Always-On: Trivial Urgency

I think the problem is in expectations of responsiveness. People focus on the trivial "urgent" instead of the important, as Covey said.

One of the issues I have with the complaints of "always on" is looking at my father. He was always on for his whole life and had no downside. He loved what he did. He thought about it when he was taking a shower, or walking to work or having friends over for dinner or raking leaves in the yard. It never was a matter of being burdened by work. He was a professor and consultant. I think it is a mistake to see the problem as always being on. Expectations of responsiveness to thee trivial urgent though I can see as a problem.

I think there is a difference between being also on and energized by your work (that is pretty much how I am, and my father was - I am working for myself, I can work whenever I want) and feeling burdened by being expected to be always on.

The problem is I keep reading about how thinking about work all the time is horrible for people. Well in my experience that isn't true (granted it is a small set of people). But it points to, I think, an issue that the "problem" is imprecisely defined and therefore inaccurate. I do think there is an issue expecting people to be available for trivially urgent matters.

Related: Carve Out Time to Think - Circle of Influence

Leadership: Taking Action When Others Are Unsure

When things go bad

Plan for the things you know can happen. Weather emergencies, hazmat spills, and fires come to mind. Rick Rescorla's plan for what Morgan Stanley workers should do if the World Trade Center was attacked, is one reason why that firm only lost six people out of almost three thousand on September 11, 2001. 

Include some thinking about how you will know what you're facing. While the Port Authority officials were broadcasting "stay put" messages, Rick decided that an attack was happening. He activated his plan, marching his company employees down the stairs, two by two.

I can't recall now, but I think there are studies that show people will be lulled into not acting when a group of people is around (who are also not taking action).  So something is introduced that if they were alone they would react (say leave the trade center, or investigate a seemingly risky piece of data).  But if there is a group people become more passive - thinking the non-action by others means they are over-reacting.  So they then don't react (thus re-inforcing everyone else decision not to act).

This is one of those times leadership really matters: someone not afraid to take action and potentially criticized for going against the consensus group decision to not act.

If immediately upon suggesting decisive action, people jump to support the idea it is likely they all would have done so alone but were intimidated by the non-acting group.  Either that or they respect the leader and decide to support them while not sure it is really needed.

Related: Leadership is the act of making others effective in achieving an aim - Leadership Leverage Points - quotes on leadership

Forced Rankings of Employees are Foolish

Dysfunctional Internal Competition at Microsoft: We've seen the enemy, and it is us! by Bob Sutton

This downside of forced-rankings is supported by a pretty big pile of research we review in both The Knowing-Doing Gap and Hard Facts, Good Boss, Bad Boss. The upshot is that when people are put in a position where they are rewarded for treating their co-worker as their enemy, all sorts of dysfunctions follow. Forced rankings are probably OK when there is never reason to cooperate...

Good thoughts as usual.

My thoughts are that forced ranking inside a company are bad (the golf example, I have no problem with).  Inside the company I want the people (even responsible for different territories) sharing information.  We want to constantly improve.  We want the truckers (or wherever else), wherever they are, sharing the things they are doing to make themselves more successful.  Then we want to spread what works (pilot testing them first, of course).

The system impacts are likely large.  The bottom 10% (discussion, in post, of GE firing the "bottom 10%" every year) is due how much to those people just getting lousy luck from the system.  A lot of it is, that is my bet.  I do agree you might discover some people just are not cut out for their current job.  Believing in respect for people, your first reaction should be fire.  First work with them, often that works, but sometimes not.  Then figure out where they could be useful.

The same lucky system effects are another reason forced rankings are silly.  If you insist on such a thing, just make it a lottery that everyone knows is a lottery (Dr. Deming suggested this - facetiously).  In case anyone really is thinking of this it is a stupid idea.  It is just less stupid than other forms of forced ranking.

Interestingly I here is post from 2006 where the new Microsoft HR chief state that forced ranking was eliminated due to widespread understanding of how destructive such a practice was.

In May, after barely a year as Microsoft’s human-resources chief, Lisa Brummel swept away “artifacts of the past,” starting with the widely disliked forced curve.

Related: Failed Practice: Forced Ranking (2005 post) - Performance Without Appraisal

Profit = Market Price - Actual Cost or Price = Cost + Desired Profit

Comments on Google Nexus Q – Made in the USA

I agree with

"Deserved Profit = Market Price – Actual Cost"
   not
"Price = Cost + Desired Profit."

But what I see glossed over by many lean folks when they present this is volume and the complexity involved.  The iPhone could sell 10,000 (say, or some number anyway) at $2,000 in addition to an carrier subsidy.  They can sell millions at a much lower price point.  Market price is a movable thing (depending on volume).

Also the 2nd formula is fine for deciding what products to build (theoretically - you have to be guessing at the values).  But it is totally fine to say we need a price of $350 for x product for us to decide to offer it.

The task is then to guess right.  If $350 is not going to work you give up - or more likely go back to the drawing board.  Can we make it better for just a bit more and then sell it for $400?  Can we re-engineer certain things and lower the price to $250 and even if that means we had to get rid of the ability to use wifi will that work in the market?

It definitely can be sensible to say we can't make x for less than $400 - we are not pricing it at $300.  It might mean we can only sell 10,000 instead of 30,000 if we priced it at $300.  But since at $300 we are losing $100 a unit high volume isn't great.

I think "If the market price for a device like this is $100, then you have to engineer the total product cost so it can be profitable at that price." is very well said.  Again volume is still a big issue.

Sometimes there are price cliff points - I can't imagine selling a tablet that isn't hugely better than the iPad on specs for more than the iPad price.  So above that level the volume may be miniscule.  But I think often there are not cliff points.

And the company does get to set the price.  The market then decides to buy or not, and buy in what numbers.  Apple would probably sell very few iPhones for $3,000 more than they cost today.  How many they would sell at $100 more or $100 less may change significantly but they would still be huge sellers at either of those prices.  So that "market sets the price" idea is not 100% accurate (I don't think anyway).  I do think the first formula is a better concept than the 2 formula.  But it is something that is maybe 80% accurate?  And the 2nd isn't totally worthless (it is just that it should be looked at more as a should we offer this product or not decision).

Pricing decisions also have big long term versus short term considerations.  Apple has started pricing many things in a way which makes it really hard for competitors to undercut them.  Apple, almost for sure could charge more for the laptops they sell and the iPad and iPhone.  But if they did they make it easier for a competitor to compete on price.  This pricing decision is an Apple decision not a market decision.  The market weighs in after Apple make the pricing decision.

But the price point for a kinda ok tablet at $199 - maybe will work?  Fire seems to be doing ok, for a pretty small, kinda lame, really cheap tablet.

Apple has done well create products for prices much above what people thought was market price.  It turned out people were willing to pay more for a great product.

You can notice that we are trying to sell this car for $35,000 and we are hardly selling any.  Ok, lets make it $30,000 and see what happens.

When setting what prices you will try to sell for, looking at your costs is a perfectly sensible thing to do.  Once the market tells you that you are off, you need to adapt to the market.  It isn't super easy though.  Often you can think the market failed to appreciate the value we offered because we messed up x feature and with y missing it was an issue and people will buy only black from Apple but they won't accept that from us (or whatever).  What we need to do is fix those mistakes.  The pricing given those mistakes the market sets below what we expected but that isn't really a pricing issue it is really a damaged offering issue.  Eventually mis-understanding pricing may become obvious, but it often isn't.

Anyway, my main point is just that the "market price" isn't some easy thing to know.  It isn't like looking up the freezing point of water.  I do agree with the "formula" I just think the way it is presented is often not as useful as it could be.

Why Do You Ask?

Why Do You Ask?

In order to develop problem-solvers, we need to help our mentees identify and acknowledge the problem and ultimately, solve the problem. This requires the mentee to think, to engage, and to take ownership.  The extract and tell method that is often employed by leaders doesn’t do any of that well.

Another useful reason for the question is to figure out the best response.  Often the guess about what the person is asking for is fine, but the truth is that often an answer really depends on what the person is after.  Why did car crash?  We usually don't want to know that momentum carried it into a spot occupied by something else - if even that is "correct."

Usually people don't think when they get a question: (thinking: why? well x, why x, well y, why y, well z, why z, well a, why a - ah that is basically the root cause)  then answer a, see what happened is x because of y because of z which was due to a.

Another example is if you ask where I want to go to lunch tomorrow my answer will be different if you are asking everyone (I can say my favorite choice) or if you are not sure and you know I know lots of places where should we all go to lunch tomorrow...  The purpose of the question is important.  Often we can guess it.  But often we also guess wrong.

Do We Really Need Management Consultants

Do we really need consultants?

Consultants need to assist Managers and Employees work together to Map out what their current processes are and draw out new innovative solutions which takes account of what is of real value to all internal and external customers. This is a "Lean approach" to consulting and is diametrically opposed to the "Audit approach" followed by many consultants.
...
A skilled consultant can bring together cross functional teams to both discuss and resolve difficult even politically charged issues and problems within the organization. A skilled and experienced Lean consultant can also coach Managers and Employees as they seek to use Lean thinking, tools and methodology in their own work space. Good consultants facilitate and coach teams as they find their own solutions to problems they have identified themselves.

You said it exactly right. I would say most consultants now are very poorly used - maybe not using them would be better. But using consultants the right way (to coach leaders, to provide insight from the outside, to provide specific expertise) is very valuable if you get the right consultants.

I do think there is also a problem that many consultants now are focused on the wrong style (how to sell more consulting, spreadsheet management, not developing internal expertise, not having an understanding of variation or respect for people...).

Related: Management Consulting Failures - Toyota Production System, Lean Manufacturing... Consultants - Problems with Management and Business Books

Quick Mistake Proofing Ideas for Preventing Date Entry Error

I found a new failure mode for online bill pay. I had an electric bill due April 24. I mistakenly entered May 23 as the pay date 

So, by April 30, I had a late payment termination notice from the electric company. Kudos to them for the fast cycle time on getting those out. I paid the bill via credit card on their website. 

I’m not sure how to error proof “wrong date.” You?

It is easy to put in a filter that checks and then puts a big flash message:

  “The date you entered is after the due date. Are you sure you don’t want to put in a date prior to that...”

You can also make the data entry bias toward a on-time payment: require an extra step to go beyond the due date, default the value to be the due date... How you implement this would depend on the entry method.

It is really easy to do well if you are using calendar point and click – grey out all the post due date entries, if click on a greyed out entry, pop-up a message that says “that date is after the due date are you sure...” It gets less effective/cool if it is just text entry...

Even with text entry thought you can popup the message on submit of the form if the date is too late (so they enter the wrong date but you catch it before the action is completed).

You can also follow up with (using this method alone is better than nothing but it is pretty lame so I wouldn’t suggest it as the only method unless nothing else can be done reasonably) email saying “you entered a date after the due date in your last bill payment, if you don’t pay before that late fee…

Anyone what to hire me for a few minutes at a time to think of ways to make it harder to make an error just let me know. I don’t like processes that allow errors so have become fairly good and thinking up ways to make it harder pretty quickly :-)

Related: Mistake Proofing Deployment of Software Code - Improving Software Development with Automated Tests - Poka-Yoke Assembly

Customer Focus is Central to Lean Thinking

Agile UX vs Lean UX – How they’re different and why it matters for UX designers by Anders Ramsay

Good design is good design, regardless of if we are living in an Agile or Lean or [insert new term] universe. The only real difference when adopting these methods is in the How.
...
So, while there certainly is a lot that UX designers can learn from Agile thinking on software delivery (such as to automate everything that can be automated), the real pay-off for UX practitioners is in the collaboration part.
...
Lean UX, on the other hand, is really a reference to Lean Startup a la Eric Ries (and Steve Blank, basically the godfather of Lean Startup, and creator of concepts like Customer Development and GOOBing), which extends Agile ideas to include methods for ensuring that there in fact is a market for the product you are doing such a good job designing and shipping early and often.

Lean is also very concerned with customer value. From that perspective usability is directly relevant and fits perfectly in the lean context. Lean focused on the ideas of usability for customers in the world of physical products. Usability of software fits with this perfectly.

The focus of reducing waste in lean context is to look at the "value stream" and eliminate what doesn't add value to the customer. The primacy of user is there (though some applying lean don't understand this).

Dr. Deming said the customer is the most important part of the production line. He understood the customer (end user) had to be the focus of your efforts to improve. Toyota took Deming's ideas and created the Toyota Production System (Shoichiro Toyoda, Honorary Chairman and director of Toyota: "There is not a day I don't think about what Dr. Deming meant to us. Deming is the core of our management.". Lean manufacturing is the name given to the practices of Toyota as Jim Womack and Dan Jones as they researched the company (and wrote The Machine That Changed the World.