The Roadmap – Stage 8 Establishing the Current State Part 2

Welcome to the TLS Continuum Change Maestro’s Roadmap newsletter. A new edition will be released every Tuesday on LinkedIn. It is by nature an interactive newsletter. What do I mean? My initial intention was the development of a dialogue pertaining to the concept of a change roadmap. I was looking for interaction between those of us here as to what each phase so far meant to you. It appears as though you would prefer to be passive readers, so be it. However, let me reiterate that as we progress through the roadmap if you have something you want to contribute, feel free to comment on any issue that perks your thoughts.

?The next step upon completion of the Gemba Walk

We mentioned earlier in the previous eduition of this newsletter the need to document everything. One of the reasons to do so is to describe in detail the conditions of your current process. One of the tools available to do this is through the use of William Dettmer’s Logical Thinking Process and the Current Realty Tree. In the course of 10 steps you can gain a clear picture of the current state of your processes from your notes. It would be worthwhile to investigate these ten steps.

Curent reality Tree

It should be noted at this point that we are not attempting a full discussion of the various tools here but to provide an overview of them. To those who want a more in-depth discussion of the tools pick up a copy of H. William Dettmer’s The Logica Thinking Process.

?Step #1: Identify your span of control and the sphereof influence

Answer us a simple question is your customer complaint based in the emergency evacuation plan or the HVAC plan, the chances that you will be dealing with a universal problem facing the entire organization is minimal. As a result we need to concentrate on a limited scope problem that may affect a segment of the organization.

Once we recognize that the customer’s problem is a confiend one, we need to take steps to understand both how it is manifested and how the problem affects your organization.? We begin the process by seeking answers to two questions. The first is what is the span of the problem.

The Human Capital Hub tells us that this span comes in two formats – a wide span and a narrow one. 77 In a wide span situation, the management oversees a wide breath of functions that influence the process. This is true when the impact of the problem is spread across multiple areas of the organization. In the long run the wide span is of more benefit to the organization because eit allows for your subject matter experts to take on added responsibilities and higher degrees of engagement and empowerment. This can be a good thing.

The second question regarding the sphere of influence of the team is the case of the other option, that of a narrow span of control, it simply means that the number of unctions involved in resolving the problem is lower. The type of problem will dictate whether you want to have a wide span of control or a narrow one. It also means that the level of the span of control will determine how you go about compiling suggestions for the removal of the system constraints. It will also determine the scope of the problem.

Another way to look at the span of control issue is to consider who is resolving the problem. If you have a wide span of control the tendency is to use a fully implemented corss-functional team. On the other hand, if yu are resolving the problem through the use of limited resources such as a Quality Circle you are utilizing a narrow span of control.

The second issue in the problem solving effort is the question of the sphere of influence of the cross-functional team. The website Rethority tells us that the sphere of influence is the collection of people who know you or know of you.78 Why is the cross-functional team in place? Is it to appease the customer? Is it to make it appear like you are trying to resolve the problem. Or, is ithat the team has a legitimate purpose and goal for resolving the problem? In the latter case the organizational parts know the team working on resolving the issue and have trust in their ability ot resolve the issue. The goal then must be for the team to gain the trust of the remainder of the organization.

The website the Muse tells that sphere of influence is detrmined in four distinct ways. Each of the ways increasing the level of trust and impact of the team. 79 The first is exemplified by the vast majority of management. You have a problem and management tells you this is how you are going to resolve it. They survive in a command and control environment/ They tell the human capital assets and the stakeholders, here is the problem and this is the way we are going to resolve it. Brings ot mind the title of a recent book by Carole Leoning and her collegues, “Only I can fix it” In today’s VUCA world this is the least acceptable method for exercising your sphere of influence.

In the second type of infuence the management is tasked with selling the organization on the benefits of the suggested resolution. This is still a limited involvement. It is like when you went and purchased you new car and the salesman at the dearlership was preaching the virtues of the new vehicle. You may not think the solution is the one for you but management is stillpushing the option to get you to accept the new vehicle.

In the thrid? type of influence, management utilizes Dr. Tony Alessandra’s Platnum Rule and gains by in on the problem resolution through the use of non-manipulative selling. The concept may rattle some within your organization because that is not the typical way of selling an idea. The goal is to demonstrate for the customer how the problem resolution will resolve the problem and how it resolves their problem.80 You are the organization consultant not the organizational prophet. You are there to offer advise to the organization not once again telling the stakeholders that this is the way it will be.

The fourth type of influence is the paramount of the nfluence types. It asks you to discover the solujtions through collaboration. The cross-functional team in conjunction with the stakeholders work to discover the solution stogether with the input of everyone who touches the process that is presenting the problem in any way. If you have even the minimal invovlment in the process you should be involved in the solution to the problem.

We can’t expect to meet the needs of the customer to resolve the problem without influencing others. We need them to understand what is init for them and to act accordingly. The dynamic combination of span of control with the level of influence the cross-functional team exerts on the organization is the key to continuous process improvement success.

Step #2:Create your list of undesireable efects

We discussed earlier, the natural reaction when a customer calls for the first time to alert you to a problem. The organizational defense mechanisms go up and you begin to pronounce all the reasons why the problem can’t exist. Here is reality. There will be problems. It is your charge to find a resolution to the problems. The initial task is to identify how the problem is manifesting itself.

?Once again, during our discussion of the project maps, we talked about the use of a tool referred to as a goal tree. As we discussed the goal tree begins with your goal and then established the critical factors that must be present to reach the goal. It then sets out the necessary factors that you need to obtain the critical success factors.

We want to turn the Dettmer’s Goal Tree on its head if you will. Our suggestion is that we change the name of the Goal Tree to the TLS Continuum Problem Resolution Guide as shown in Figure 13.2 below.

Using the same nomenclature as shown in the example above, we redefine the components. In place of the term goal place the problem statement.

This problem statement should be in the form of a full statement. For example, The XYZ product is not performing according to specifications or the applicant tracking system is referring us candidates who do not have the requisite skills according to the job requisition. Granted the job requirements may have been off to begin with but the problem can still exist.

?Remember our earlier discussion of the Goal Tree? Well, turn it on it's head.?Begin at the same starting point with the goal statement. This time the goal statement is the nature of the problem found during the Gemba Walk.

Having determined the nature of the problem being presented, the next level down in the problem resolution guide is that of asking what is the reason for the problem to be appearing.? Ask how is the problem manifesting itself? What is the customer telling you that the presence of the problem means in that their needs are not being met. Be specific. You want to know precisely why the problem exists. The next level down is not the critical success factors but rather answering the question how the product is not, meeting their demands. Be very specific in your answers.? You want to try and present at a minimum five reasons that the problem is presenting itself.

The final stage of the problem resolution guide may be the most difficult to complete. You need to take each of the five areas being presented and define why they are happening. Define the cause and effects of each condition to gain knowledge of why they are happening.

Gemba Tool – The TLS Continuum takes from the Lean side of the equation and implements the 5 Why’s. Using a cascading series of five questions you can reach a conclusion of what the root cause of the problem is.

Consider this example:

????? The problem: John printed too many emails in violation of corporate policy.

????? Why: John did not know about the policy regarding printing emails

????? Why: Management had not told John about the policy

????? Why: The policy was not part of the onboarding process

????? Why: The policy was not in the employee handbook

????? Why: The policy was not written down anywhere

????? Root Cause: The policy was not in written form.

Gemba Tool-The continuum also offers up a tool called the Ishikawa Fishbone diagram which graphically present the determination of the cause-and-effect relationships using the skeleton of a fish. The diagram looks at the contribution of man (People), Machine (equipment), Materials, Management and Environment. It is a graphic way to show the 5 Why’s. It is a useful too when the team in a rut in determining the root causes of the problem.

Step #3: Begin the Current reality Tree

Select the worse reasons why the problem exists and create the relationships between the problem and the results of the problem. You clearly want to estabish a definitive relationship between your undesireable effets and the problem. If we review the Undesireable effects carefully enough we will find that mor eoften then not two of them will relarte closely to each other. These should be the start of your current rea;ity tree. By doing so can you identify any missing steps in the process? If so, add those steps to the process.

Step #4: Connect the first two UDE’s

Take those two interrelated undesireable effects and draw the connection between them to your problem. These become the first parts of your current reality tree. It begins to show the intrelationships between the problem and what damage it may be causing to the organization and its stakeholders.

Step #5: Connect the other UDE’s

Having established the relationship between the first two undesriebale effects go back and connect the remaining undesireable effects to the tree.

Step #6: Build the cause and Effect Chain downwards

Remember in our dicussion of the Goal Tree, the arrows of relationship ran from the bottom to the top or the goal statement. In the Problem Resolution Guide we do just the opposite. The arrows of relationship run from the top DOWN to the bottom of the Guide. It demonstratres that the flow of relationship runs from the problem statement to the effects of the problem existing to the root causes of the problem.

Step #7: Redesignate the UDE’s

What happens if in the course of getting to this step, you find additional undersireable effects? It is at this point that you can add them to your tree. Once you have them all connceted, go back and look at your tree. As you progressed through the construction of the tree are all the UDE’s still undesireable? If not, remove them from the tree. Remove any potential cuases if they no longer of value to the issue at hand.

Step#8: Identify the root cause of the Problem

Go back to the Gemba Walk, the 5 Wy’s and the Ishikawa Fishbone and single out the root cause of the problem. With the root cause identified, the cross-functional team can begin the discussion regarding how to remove the root cause from the equation.

Step #9: Look for missing connections

With the root cause in place and the solutions discussed, go back and look at your tree and seek out any apparent missed connections. You need to at this point make sure that the new connections are conneted to the remainder of the tree.

Step #10: Decide which are the priority root causes to be resolved

The final step in your construction of the Current Reality Tree is to review all the potential root causes that have been identified and determine which are the most important. It is the root cause(s) that need to be removed that should take priority. It is these priority root causes which should have the greatest impact on why the problem exists and with the consult of the stakeholders they should be addressed to resolve the problem.

?Looking for the perfect model for improving your organizational processes? Pre-order your copy of the TLS Continuum Field Guide - How the Theory of Constraints, Lean and Six Sigma will transform your operations and Program flow to be released in February of 2024

?About the author:?Daniel Bloom?knows HR and Change Management. He’s a speaker on transformational HR, a strategic HR consultant and trainer. Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter. The best strategy that I ever undertook was earning my SPHR and the Six Sigma Black Belt. You can take the same path with our Road to Organizational Excellence Seminar. For more information visit https://dbaiconsulting.com/tls-continuum-master-seminars or email us at [email protected]

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