Number 105 – Ensure Alignment

Use processes like Hoshin Kanri and tools like A-3 to ensure alignment and track progress regularly.

Practitioners: tactical, integrative, and strategic

The key to this idea is found in understanding the purpose and relationship between processes and tools.  Whether the objective is strategy deployment or managing a project, we have to see the relationship between the purpose and the system to support its completion.  How do we see this relationship between ensure alignment and track progress?

This brings me to a concept I have recently begun to speak more clarity into.  Operational excellence is a condition of accomplishment that is created by the methods and processes associated with continuous improvement.  An outcome created by methods. 

Until this idea is formalized many people fail to see the difference.  Without clearly defined outcomes, we are unable to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of our methods (Thank you, Russell Ackoff for helping me see the difference).  As a sponsor, I found myself to have been the problem far more often than my team members.  I had not been clear enough regarding the evidence of success through well-defined KPI’s, and my teams, in doing the best they could, struggled to understand my frustration of not receiving that which I thought I had asked.

Ensure Alignment and Track Progress

The frequency with which we track progress allows us to check for understanding, and when a communication gap is discovered, to accept responsibility for the lack of clarity and to correct it.  This leads me to another concept into which I encourage exploration.  The accountability cycles we use to maintain attention on our key outcomes have two key elements: format and frequency. 

The format helps us to standardize our conversations and focus on the critical variables of the outcome.  The frequency is a function of recovery.  Too frequent and we may not see or feel lack of performance and risk annoying the team, or worse, sending the message of distrust.  Not frequently enough and the recovery might take far more time and resource than might have been necessary, and the message changes to ‘this really is not that important – you don’t need to pay attention’.

Questions For Your Consideration

What are the strategic imperatives to which you and your teams should be paying attention?

How often are you talking about the process and the outcomes?

Do you know where your customer value is most at risk?

How might you change your routine to insert the proper conversations with your teams?

What methods and tools are missing from your processes, functions and divisions?

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