: “Eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure to meet customer expectations are related to deficiencies in the systems and process… rather than the employee. The role of management is to change the process rather than badgering individuals to do better.”

Finally, process mapping assists in identifying where the value lies. Typically only 10-15% of the steps in a process add value, and usually these steps represent as little as 1% of the total process time (taking into account delays and the time where the product or service is static).

Lean Six Sigma provides a definition of a value-added step:

• The customer would be interested and care about the step; AND
• The step must change the product or service in some way, or be an ‘essential pre-requisite’ (more generously, ‘does it move the matter forward?’); AND
• The step must be actioned right first time and is not being carried out as a result of an earlier failure.

This is an interesting test for lawyers – how many steps in the typical contract drafting and review process add value according to this definition?

When to process map

Process mapping will challenge the status quo, and ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it’. When done well, it will illustrate new and innovative ways of working. It is ideal for long-term relationships.

When lawyers (whether internal or external) map with clients, it allows them to work more closely and enter into true collaboration. The client’s steps and the lawyer’s steps can be mapped together so that there are clearly defined roles and hand offs.

According to Deming: “The result of long-term relationships is better and better quality, and lower and lower costs.”

If you add faster turnaround to that, you get closer to the holy trinity of products and services delivered at the right quality, time and price. For in-house departments, mapping facilitates onboarding of new staff more quickly as they can see and understand how work gets done. For law firms, it also assist in pricing matters more accurately due to the certainty it provides.

• In our next article, we will provide guidance and tips on how to map the contracting process.

Jason McQuillen is head of managed legal services at Radiant Law and a commercial law specialist, and Martin Brenig-Jones is Catalyst’s Managing Director 

In part two we will get down to the practicalities of creating the process maps and understanding what to do with them.

The post Real efficiency gains for the legal industry appeared first on Catalyst Consulting.

The efficiency of general practice (GP) surgeries has long been in the public eye and  plans proposed by Lord Darzi, the health minister in 2008 aimed to amalgamate GP surgeries into large polyclinics, each offering services to around 50,000 patients.

The new structure proposed by Lord Darzi  meant huge changes in how the UK’s healthcare services operate, with efficiency as the main driver. At the same time as this new proposal, there were other recent changes to general practice, with the introduction of a new contract for paying general practitioners (GPs) and regularly changing criteria for how a surgery is run. South Street Surgery in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire is larger than average, with 20,000 patients opposed to a typical GP surgery which offers services to around 5,000 to 6,000 patients. Milinda Tennekoon is a GP principal at the surgery. He was well aware of the continuous changes and what they might have meant for his surgery. We have re-visited an article written and published originally in the BQF Excellence magazine. Here, Milinda explains why Lean Six Sigma in Healthcare works.

He says: ‘There has been quite a lot of change in service provision dictated from above, changing what we as a general practice have to achieve. We’ve had to realign our services to meet these changes; our funding is now associated with delivering services and if we don’t manage this our funding is reduced.’ A quality and outcomes framework has been introduced to GP practices, which takes into account different clinical and management areas and allocates points relating to the level of attainment achieved within each criteria. ‘The more you attain, the more points you are awarded and at the end of the day “points means prizes,”’ Milinda explains. ‘The thrust of this is to make funding more results orientated, rather than just activity based. We have been able to use this extra funding to improve even further the monitoring and treatment of many of our patients with chronic diseases, there by improving their overall health now and into the future. So basically it’s a good thing, a move to measuring the health service in a better way.

Improving services

As well as changes to funding, GP surgeries have been given additional resources in order to improve the services that they provide. South Street Surgery chose to invest these resources in a sustainable approach to manage the continuing change. The practice feels that industry changes, such as the increase in private providers entering the healthcare market, make it essential to embrace the changes and use the new opportunities to the greatest effect. ‘Traditionally,’ says Milinda, ‘GPs carry out the clinical work and run the business on the side, but we decided that in order to embrace new opportunities, such as funding, we needed to change our mindset and become more professional about the way we run the surgery.’

The structure of the surgery revolves around 14 GPs (including nine partners), nine nurses, and a large reception and administrative team. The practice operates from two different locations due to its large size. With the size of South Street Surgery in Bishop’s Stortford is the first GP surgery to introduce six sigma and achieve the BQF Committed to Excellence Award. Milinda Tennekoon, GP principal at the surgery, explains why the surgery effective communication within the practice has always been an issue, and this was highlighted in our initial assessment. With changes in practice managers and other members of the team over the last few years, the ease with which services can be managed has become more difficult.

In an attempt to improve leadership and business practices, the surgery decided to adopt a more process-based management structure, to involve all partners and staff in different parts of managing and developing the practice. However, it was quickly identified that this wasn’t a GP’s area of expertise, so the decision was made to bring in a consultant to structure thinking and carry out an organisational audit to uncover the various problems affecting the efficiency of the surgery.

Through a simple approach to organisational development – assess, improve and maintain (AIM) – several key problems became apparent in the initial assessment stage. Although some problems had already been realised, various things showed up that might never have appeared without a systematic audit. This provided the necessary shake-up and six sigma was identified as a process which could make changes to the system that the whole practice could work with. ‘We knew something wasn’t working,’ reflects Milinda, ‘but not the extent of it.

After the organisational audit we moved on to developing leadership skills and identifying our own team roles. As this started to fit in with where we wanted to go, we thought, lets see how it fits into six sigma.’ After the assessment stage had taken place and a business excellence manager was appointed, the key areas for development were prioritised. A combination of different lean and six sigma improvement tools were implemented, with the aim of identifying the root causes of the problems, mapping processes, identifying the value steps and rethinking the surgery’s processes using the data collected.

The challenges

There is a growing concern in the UK that more and more patients are going straight to the accident and emergency department at their local hospitals, rather than visiting their GP. The result of this could be that the NHS is charged twice for the visit. GPs are already paid via their salary to care for patients, but if the patient goes to a hospital, the hospital will claim that visit back from the NHS. Therefore, appointment availability is high on the government agenda. According to a government objective, practices are obliged to offer same-day appointments, making it possible to ring in the morning and receive an appointment for that day, and improving people’s ability to manage their working life.

At South Street Surgery, there are about 160 separate appointments a day, with additional nursing appointments, so making sure these are easily available is a top priority. The issue was initially tackled by measuring and monitoring the problem using various six sigma tools and techniques. Milinda describes the methodology: ‘Before we started to apply a response to the problem, such as to change the call system, we decided to take a step back and look at the call data we had collected. We measured the time that it took for patients to get through to reception, for example how long they had to wait in line. From this we could establish at what time the highest volume of calls come through to reception staff.’

After monitoring the call data, it became apparent that the major peak in calls occurred first thing in the morning, when the surgery opens its doors at 8.30am. This led to an examination into why the phones were not satisfactorily answered at this time of day and investigating the key six sigma question, ‘how does the work get done?’ ‘Through this process,’ Milinda says, ‘we identified that the peak corresponded to the time of day when the fewest staff were available to answer the phones – a simple answer in retrospect. It was collectively decided that a team approach was needed to tackle the problem and we managed to agree with various staff that teams would help to answer the phones.’

The team used a key six sigma concept to address this issue – by involving the whole team, problems can be solved. In the approach the surgery has decided to adopt, using a mixture of six sigma and kaizen, it is considered essential that employees from all levels of the organisation feel able to improve the processes of the way they work. All members of the team were consulted at the surgery and they all stepped in to solve the problem.

A second key challenge became apparent during the investigation, which wasn’t so easy to measure. With such a large number of doctors operating in the surgery, continuity became a issue. A patient would see one doctor about a problem and then be unable to make an appointment with the same doctor, leading both to dissatisfaction on the patient’s part and duplication in paperwork in the surgery.

To solve the problem, the surgery decided to tackle the way results were given back to patients by adopting a new system. It was agreed that once a doctor found something abnormal in a patient’s results, the patient would be called and an appointment made to see that specific doctor. To this end, time slots were allocated in GPs’ surgery time to make calls, which were then recorded by having the GP’s name written against the patient on the list so a log could be kept about who had called who. However, when the topic was reviewed, according to the six sigma method of continuous improvement, it seemed that people weren’t always entering their names when a patient had been called. As Milinda says, ‘We’re now at the stage of going back to see how we can improve that system and improve continuity.’

What next?

The surgery began its Six Sigma initiative in 2008 and it is an ongoing journey.

Milinda explained: ‘One of the issues that we have identified is that because there are so many things to do and problems to tackle, it’s hard to see what needs to be done. Allocating the time and importance to different areas is quite difficult. The challenge is in knowing what to prioritise, which is hard to realise as we still have to work on our strategy. That’s the stage we’re at now; pinning down our strategy in terms of mileposts and direction, which will then allow us to streamline our efforts a bit more.’

Having appointed a business excellence manager, the surgery is now investing in training so that the manager can fully embrace her six sigma role. Other key individuals will also be trained in the future, so there are groups available for discussion and the surgery can continue to make positive changes to its structure.

Changes made as a result of using six sigma techniques have ensured a more streamlined operation. Milinda says: ‘Making changes has been difficult mainly because decision making wasn’t very efficient. For all partners to understand all the issues well enough in order to make a decision by consensus was very time consuming. We were getting bogged down. ‘Now, with our process architecture in place, decision making within our own areas will be much more efficient and wasted effort and resources can be reduced. One thing we noticed was our staff turnover rate was quite high.

Our initial assessment showed a degree of staff dissatisfaction, but our assessment this year has shown that staff satisfaction has been much better.’ Milinda has some advice for others considering six sigma: ‘To take on six sigma I’d say that you have to do everything in an organised way, right from the beginning. You can’t just take a little from here and there, which is why having a consultant has been very useful. It’s helped encourage us and keep us moving in the right direction. It also reassures us we are moving forward in a planned way, rather than just reacting to situations. ‘The feedback from the initial assessment was difficult to hear, but it gave us the drive to improve things, and by thinking creatively to tackle the problems.’

In the future, the main goal for Milinda is a happier surgery. ‘All doctors are caring and have good relationships with their patients, but there has been a lot of dissatisfaction with what we’re doing. With our new structure we hope to see a lot less stress and a better relationship with our patients and staff.’

The post Lean Six Sigma in Healthcare – GP Surgery Case Study appeared first on Catalyst Consulting.

Switching to a blended learning model has combatted the costs and limitations of traditional classroom training methods. The Vice President of a global FS company that selected Catalyst Consulting to design and deliver a Lean Six Sigma blended learning model, shared her insight and provided us with more evidence that customers require far more flexible, cost effective and innovative training models.

“We needed to train a number of business leaders around the globe.  We needed something really flexible and scalable and engaging.” 

The costs and limitations of traditional classroom training methods forced the bank to look for alternative solutions. After researching the market, the business selected Catalyst Consulting to deliver a training  solution, which combines a variety of delivery methods including eLearning, webinars and coaching, and showcases the company’s best kept secret – The Business Improvement Zone (BIZ).

BIZ is just one component of a successful ‘blended’ approach for developing high performing leaders and practitioners. It is an online resource of rich video content, designed for ease of learning and available on-demand.

“Death by Powerpoint is no way to inspire people to learn; no matter how interactive the slides are, it’s still powerpoint. The bite-sized videos are absolutely key to the value proposition for us.”

Catalyst’s mixed-media programme uses premium content developed over years of delivery both in-house (since 1995) and to the public (since 2004).  As well as gaining access to BIZ, every delegate has been issued with a comprehensive set of materials and widely acclaimed publications.  The eLearning component has provided the bank with ultimate flexibility for delivering training whenever and wherever it’s required.

“It’s not about taking the learning out of the classroom, it’s about bringing the classroom to the learner, giving them the resources and connectivity they need to drive the change philosophy throughout the organisation. 

To maintain the momentum of self-paced learning, a series of webinars and other networked learning interventions have been designed and delivered by Catalyst. They provide direct access to instructors and mentors to reinforce the learning and enable best practice sharing through peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. The virtual P2P communities have proven to be fertile ground for ongoing coaching, learning and development and collaboration across the business.

“Some of the biggest benefits that have come from this new training model is enabling people to work together, breaking down barriers for collaboration and knowledge sharing.”

The post Lean Six Sigma Blended Learning appeared first on Catalyst Consulting.