We ask clients how they feel before we start and after we finish.
Here’s what they feared—and what actually happened.
- It was very difficult, especially at the beginning but about ½ way through we started to get some wins. It did not always need to involve the Team Manager for every session but important to choose a good program team.
- The level of pressure seemed to ease off as we moved on. It wasn’t theoretical stuff we were working on – it was our own daily/weekly issues – that makes a difference.
Consultants asked questions to understand our work first.
I can say that all suggestions were run by me & my team and we always gave our honest feedback.
We were able to make sure that our goals were made clear and for the most part we did see improvements in the things we wanted for ourselves as well as what the SMT were looking for.
- There was no time-in-motion monitoring. We were asked our views on tasks, tasks times, levels of complexity etc and our feedback was used. It was a bit tedious in the beginning (Milestone 1 and 2) but the staff didn’t mind contributing.
- When we got into data reporting, it did become clear that some resources seemed to be more productive than others -but then the next step is to find out why? i.e. lack of skills, support, incorrect reporting etc.
- It doesn’t need to feel invasive. You can have a conversation about the data and make a plan.
- Yes, there are reports to the SMT, but they were shared and reviewed with us in advance.
- We attended the Steering Meetings and were free to give our own take on things.
- It was a bit tedious building the details but in the end, we were able to create reports that we can use every day/week that makes it a lot easier to keep focussed on the key metrics.
- Well, we know it’ll take less time and effort to stay on track now.
The program did take the team’s views and suggestions on board: examples are –
- Creation of the demand & capacity task information,
- The process mapping
- The Opportunities Workshop,
- The A3 Business Cases and
- Issues with reporting
- Yes, Senior Management Team (SMT) will probably have charged them with releasing cost/FTE. But now we know that can only happen if the data shows that there are costs to be removed or resources that are excess to requirements.
- Sometimes the resources one team has beyond their requirements can be used by other teams who are under pressure.
- If it turns out from the data review that a team needs additional resources, even in the short term, they give you a method that shows that, that can be taken to the SMT.
- Even though it took time away from our working day for a good while- all of our operational and service metrics really improved during the program.
- We were able to maintain improvements on our own afterwards using the new dashboards to highlight our performance each week – as opposed to our SLA reports which can only provide a look back at the end of the month – when it’s too late to change anything.
- It did not feel like that as the program progressed. We worked together to work out the solutions, and we (my team) were to ones who had to implement the changes.
- We were able to contribute as much or as little as we choose at each steering meeting. We highlighted any challenges we had and what it took for us as a team, to bring about the results.
- Their role (consultants) is mostly helping to understand the benefit of operations tools, supporting us in problem solving, agreeing the daily metrics that drive good performance and designing effective reporting.
- Once they’ve left, the results are ours to maintain and improve -we’re the ones on the ground doing the work and we get the credit for that.