What We Can Learn from Line Cooks

This past weekend, I sat at the Waffle House counter for breakfast. My breakfast was done exactly how I ordered it, down to the scattered well hash-browns. I thought for sure something would be wrong as I customized almost everything on my plate. However, I noticed the almost symphonic movements and coordination between the waitress and the line cooks to ensure every plate from the line was correct.

This perfect symphony began with the waitress standing with the line cooks and yelling out items ordered. She yelled, “Pull 2 sausages, well done, pull 3 bacon slices, extra crispy” and I saw the first line cook pull the meats and put them into the queue. But what struck a chord with me, was the fact that he replied the same acknowledging, “2 sausages, well done down, 3 slices of bacon, extra crispy down”.?

I noticed how this behavior proceeded down the line from the line cook preparing eggs, potatoes, and bread, down to the waffle line cook. When the order was completed they again chanted the order back and ended with the words "ready for pickup". The food moved from line cook to line cook promptly.

So this got me thinking about the communication with our UX/UI “line cooks”. Why is it that we document, meet and discuss and it seems certain elements of our order are still misunderstood? As creatives, we provide design intent, annotations and even do creative handoffs to our development “line cooks”. Remembering and analyzing a couple of recent situations, I had an ah-ha moment. I realized there is one very important element missing, exact acknowledgment.

I know what you are thinking, why not just ask them to repeat what you said – and we do. But because of different cultures, languages, locations, and even our busy schedules, we accept an acknowledgment that sounds close to what we intended. We need to stop this and correct this immediately like the line cooks. While sitting there for breakfast, in one of the situations, the waitress said “Drop 2 eggs over medium” and the line cook said, “2 eggs medium”. This was wrong and the situation was quickly corrected when she repeated, "No, 2 eggs over medium and then the line cook acknowledged by repeating “2 eggs over medium” avoiding delivery of an incorrect breakfast plate and making a customer unhappy.

So when we brief and handoff, our request must be acknowledged exactly as it is intended not as it is understood. Spend the time discussing and training your teams to become more like the super line cooks at Waffle House. With so many different moving parts and teams involved in our UX/UI projects, it is important to know, who does what, the sequence, and exactly what needs to be delivered. This will ensure you move from one phase to the other without issues, delivering the results that your customer is expecting.

After all, we want every customer to be happy.