The keys to a system of work

It was a busy 2016, with a really mixed set of clients, including, amongst others:

• a London-based lightning-conductor design, engineer and install business
• a large southwest-based firm of solicitors, and
• preparing payroll systems for one of the world’s largest car rental business

It couldn’t have been more diverse  - so what do they have in common?

They were all having problems with their “system” (not IT system) and were all scratching their heads.  And all required changes to thinking to enable a different approach to the work.  

My belief is that different systems have a ‘key’ - a focal point if you like, that is at the heart of the issue, which then helps the rest of the business/process to fit into place.

For the teams of engineers who were spending a little too often parked-up outside the office rather than on site delivering and earning, we discovered:

• they were often being sent to site with incorrect or old design drawings
• the site said they were ready for the works, but actually were not, and
• the project managers didn’t have time to be pro-active (because they were fixed stuff that had gone wring before)

For the legal firm:

• encouraging more team work
• a little more formal communication, and
• ensuring the whole team, from top to bottom, understood a little more about how the whole business worked.

The car rental company:

• considering the end-to-end data flow from the employees perspective
• ensuring the various data flows are all collected right-first-time - collecting payroll data for hours worked, commission due, and
• eliminating the failure demand at the end of the process by ensuring accuracy at the start.

Where I’ve studied the work in business systems, the ‘keys’ are often the same, and that’s because “the system” is same.  An insurance claim, looks like a benefit claim, looks like anti-money laundering event, looks like a planning application, looks like an engineering install.

A few of the most common 'keys':

• ensure a common purpose for the whole team, from the customers' perspective
• put the effort in upfront to make sure you start with clean data
• only do the value work, and
• do it right-first-time.

Want to know more?  Give me a buzz.

Matt