Tako Eye...and Process Improvement

Tako Eye is seeing the process improvement innately....Calamari is asking if you even need the process in the first place!

Let me start with explaining this "tako eye" thing...I have to credit a mentor for phrasing the "tako eye".   In Hawai'i, we often use the Hawaiian and Japanese words for things we talk about in daily dialogue.  Tako is a Japanese word to refer to an octopus.  If you have ever watched one move across the ocean reef, they constantly change their colors to match their surroundings around them to blend in and better hunt their prey.

To have "Tako Eye" means that you see the tako on the reef while everyone else is marveling at the pretty fish swimming around the coral.  You see the moving creature, adapting, searching and even stalking right through the activities of the environment.  When you are looking at your business processes, what do you notice?  Do you notice things before people even consider the situation itself?  Do you see the root cause before the long-pressed symptoms discussion ever happens?  Then you my friend have "tako eye"!

But now I've had the fortunate exposure to go beyond this - let's make some calamari!  Now that you know how to spot the process improvement, are you able to step back further and not be lured in by the beauty of the movements and the awe of the colors and see that you can satisfy your own hunger with a tasty treat?  To be a helpful analyst and improve process is absolutely a needed skill set.  To go further and challenge the organization to ask how the process even fits and continues to support the organization's mission and goals is a key element of being that senior advocate for the business.

As we were improving a process, I noticed everyone was trying to fix the process.  We were talking about future status and no one was questioning the very existence of the process itself.  If we are truly talking about future state, then you don't bring the baggage of existing along with you.  But too often our stakeholders get consumed by what they do versus realizing they need to rise above existing 'business' and focus back on goals.  Asking the questions to what you are trying to accomplish - asking WHY! - becomes a key value to your role as a business analyst and process improvement support member.

So do you have "tako eye" and see the process improvement opportunity existing in the chaos of today's world?  Do you even see your next appetizer and are ready to cook calamari?  Share your thoughts on how we find and highlight these creatures of the deep that are all around us!

Elicitation...and Conflict!

I had the pleasure to present and share with a host of other industry leaders and flat out fantastic and enthusiastic individuals some thoughts on Real World Elicitation this month in Orlando at the Project Summit*Business Analysis World conference.  Talking about elicitation, I shared thoughts on how facilitation focuses on making it easier for others, helping someone else get to a place of adding value.  One of the things that often comes up is conflict.  A dirty word to some and a treasure box to others!!

Are you a person who runs and hides from conflict?  Or scared to call that meeting because of that over powering stakeholder who does not get the idea of 'consensus'?  Conflict lets you know that you've found the right mark as if people get challenging, then that means they care.  You have found something they are passionate enough to get motivated on - so you should PURSUE it!  No hiding here for fearless BA super heroes!

One of the best things you can do with conflict is to turn it from a "me versus you" scenario to an "us versus it" scenario.  Take the conflict and throw it on the wall (yes the topic here, it's not a person!) - white board works great!  I love to take an idea, concept or discussion point and write it on the wall big so that we - the whole team, those in the room, online and in email - have something to now attack with that same passion that got us worked up in the first place.  You and I now sit and TOGETHER talk about how you and I will overcome the obstacle.  Now it is you and me figuring out a solution together that brings the business value we are seeking.  Now the true passion brings out energy and a fire that helps us all be super heroes to overcome the challenge!

Love to hear further ideas on dealing with conflict!  Check me out on Twitter @jamie_champagne to see all my conference highlights as well as other's thoughts!

Interested in learning more about business analysis, the value it brings and the techniques to be successful?  Join me in one of the upcoming classes - sign up here!

Measuring Success

I had the pleasure to share how "Barriers to Innovation" is actually a list of key items that Project Managers should consider as they move through their projects.  PMI Honolulu Chapter invited me to speak on what I'm seeing and learning in my role as Innovation Manager at Bank of Hawaii.  While many people gave me positive feedback on the presentation, my favorite was hearing that it forced them to not only think about their projects and the respective stakeholders, but to look at themselves and how they are conducting.  Nice to hear that you can share something worthwhile; however, good project managers they are, asked me a number of questions around metrics.  I know this is something both my team and myself struggle in the effort to report in a financial world that is rooted in metrics and numbers and it made me think about how we do quantify success.

One of the things I experienced in my course work in Organizational Change at HPU was that change is measured by the shift in priorities, resources and time. Changes that are to have a wider impact, enterprise effects and social and culture shifts are hard to articulate in the near term. However, if you measure where people spend their time before, during, and after changes made (and then continue to monitor even after projects have completed), do you notice differences? An idea that we need to innovate so that we do not become obsolete in an ever-changing world is easily understood by our organization. But those innovations may be little things that have long term impacts. My example would be 'willing to try' with not only the understanding but the acceptance that not all new ideas ventured will necessarily return positive benefits, but that's okay as long as we learn, adapt and move forward. As we cocmmunicate this mindset, we're not expecting all employees to suddenly start proposing million dollar projects from day one. However, to have the team mention one project that they tried but failed fast and failed hard at a team meeting is a first step. 6 months later, the attitudes are a little lighter as the team begins to each individually mention a small project from their respective areas that they struggled with and changed course based on the results. Then I hear at a different team meeting, outside my innovation space, the small discussion of not repeating an effort they tried last year due to poor results. I'm seeing that people have spent resources on items that may not have been the most successful. They're talking and spending time with projects that didn't succeed on the first shot. Now I'm measuring my culture shifts by these variances in the priorities, discussion and resources spent on projects compared to prior there was no time spent discussing 'failed' efforts, only the positive ones.

I thought this might be a good topic to share for feedback as it's not just innovation measures, but really, how do you create measures for any new process or product, that you have no baseline or even no benchmark to compare to, but at the same time you're in a business and expected to produce?

Barriers or Opportunities - Recipe for Success

After my last post about Why Innovation is SO Hard, it was interesting to see Forbes come out with an article on the 10 Barriers to Employee Innovation.  While workload and resources were both named, I found it interesting the 'concreteness' of the items identified.  But at the same time, these "barriers" I think are the opportunities and if you look at it that way, I think there's a recipe for success written right in front of you to help your innovation efforts succeed!

1. Closed-Mindedness - your opportunity to show that Innovation is about asking "What If?" or "How Might We?"  The more the organization opens up and considers the idea BEFORE judging and saying no, the more ideas and the more open your organization will foster creative thinking rather than appear the nay sayers that is often heard.

2. Traditions - use the foundation you have made to support your trials at pushing forward.  Bank of Hawaii is EXTREMELY risk adverse, and our customers appreciate how secure and safe we've made their financial future.  Trying an 'innovative' approach goes against that risk; however, we've built this trust and with calculated risk, as you engage this loyal customer, explain to them and continue that trust, if you're open you'll get that trust to try the new approach, work through it WITH the customer.

3. Jealousy – this is not a barrier, but something that needs to be eradicated.  You all work and support the same organization – that’s one team.  So get every project or effort talking about the ‘team’ effort.  The team succeeds, the organization succeeds and therefore, the employees are rewarded.  Remove the support for individual contributions and focus on the team work. 

4. Money – rather than ‘budget’ for research and development, encourage the ideas.  If you cultivate good ideas, business cases will emerge naturally.  Then it’s not so much a matter of asking management for money to try an idea, but the ‘innovative’ idea is then brought to fruition through the same channels any revenue opportunity might have – but it’s that time that gets the idea to the point it can show return on investment that’s so important.

5. Generational Difference/Age – this is fact, no getting around it.  Instead, acknowledge it and encourage it as different perspectives together can help evolve ideas to reality.  You’ll need a team and the more perspectives the better the solution will not only produce results, but will be accepted by the organization.

6. Communication – this is a challenge so I’d say start with just encouraging people sharing what they are working on, no matter how ‘boring’ the project is, sharing the awareness of what the organization is look at becomes so insightful that often many natural teams will emerge that want to help the project, whether or not they’re part of the official team.  The biggest thing – share WHY a project is underway, an idea was not implemented or there are changes – knowing why will get the buy in even if they don’t agree, they understand.

7. Size – Figure out what works – a large company is just a bunch of smaller teams.  Get each team innovation in their groups and it bubbles up to an innovative organization.  And when you’re talking culture change, changing habits and mindsets, acknowledge the larger the size the longer the time – so if you’re a large company, its okay if it takes time, don’t stop!

8. Education – I’d push this back to communication.  Those who see something interesting, learn something, try something – share it with others.  Have your organization educating itself.  If everyone learned one thing or found one piece of information interesting and shared it, you’d have a plethora of new information that sparks ideas!  That’s what you want, not to learn how to innovate but to plant the seed to feel like you want to ask “What if” or “Why”.

9. Thought Leadership – to me, simply act in your leadership role the way you want others to act.  Culture change is inspired – when people see you doing things, reaching out and sharing, they will feel encouraged to do the same.  Set the example and then you won’t have to force, they will want to embrace the mentality on their own.

10. Resources – this is a secondary concern, focus on the idea, the value.  Do this while inspiring then people will find the resources.  You’d be amazed when an idea starts from the ground up how excited people get and how much time they put into it.  Watch a simple team building activity, like our recent costume contest – people put time and effort and were extremely creative and innovative with their designs, supporting an organizational function all without pay – imagine this was a revenue generating idea for the organization!!

I’m thinking that this recipe above would be great topics for future discussion – how you’re doing it and sharing lessons learned from Bank of Hawaii!