If time is money, don't waste it with inefficient reporting

Develop and enable the implementation of common management and reporting systems across the enterprise.

Practitioners: strategic

The first idea that surfaces when I read this concept is the impact of management and reporting from my past. Implementing this idea improved not only the use of my time, but also the time of my teams. Time is money is an often-repeated maxim, but I wonder if people really understand what is beneath it.

One team specific comes to mind. We ran a billion-dollar manufacturing operation and had regular and frequent meetings to review performance and make the necessary process adjustments. This team had not experienced this level of accountability in the past, and it was foreign to them initially. However, after repeated cycles, they recognized the standard framework and frequency and showed up with the necessary answers as well as expectations of the impact of their suggested changes.

Time is Money

The first meetings took nearly 45 minutes, but quickly, cycle after cycle, they were significantly reduced. Soon the meeting settled into answers only. I no longer needed to ask the questions, because the questions never changed. The evaluations were focused on the agreed to performance metrics, and the answers were in response to the out-of-control conditions the metrics showed. Standard work, or common management and reporting systems, made life simpler and stable.

After five months, this team had recovered $350 million of topline revenue, stabilized S, Q, D, and P, and were ready to take on an aggressive budget the following year. The following year they managed to deliver nearly perfect delivery and a 20% reduction in variable cost reduction while maintaining production levels. Safety performance increased, quality performance increased, delivery performance remained high, and productivity increased. These were the points of focus of our common management and reporting conversations.

The same level of performance has been achieved by dozens of my teams over the year of practice. It takes a focused and attentive sponsor to get this right, to get this started, and the keep this in place. That is why this is focused on the strategic practitioner. It cannot start anywhere else if it is to affect the entire organization.