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My Brand of Insanity, a blog to change thinking. |
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| My Brand of Insanity |
Each newsletter, I will share some random thoughts on current events, service (good and bad) and other sometimes closely attached and sometimes detached thoughts. Having been a proponent of W. Edwards Deming's thinking for more than two decades it is not hard to imagine why the title for this section. Here are a few announcements, thoughts and observations:
Great news for those of you who have downloaded and enjoyed (free) "Understanding Your Organization as a System" from my website or blog. Now available for purchase are the following ebooks from Rain University:
- Using Measures for Performance Improvement
- Transforming Call Centers
- Process Mapping and Analysis
- Managing by Walking Around
Purchase them from Rain University using this link: http://rainuniversity.com/ru-retail-store/e-books/. They are excellent sources to continue your knowledge of systems thinking and contain around 200 pages of learning segments, explanations, and exercises. Anyone purchasing these and later using our advisory services will be credited the amount of the purchase.
More from My Brand of Insanity:
- I have reached the point I don't know how many blogs I have written . . . a lot. Interesting and controversial reading at blog.newsystemsthinking.com.
- I was recently named to the Advisory Board for customermanagementIQ.com an on-line magazine for The International Quality and Productivity Center (IQPC). They will be featuring a column based on my blogs some time in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
- A blog I wrote on Average Handle Time (AHT) in a call center caused quite a stir, read it here: Call Center AHT: Wrong Measure, Wrong Solutions. I will give a post-mortem on this later in the newsletter. A lot of wrong thinking on this subject. Surprise! I was in the minority. I take solace in Socrates, "You can't find the truth . . . by counting heads."
- My blog The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Benchmarking, Outsourcing, Shared Services and Command and Control Thinking drew the most fire from conversations on LinkedIn, especially my arguments against outsourcing. Those in favor of outsourcing had arguments that fell apart pretty quickly. The problem is the assumption that outsourcing is good, when in reality it is usually bad because we outsource our waste.
- Don't forget about the latest in government improvement efforts at www.thesystemsthinkingreview.com and my friends in the UK please sign the petition to make John Seddon "Public Services Tzar" http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/PublicServices/ . . . it will only save you billions of pounds.
For comments or to share your experiences contact me at tripp@newsystemsthinking.com. |
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Post-Mortem: Average Handle Time |
On the surface, the measure of average handle time seems to make sense. If we know how long each phone call takes we can plan for the future (how many people) and work to shorten the AHT. Sounds plausible, but wrong.
You see the problem that command and control thinkers don't see is that planning and improvement are two separate functions. It helps to know the number of phone calls and AHT to plan for staffing purposes. It's the next step where the paradox begins.
The pursuit of shorter AHT will drive call center staff to find ways to get off the phone with customers. As a customer, being hung up on or not getting complete answers not only upsets me, but forces me to call back creating another phone call (what we reference as failure demand). This subsequent call is wasteful.
Service organizations drive customers to IVR systems rather than talking to a live person for answers. In almost all cases this creates more failure demand. Taking time to understand the purpose of the call and giving the customer what they need is the least expensive way to handle calls. This may increase AHT, but save the rest of the system in end-to-end costs . . . something command and control thinkers don't understand.
I also had exchanges with folks that believed that anything over the AHT by 15% (and other arbitrary percentages) meant that we needed to pay attention to the worker. Anyone understanding the basics of variation should know better. Please see: Service Metrics: What You Need to Understand.
There are many other paradoxes in call center operations. We can help you find them in your operations saving thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars without buying any new technology, just better thinking.
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| The Renaissance of the Worker |
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I will be writing some blogs this month about the front-line worker. Command and control thinkers have done everything to dumb them down with technology, scripts, CRM, targets, incentives, policies, procedures and the like. The cost of such foolishness has been mind boggling and damaging.
Recently, I have been watching service organizations and government agencies spend thousands of dollars on innovation techniques. Most of it expensive and useless. The improvements that come out of these "events" or "training" ultimately are ones that the front-line worker has understood for years and are miffed when the expensive innovation firm finds the gold (or in a lot of cases doesn't).
The untapped resource is this very same front-line worker that has been given a defacto purpose in the form of targets, incentives, scripts, mandates, etc. I see way too much attention paid to coaching and analysis of the individual instead of working on the poorly designed systems they are forced to work in (please see: The 95/5 Rule blog).
Fixing the system is what we do at Bryce Harrison Inc. Using the Vanguard Method, we help organizations relearn by understanding purpose (not the defacto purpose) of customer demands, giving the front-line worker measures that matter to the customer (end-to-end measures instead of piece-by-piece measures) and we find when the front-line worker understands purpose and measures of this fashion, method is liberated. We help remove system conditions (technology, scripts, poor work design, etc.) and change management thinking.
Is your organization ready to change thinking? Can you afford not to? Your workers are waiting to be liberated from the chains of command and control thinking. Let the renaissance begin!
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That's it for this newsletter. Best wishes with improving your system.
Sincerely,
Tripp Babbitt
Bryce Harrison, Inc. |
© 2009. Bryce Harrison, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Phone: (317) 849-8670 Email: info@newsystemsthinking.com
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