Changing shoes
In the run up to Christmas we had a couple of people down with the flu. As I am sure you can imagine this is also a particularly busy time of year for us. One of those off was Craig, our warehouse manager. Now I often go up once a week for what has become “Warehouse Wednesday”, but that is really to help us transition the warehouse to our new all singing IT system: Octopus. With Craig trapped under a falling duvet the purpose of the visit changed somewhat.
Octopus predicts ahead what we will need based on what is currently quite a simple algorithm. One advantage of this is that it allows us to run with slightly lower stock levels because Octopus knows when something is needed and prompts us to order it - we can run shorter re-stocking cycles basically. This of course means that we have several incoming stock orders coming in most days, and with Craig away these were building up. Identifying each part in a box of things and scanning them into the right location might sound quite simple but it's actually a dark art, especially as not all the parts coming in are labelled. The second part of the work was to pack orders going out. Our stoves are all individually coded so that is quite easy really – when an order comes in for a stove then the Octopus App on our handsets leads us directly to where that stove is. Here I had to rely on Os as I don't have the ticket for driving our forklift. Also it's a Bendi: the front, including the forks, steer which allows us to have much narrower aisles because you pick up a pallet with the truck body perpendicular to the racks, but it's not really something you can just drive instantly, even if you did have the right ticket.
For flue pipe and chimney orders it's a bit more complex. Everything is coded up of course, and again the App will tell you where everything is, but compared to Os I was working at tortoise pace. Even though we check each order as we put it in the picking trolley, and then check it again in the packing area I still managed to make the odd picking mistake - at least at first. My sincere apologies to anyone who received the wrong part as a result. In the meantime Os was probably packing 2 orders for each of mine.
Many of you no doubt do this already. Do you?
If not then I highly recommend trying out some of the different roles in your organisation.
For any fellow geeks out there I would say at the very least you absolutely must use the systems you build side by side, and for real, with the end users. Ideally though you should learn how each task is currently done by actually doing it before even starting development. Then you should actually use them for the job they were intended, on your own and again side by side with the people who will actually use them.
There are several things which I find particularly helpful about jumping in to someone else's shoes for a while:
The first is that it gives a much clearer understanding of any challenges faced in that role – and therefore shows ways in which to make processes easier or smoother, but also just the familiarity with that role is invaluable for empathy and smoother day-to-day operation. I view a big part of managing as being facilitating your team in their tasks.
The second is that as we build Octopus actually using the system alongside the people who will be relying on it day-to-day gives invaluable feedback. Our development is in general 'agile' which means we constantly change and develop the system as we go. The alternative approach is known as a 'waterfall' – in essence this is an everything at once approach. In reality any project is a bit of a mix of the two approaches with some parts of a system requiring that you switch over all in one go, some allowing a more gradual change. The agile approach allows us to adapt to change more quickly and also eases users into using the new system. This is part of what Warehouse Wednesday is all about, but using Octopus like this, at full speed, showed up several areas for improvements (as well as several areas it already excelled in of course).
The third is that I think it's good for a team to know that any member is willing to pitch in and help out if needed. I think we are a fairly flat organisation hierarchically, but I am still a Director and hence I think it's even more important to show willing. Also I am not really happy about asking someone to do something which I would not be happy doing myself. A friend now comments that embalming might possibly be an exception to that, but I am sure you know what I mean.
Lastly it's affirming to know that the different members of your team are much better at their roles than you. I have also found this before where I have developed parts of our organisation and service (like our whole house heating system design service for example), then worked in tandem with another team member on it together, before handing it over. A year later and they have moved the project on and of course evolved it, improved it and are better at it than you were - and that is the way it should be in a healthy organisation.