Business improvement failures answering right question is addressed below as a story, which could also have been titled: Executive Frustrations and Opportunities.
Business Improvement Failures Answering Right Question or Executive Frustrations and Opportunities
It was late into the evening hours as Bill frustratingly examined this month’s performance report, which appeared in his e-mail inbox earlier today. This report had been presented this afternoon in a lengthy executive meeting. What the presentation showed was depressing.
There were so many fires to fight during normal business hours that after-hours work was required, as usual. And now, this 60+ page PowerPoint slide deck described how most of the agreed-to monthly goals were not being met. What changed since last month? Things did not look so badly then?
As Bill frustrating gazed out his executive’s suite window, a thought occurred to him. Perhaps compiling a list of my frustration points would be calming.
Bill titled his compilation ″Bill’s Frustrations and Opportunities List.″ He then wrote:
- Why are specialized, lengthy monthly executive reports created? I dread to think how much labor went into creating this document – and the cost? In addition, the presented numbers are not timely and don’t lead to specific actionable or non-actionable activities. I would like to have up-to-date numbers that can be accessed when the information is desired, not an out-of-date 60+ page monthly slide deck that is compiled special for executives. I want the numbers presented so that they are either actionable or non-actionable and they lead to the best behaviors.
- I am tired of firefighting the same old problems over and over again. Many claims have been made about how much we have been saving through our process improvement efforts; however, I am not seeing how these efforts are improving our big-picture numbers and reducing the number of fires that we are fighting. I would like to incorporate a system that leads to improvement efforts that both reduces the number of fires that we will be fighting but also enhances our overall financials.
- It seems like our organization is operating in silos where decisions are not being made so that the company as a whole benefits. What we need is a business management system that helps us better orchestrate the business and move toward achievement of the 3Rs of business; i.e., everyone doing the Right things, doing them Right, at the Right time.
Executive Opportunity to Answer the Right Question
The points made in Bill’s frustrations and opportunities list are shared by many executives. One might state that it often seems like we are attempting to answer the wrong, or not the best question, to the third decimal place.
Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) is a system that provides the organizational infrastructure and methodologies to address all the above issues. IEE helps organizations ask and then answer the right question.
Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) System
IEE is a system that integrates predictive performance metrics, with analytically/innovatively determined strategies so that process improvement efforts benefit the enterprise as a whole.
Additional Information:
- For an IEE description, see ″Business Process Management System: IEE, an Enhanced Approach″.
- For example illustrations of the transitioning of traditional dashboards and KPI reporting to predictive 30,000-foot-level reporting, see Transitioning Dashboards to Predictive Metrics.
I am looking forward to your comments and thoughts. My contact information is:
- [email protected]
- +1 512.918.0280.