Promises, promises, promises….with the proliferation of BPM, BI and Continuous Improvement initiatives do management really understand what their true operational intelligence requirements are?

We tend to over emphasise the roll of technology yet fail to fully appreciate the fundamentals that truly differentiates day to day operational excellence from “betting the bank” on the latest technological fad.

Too many project-based initiatives that focus on improving efficiency and effectiveness do not sustain long after the relevant project has completed – I have heard this time and time again.

How is one able to address the following in a single focused initiative with quantifiable results as rapidly as 2, 5 months after commencement:

• Internal and external service level compliance
• Risk based quality framework
• Transformation of management’s capability to run the day to day operations
• Improved productivity by between 20 and 50%
• Reduced costs

while focusing on real-time operational activity with the existing processes and technologies?

Please share your experience with me at tonycohn@egsa.co.za  as I hear more and more often that promises of such results often fail to deliver.  Even when we do know what we are looking for….

Summary taken from a white paper written by Mr P Ezzard, eg solutions plc.

Introduction

Research in the USA retail banking sector suggests that at the turn of the century, 70% of customer transactions were still undertaken by face-to-face contact in High Street branches. By 2005 this had reduced to 42% and it is predicted in 2010 it will account for only 30% of service transactions (Corporate Executive Board 2006 – Lean Manufacturing for Financial Services).

These face-to-face transactions have been replaced by telephone; internet and ATM entered requests routed to large Contact and Processing Centres. This pattern is being repeated in service organisations across the world.

This change has been driven in part by the development of technology but also by organisations wanting to reduce costs and improve service through centralisation, outsourcing and off-shoring of service support and processing.

In this context further research in the USA suggests that in service industries 40% of operational costs are wasteful even when the work is undertaken in dedicated centres (Corporate Executive Board 2006 – Lean Manufacturing for Financial Services). Similar research in the UK suggests that “failure demand” in Contact and Processing Centres can account for anything from 20 to 60% of all customer transactions in financial services, often higher in local authorities and utilities (Seddon 2003 and 2008). (Failure demands are customer contacts and subsequent processing activities caused by a failure to do something or do something right for the customer.)

It is therefore not surprising that service organisations are continuously looking at ways in which to improve performance.

Two key ways of doing this are through:

• Operational management improvements that result in the more effective utilisation of resources and processing systems available. For example, implementation of operational intelligence and improved operations management practice.

• Initiatives aimed at achieving improvement through re-engineering processes, structures and cultures. For example, “Lean” and “Six Sigma”.

The two approaches are separate but complementary. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of several of the more common improvement methodologies and then to show how eg operational intelligence® can be used alongside them to monitor success and maximise the benefits that can be achieved by organisations striving to meet customer and cost improvement requirements.

To request a copy of the full white paper please complete the form below.

I read with interest the recent blog from my colleague, Andrew Baker where he explored how important it is to get the people who are dealing with customer interactions and processing to take ownership for a balanced set of operational measures that reward the right behaviours.

This ownership should always be supported by a subsequent ability to capture consistent performance data about the processes and activities as well as the people who are performing them.

The most striking thing that I have learned after nearly 10 years in helping our customers improve overall operational management is that having access to consistent performance data is a basic need that provides the catalyst for first line managers and senior managers to implement consistent operations management best practice.

Without credible information about how well processes are performing, what activities need to be completed and how well our people are succeeding in terms of customer service, productivity, skills and quality; a manager is unable to take the right actions to improve performance and in particular the level of variance that exists.

However, simply providing access to the performance data is only the start and organisations need to put considerable emphasis on first line managers and senior manager to make sure that they are effectively trained in how to analyse and use the information to drive improvements in the level of variance in performance.

So why is it so important to drive improvements in the level of variance in performance?

Let’s consider some examples of the impact of variation across a processing function of 200 colleagues:

• 10% variance in productivity can reduce the amount of customer work completed within by the equivalent of 70 man days a week

• 5% error rate in our quality can mean that we have to have extra 10 colleagues just to re-do work that has already been completed once and this doesn’t even look at the delay to the customer

• The impact of lower skill levels across key process can mean that we need to spend 25% more time producing the same level of work

Therefore the role of first line operations managers in particular, is to analyse the variance that exists and take action.  A large proportion of variance typically exists within the people due to different skill levels; pace and motivation levels or by the fact that different people will follow different procedures to complete the same activities.

Consistent operational performance measures at a people level for skills; quality and productivity therefore should provide suitable benchmarks that can be used to quickly identify where help may be required.  This needs to go beyond simply capturing actual activity levels and has to ensure effective comparison to what Andrew referred to as ‘what good looks like’ in his blog posting.

In my personal experience, the consistency and credibility of this data and its availability on demand is the key to providing confidence to first line managers to take appropriate action and make significant improvement in people performance.

Our clients using the eg operational intelligence^® software suite certainly prove that to be the case.

Tim will be sharing his extensive experience in helping organisations set, implement and sustain effective performance management objectives at the Professional Planning Forum Conference on 19-20 April.

Previously we have looked at achieving the right balance to ensure:

-          what gets measured gets managed and then….

-          what gets measured gets better!

Along the way, and with your help, we looked at the need for a balanced view of performance, to make sure measures rewarded the right behaviours and the need for people to “own” the measures that are used in setting the targets they aim for.

But how do you create “ownership”?  The challenge is that an approach to MANAGEMENT information is all about just “management”, right?  Well, of course not!  It’s about “delivering great customer experiences” and it’s about “being rewarded and recognised for the job that a Team Member actually does” to deliver great service to their Customers and Colleagues (as the case maybe).

At first glance, measuring workloads might appear to be the Manager’s job.  However, our experience from rolling out the eg operational intelligence^® suite to 41,000 users around the world, shows that the key every time is to make sure you involve the team being measured.  Rest assured everyone has a view, whether they choose to share it or not!  So to make sure you set plans and targets that people can see are fair – they need to know where the measures came from.

Secondly, “ownership of the measures” means more than just being fair to everyone.  They must cover the balance people need to achieve to demonstrate “this is what good looks like”.

This is why eg recommend:

-          measuring the process, not the person

-          reflecting “what good looks like” by measuring “quality” and “quantity”

-          allowing for development/training time (“earned” time for skills)

-          including appropriate rest and relaxation

-          ensuring customer delivery targets are set

As one case handler said to me:  “Now I know that my Team Manager knows I am doing the right thing, in the right way, when it’s needed.”

Do you agree with this approach of creating “ownership” in teams?  Perhaps you have some hints and tips you can share following your own experiences?  Leave a comment here, SMS to +447785 290346 or email me: andrewbaker@eguk.co.uk.

Finally, have a look at Jane Mayhew’s blog (below) at what engaging people can look and feel like and the benefits it brings.

Next time, I’ll look at “leadership” using eg operational intelligence®.  Look forward to hearing from you in the meantime!

Recently I have found myself attending an increasing number of webinars.  Some have been to help me learn new skills and keep up to date with Marketing tools, others have been hosted by analysts or industry experts to help with market research and some have been organised by potential suppliers to help me understand the products and services they have on offer.

I started to think about whether webinars are a positive or negative trend: yes they are convenient, ‘green’ in the sense you have immediate access to anyone/any company anywhere in the world without spending money or wasting energy on travel and you have the ability to quickly capture and share new information with your wider team.

But on the other hand, web meetings and web conferences are not suitable for all types of gatherings.  Human contact plays an import role in relationship building with customers and suppliers and should not be underestimated.  There is often no substitute for face-to-face contact, particularly at the start of an important business relationship and for the purpose of networking.  

Would you buy from a new supplier without meeting them in person, only via web contact?  Do we need to achieve a balance between face-to-face and web contact?  I would be really interested to know what you think.

Our next Guest Blogger is Jane Mayhew, Operational Performance Manager in the Client Services Department at Zurich International Life.

Jane wrote this in response to the recent blog entry written by Andy Baker – ‘What’s measured gets better!’

Recently I was asked about “engagement” – What does it mean?  What value does it add?  How should it be done? And why is it important?

Having discussed it with several colleagues I have come to the conclusion that engagement is important in helping our colleagues feel that they are contributing to the business success either as part of a team or as an individual.  

Management should have a good knowledge of their business and subject, they should be able to roll up their sleeves and help when needed and, most importantly, they should be able to talk in a candid manner with everyone, regardless of status.  Our Head of Customer Experience manages to share his vision with everyone within the team in a way that they understand and feel that they can challenge, even during staff briefings.  His warmth “engages” people and they want to be a part of the team’s success.  Some may say he has the Customer Experience factor.

Another manager said “say hello in the morning and goodbye in the evening, no matter what your own day has been like”.  Being professional in attitude and human in approach appears to be the key to success.

eg work manager® provides us with many of our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that permit us to measure our successes.  It isn’t the only tool we use but it does allow us to measure and target team managers and team members and direct them in achieving our business goals.  Team members can see how well they are performing and if they need help, can request it from their colleagues with a clear idea about what the priorities in the team are.

Daily Capacity Planning meetings (DCPs) and bi-weekly performance reviews create opportunities to work as a team of teams and the sharing of resources across global functional units rather than at a local level have helped our ability to improve service to our customers.  With recognition and reward mechanisms in place, team members can feel that their managers talk to them honestly about what the metrics tell them and drive a cycle of continuous improvement at both a personal and process level because they have the MI to evidence this.

Please note: this blog post reflects a personal opinion and is not representative of the formal views of Zurich International Life.

• operational intelligence
• operations management
• operational management
• performance improvement
• workforce management
• resource planning
• operational management training
• productivity improvement
• customer services software
• workforce planning
• business process management

So what do all the above mean……why all the different angles?

Well the crux of things I feel is that we need to deliver to the customers’ expectations while minimising the costs of doing so.  If this is the case what is the best path to take…..getting people to do the correct thing at the correct time…not just for a project’s sake, not because a newer technology promises the world but takes too long or is too expensive to do so. Run your business properly.  Understand what you already have in place, use what you have coupled with real-time operational metrics and change operational management behaviours.

This brings sustainability, continuity and supports the proliferation of continuous improvement best practice. What do you think and which initiative has delivered the best benefits for you?

Over the last few weeks we have been developing a new area on the website for case studies.

The case studies detail projects with organisations such as The Co-operative Financial Services, Legal & General, Resolution (South Africa) and HBOS and will help anyone with an interest in operational management to understand the benefits that can be achieved through the implementation of eg’s operational management software and methodology.  All are available to download in pdf format or can be easily forwarded in an email.

If you have any questions about any of these case studies or would like to find out more about the eg operational intelligence® software suite, email ask@eguk.co.uk.

Last time (“You can’t measure my work” versus “What get’s measured get’s managed”) I looked at the tension between measuring variable processes and the value if you persevere in doing this.  It looks like I stirred up a hornet’s nest of feedback – and thank you for it!

I also promised to feedback those views.  Some of these were posted direct to the blog.  But however you fed back to me – whether there on the blog, through e-mail, calls/text or when we met face to face at your office, our Focus Group or Software User Group – thank you one and all!

Let’s start with Debbie Strickland, as she explained about the desire people have in WANTING to achieve the goals you set them based on the measure.  As they strive towards these goals they show their colleagues, themselves and you, HOW they add value.  So make sure you think carefully about WHAT each target is when you set it!  And don’t “micro” manage as you use the measure, but make sure you look at consistent performance over a longer time.

Gary Stone points out the need to measure the right PEOPLE, delivering service in the right way with the correct result.

Even though we measure a process, Paul Cooper reminds us to involve the team.  PEOPLE bring different strengths – so make sure you recognise these strengths and those that deliver QUALITY steadfastly – as well as those who produce volume.

Next time, we will focus on team involvement to support ownership and engender belief in measures, what they show us and the potential to achieve a POSITIVE impact on REALISING tangible business benefits.  Contact me at andrewbaker@eguk.co.uk or sms +44 7785 29 03 46 if you have examples to share too!

Written by Guest Blogger Colin Whelan, Senior Contact Centre Planning Specialist at the Professional Planning Forum.  

The Professional Planning Forum (www.planningforum.co.uk) is the independent industry body for effective resourcing and planning in the contact centre industry, working across all industry sectors to provide specialist support for contact centre professionals.  Championing the importance of these critical skills, the Planning Forum is widely recognised for its best practice research and case studies, as well as the results focused nature of its professional development training and in-company workshops.

Take a look at any call centre planning job on the market today and you’ll find a dizzying array of requirements.  Now, in increasing numbers of cases, employers are also looking beyond the call centre.  They’ve seen the gains to be made by bringing exceptional planners into their customer service environment and want to replicate their skills in the back office as well.

The problem, however, is that back office activity is inherently different to front office operations.  Instead of matching staffing levels to a call demand profile, back office planning is about creating a demand profile that suits the staffing levels already in situ.  It’s not aboutqueue management, it’s about workload management – and this, for many
planners, is a relatively untested area.

In fact, by following a four-step process, planners can not only get to grips with back office planning, but can actually start making as much of a difference there as they do in the call centre.  The fours steps are Process, Data, Planning and Performance Management.

• Process – Understand your processes and their complexity
• Data – You need to determine what level of detail you require from the data you’re capturing in order to ensure that each of those processes outlined in step one becomes as streamlined as possible and can be measured
• Planning – It is at this stage that a planner will be able to produce forecasts for workloads, start tracking targets and begin scheduling according to individual back office workers’ abilities
• Performance Management – Here, a planner will need to identify productivity, not only in terms of the individuals carrying out the work, but also the effectiveness of the processes those individuals are carrying out.

The reality is that defining processes and capturing data will only give you a snapshot of what’s happening in the
back office.  Equally, planning will only give you a tool to effectively resource the demands you’re anticipating. To
create a really streamlined back office environment, planners need to go one step further; they need to analyse all the
facets of steps one to three to identify what is being done well and, conversely, what aspects could be re-engineered and how.

Strategically focused planners are arguably the best people to support this process re-engineering work. But even the best planners in the country will not succeed if they don’t, right from the outset, have a firm grasp of what their success criteria are.

As the year comes to a close I would like to reflect on some of the award successes we have had this year, since the topic of awards has come up several times in the blog over the last few months.

The most recent news is that one of our clients, Legal & General Retail Savings, won the Ventana Research 2009 Award for Operational Intelligence.  This is a fantastic achievement and we would like to congratulate Paul Lewis, Customer Services Director at Legal & General Retail Savings, and his team once again.  Read more about this impressive operational intelligence win.

On 3 December the hard work of the last few months truly paid off with the announcement that eg was the winner of the ‘Technology Vendors – Most Innovative Financial Services Solution’ category at the Financial Innovation Awards.  We identified this award as a key target for eg after the category was launched last year as we believed the eg operational intelligence® software suite fulfilled the award criteria so were really pleased with this win. 

Two of our entries, including Nationwide Regional Brands, have shortlisted in the ‘Back Office’ category of the Professional Planning Forum (PPF) Innovation Awards  The competition is closely linked to PPF’s annual conference on 20 April 2010 with the winners being announced at an awards ceremony on the evening.

This week we submitted several entries into the the Financial Sector Technology Awards.  Last year two clients – The Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) and Legal & General Retail Savings – were shortlisted and CFS received a ‘Highly Commended’ for their project with Capita.  Hopefully one or more of this year’s entries will be shortlisted in the New Year.

With our own eg operational excellence® awards in November, being shortlisted in the UK IT Awards and receiving a ‘Highly Commended’ in ICT Cluster Awards, the last few months have been very exciting and we hope further success will follow.  As usual, look out for awards updates in the news area on the website!

Summary taken from a white paper written by Mr P Ezzard, eg solutions plc.

To request a copy of the full white paper please email racheloliver@eguk.co.uk

Research in the USA retail banking sector suggests that at the turn of the century, 70% of customer transactions were still undertaken by face-to-face contact in High Street branches.  By 2005 this had reduced to 42% and it is predicted in 2010 it will account for only 30% of service transactions (Corporate Executive Board 2006 – Lean Manufacturing for Financial Services).

These face-to-face transactions have been replaced by telephone; internet and ATM entered requests routed to large Contact and Processing Centres. This pattern is being repeated in service organisations across the world.

This change has been driven in part by the development of technology but also by organisations wanting to reduce costs and improve service through centralisation, outsourcing and off-shoring of service support and processing.

In this context further research in the USA suggests that in service industries 40% of operational costs are wasteful even when the work is undertaken in dedicated centres (Corporate Executive Board 2006 – Lean Manufacturing for Financial Services). Similar research in the UK suggests that “failure demand” in Contact and Processing Centres can account for anything from 20 to 60% of all customer transactions in financial services, often higher in local authorities and utilities (Seddon 2003 and 2008).  (Failure demands are customer contacts and subsequent processing activities caused by a failure to do something or do something right for the customer.)

It is therefore not surprising that service organisations are continuously looking at ways in which to improve performance.

Two key ways of doing this are through:

• Operational management improvements that result in the more effective utilisation of resources and processing systems available.  For example, implementation of operational intelligence and improved operations management practice.

• Initiatives aimed at achieving improvement through re-engineering processes, structures and cultures.  For example, “Lean” and “Six Sigma”.

The two approaches are separate but complementary.  The purpose of the full white paper is to provide an overview of several of the more common improvement methodologies and then to show how eg operational intelligence^® can be used alongside them to monitor success and maximise the benefits that can be achieved by organisations striving to meet customer and cost improvement requirements.

To request a copy email me or contribute to what improvement methodologies you are using please comment.

We were really pleased to win the title ‘Technology Vendors – Most Innovative Financial Services Solution’ at the Financial Innovation Awards last week.

It’s obviously great promotion for our proprietary software, the eg operational intelligence® software suite, but it also means that the term ‘operational intelligence’ is becoming more widely understood and accepted.

Do you have any examples of developments you have seen the ‘operational intelligence’ space or ideas as to how the profile of the term could be raised?

Let’s unpack this a little more and then please feel free to comment:

Given my previous blog entry around the problems with the “silver bullet” mentality to solve operational management issues, I wish to emphasise my belief that by getting the day-to-day running of an operational management area to be “optimised”, a minimum of 20 and up to 50% productivity gain is easily possible – while working with the existing operational parameters (the as is) before spending huge effort (time, money) on the move to a new future view (the to be).

This then underpins the understanding of the current situation, generates productivity gains and becomes the “measurement system” to understand what is required to migrate to the “to be” in a more controlled and structured manner.

Broadly speaking operational management should:

• Define what you have in terms of current processes
• Apply real-time operational metrics to unlock the understanding
• Gain control of the current operational space by applying a tried, tested and proven operational management methodology
• Deliver rapid productivity gains
• Understand the type and appropriateness of interventions (combinations of items mentioned under the “silver bullet” point above) and be able to measure their impact in transforming from the “as is” to the “to be” environment in a controlled fashion.

And yes, be able to do this before, during or after other initiatives….

Do you agree or can you share your experience of chicken or egg?  Please comment and we can get some debate going.

On the way to work this morning I heard an interview on BBC Radio 4 with ‘Roy Mayall’, a Royal Mail worker who has decided to speak out in defence of the those workers who chose to strike a few weeks ago -  see http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n18/roy-mayall/diary. 

I could actually see parallels between some of the issues he was describing and the work we do to help our clients improve the efficiency of their businesses.

The first is around unit times for tasks.  ‘Roy’ spoke about a new system into which incorrect unit times were being used, resulting in some postal workers doing their rounds well within allocated times or having to work overtime for unit times which were too short.  The result?  A system where it is virtually impossible to measure, monitor and improve staff performance and have a true understanding of workloads or a fair and consistent working practice. 

As my colleague Teri Febery explained within her blog post ‘Should individuals be credited with additional times for reworking a task’ on October 13:

“In order to measure, manage and improve productivity we spend time at the outset of each project measuring how long it takes staff to complete tasks.  The unit times we record help us to assign standard times to tasks – taking into account skill level – and these times can then be entered onto our software and used to forecast how long it will take teams to finish work and analyse how well they are performing against standard times.  This is essential to help Managers and Team Leaders understand how staff are performing and helps them to identify and correct any issues – such as training needs or underperforming staff – swiftly to reduce any impact on the performance efficiency of the organisation.”

Paramount to the measurement and setting of standard times is communication with staff to manage their expectations and help them to understand why we do things in this way and how it will benefit them and the business.  This helps to obtain the buy-in from staff you need to engage to make an implementation a success.

This brings me to my second point.  In ‘Roy’s’ opinion, the management consultants and the management team at the Royal Mail brought in change from the top without consulting or involving the teams on the floor.  This, he says, has meant that unreal targets have been set, workers are unhappy and traditional values have been lost.

This, I believe, is the most important learning point for any company or any size in any sector. 

In order to integrate a new system or operational management practices into a business, engagement with staff and communication is key.  Sometimes it takes time for people to understand and accept change and the most effective approach is to gain buy in from the start and remove the barriers that may exist. 

Our Delivery team pride themselves on the relationships they foster with clients and during projects are seen as one of the team rather than an external consultant.  Their aim is to understand our clients’ organisations, share best practice and guide & support them through the process of improvement.  As one of clients said at the end of a project:

“The way eg integrated themselves into our business was certainly one of their strengths. They became trusted members of the team, which enabled them to get a better understanding of the way our people and our business worked. The training they provide isn’t just about how the system works, it’s about the way people should approach managing and improving the way they work – a mindset that really does give positive results.”

The workers on the front line, back office or in the contact centre are the ambassadors for your company.  If you get it right for them, they will get it right for your customers.

At our recent Focus Group at Think Tank, Birmingham, we discussed operational needs for now and the next 6-12 months with our customers.   With a range of operational responsibilities represented, these varied.  However, when it boiled down to it, the majority of delegates needed to understand their business (customers, processes and employees), forecast and then optimise their operation to ‘cope’ with the future.

That made me think, as a Team Manager or Customer Service Manager, what should my priorities be now in the current climate?  Have my needs really changed over the last 12 months?

I don’t think current needs are really any different from what most organisations have always tried to do (some just more effectively than others).  The current economic climate has just put the effectiveness of this process under the microscope.

So where should you start in improving your own organisations ability to manage now and in the future?  Paul Cooper from West Bromwich has already blogged about the challenges of a quantitative and qualitative dilemma.  If we add in the need to understand our customers’ journey, delivering on our promises, case ownership versus functional ownership and the business improvement projects that we have to deliver – oh by the way at a reduced cost -  what should we do?

Back to basics I say!  The old adages are the best – ‘If you cannot measure it you cannot manage it’.  Do you and all of your colleagues really understand your business?

Until you do, your ability to deliver is challenging.  So what pearls of wisdom do I offer I hear you shout?  Well how about these to start with:

• Make sure the information you collect adds value to your customers and your organisation.
• Make the collection of it as easy as possible – but make no mistake that collecting it is important by demonstrating the value of the output for those who have to collect it!
• Focus the measures on understanding your customers, the processes they have to follow and your co-workers who have to manage your processes.
• Engage all your staff in the importance and benefits of the Management Information for them and your customers – it is generally a self fulfilling process.  It then becomes an embedded part of your organisations DNA – the way we do things around here.
• Targets change – so change your focus but retain the balanced set of measures – it means you will be making fact based decisions.
• Make sure you share the information within your business – it’s amazing what impact sharing knowledge about your back office processes does for the front office and ultimately your customer.

The list could go on – but perhaps you could share some thoughts on what has worked best for you?  Leave a comment or email me: jamesblackhurst@eguk.co.uk.

A well dressed business lady is telling me how she can now use her laptop in a taxi because the taskbar on her new laptop has dynamic preview of all her running applications and windows. She finishes by stating “I’m a PC and Windows 7 was my idea.”

Unless you have had your head buried in the technical sand recently you will know that Microsoft has just launched their newest operating system “Windows 7” with a fanfare. And you are likely to have seen one of the adverts advertising campaign demonstrating how Microsoft have listened to users and provided the features they have always desired. But have Microsoft just addressed the needs of the travelling power user, or will Windows 7 also meet the needs of the enterprise?

When I go on-site to support eg’s clients, I see computer after computer all running Windows XP. None of our clients have rolled out Windows Vista, and you’d be hard pushed to find many corporations that have done so – Microsoft being the only example that I know of. To find out whether Windows 7 will be enterprise compatible, we need to briefly understand why Vista was not.

Vista was supposed to be revolutionary. It was a huge step forward from Windows XP, had a much improved User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX), looked fantastic, removed core functionality from the kernel (making it inherently more stable), properly enforced permissions and security and had the first widely available implementation of 64-bit Windows. Unfortunately the revolution Microsoft craved also created a massive community backlash. This was mostly aimed at Vista’s poor performance (only the newest / fastest machines could cope) but also at the instability (there had been poor consideration and planning with hardware manufacturers  – the operating system came to market before the hardware manufacturers had time to react). Experienced XP users also resisted the UI changes and it soon became clear that Vista was becoming one of Microsoft’s biggest failures.  Ultimately enterprise system administrators had no reason to purchase Vista – the bad points outweighed the good. This was not the revolution that Microsoft had hoped for. 

Windows 7 is built on-top of Vista, but this isn’t a bad thing – it makes Windows 7 at least a 2nd generation product. But to think of it as a “rebadged Vista” would be selling it a little short. Manufacturers are better prepared for Windows 7 than they were for Vista. The minimum computer specification for running Windows 7 is still considerably more than that required for XP, but it is on a par with that required for Vista:

This may still be a barrier for entry. Many computers in bulk processing environments are still under this spec, even though this spec for a PC isn’t particularly big anymore. Technology has moved a long way since Vista was launched in November 2006, and it would take some effort to buy a computer now that didn’t meet the minimum requirements. Enterprises with 3 year computer replacement policies are likely to be meeting these requirements now.

Technological progress is all about change, and operating system development is no different. The visual changes to Vista were another frustration for the masses. The claim was that the User Experience (UX) in Vista was far easier to use and more intuitive than XP… once you knew how to use it. That last statement is key. Users got frustrated with Vista because “things are so different”. They knew how to use XP. The truth is that whilst a changed UI can be frustrating for an experienced user, the “new way” is usually better than the old and Vista is a good example of this. Fortunately Microsoft has resisted any temptation for another wholesale UI change and Windows 7 only evolves the Vista interface. Many of the advanced UX changes from Vista remain (sidebars, aero themes, user information etc) and some subtle enhancements have been added – in my opinion Windows 7 is easier to learn than Vista.

Like Vista, Windows 7 is available in Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate editions and it is difficult to determine which edition is being punted at the enterprise market – the Ultimate Edition is the only version slated as having BitLocker and multi-language support and all editions include Media Center  – and no self respecting enterprise admin is going to roll that out across an entire organisation.

If you dig a little deeper you will find that a streamlined Enterprise Edition is also available, which enhances the offering from the Professional Edition with features such as DirectAccess, BranchCache, Federated Search, BitLocker, AppLocker, Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and a Multilingual user interface . This seems much more appropriate, but licensing and purchasing will require enrolment in Microsoft’s Partner Program.

When thinking about deployment the physical rollout of the operating system (and subsequent patches, hotfixes and service packs) is a primary consideration for all SysAdmins. Microsoft have addressed this with “…Advanced image management and deployment tools [to] enable IT professionals to … push those system images to desktops using less network bandwidth…” In lay terms this means less work for the SysAdmins.

So what will your average SysAdmin do with all their new found free time? Well, Windows 7 also provides support for the tremendous scripting and automation capabilities provided by PowerShell 2. SysAdmins will keep themselves busy creating scripts to automate more and more of their repetitive tasks until, ironically, creating scripts becomes their most repetitive task… who knows what will happen then… Anyway, another notable selling point for the enterprise environment is the leap to client virtualisation for those that need it.

Only time will tell if Windows 7 proves to be a compelling enough product for enterprise environments. One source  I’ve seen has predicted that 49% of businesses will upgrade in the next 12 months, 11% will wait for SP1 and 40% have no specific timetable. I personally hope these figures are true. Seeing a higher take-up of Windows 7 in day-to-day enterprise roles would be fantastic – I’m convinced that adopters would see a return on their investment. In addition staff would be using an up to date product and this can only encourage them to embrace modern technology rather than fear it.

I’m a software engineer, and whilst Windows 7 wasn’t my idea, I wish it was.

All those specialist case handlers, counter staff, underwriters, complaints specialists and more tell me that every work request is different.  When I ask if we can measure how long the task should take, the number there are or the result achieved, I’m also told: “Well you should have been here yesterday” or “That one’s not typical” or “This is different because…”or “Yesterday they were all easy ones!”

However, there is no need for anyone to worry!  We all know that there is variation in how long things take and so any measure that covers standard time, quality, skill, service levels or process performance can be a good guide – even if the measure is not 100% precise.  It will then support how we report performance or plan for the next period ahead.

The great news is that by getting comfortable with a “robust” measure for these things, aka “the balanced range of measures”, then we have a basis for both: 1) telling us how well our process or operations perform now and 2) telling us how to plan for the future.  They provide a guide to help us answer “How many people do we need to hit our service levels?” “Who should I train next on which process?” and “Which processes will need more or less resource in the future?”, amongst many more issues you might like more information on.

So using the law of averages and the 80/20 principle (“Pareto’s Law”, where 20% of the time gets 80% of the result) we can refine the measures and move them ever closer to what everyone believes is a truly accurate figure.

Tell us your experience of measuring your processes – what works for you?  What should we avoid?  We’d love to hear!  Contact us: ask@eguk.co.uk.

The operational environment is characterised by the proliferation of initiatives that touch on the all-too-often cited people, process and technology space but operational thinking is confused by a number of familiar misconceptions:

1. The infamous ’silver bullet’ – whether this be BPM, New System Replacement /System Enhancement, Lean Six Sigma or BAM is characterised by the incorrect belief that in focusing all efforts on one of these initiatives our operational world will be transferred into the infamous ‘greener pasture’.

2. You can’t focus on more than one thing at a time – in conjunction with the first misconception, there is the belief that, or rather lack of understanding of, what is actually required to support the ability to do ‘multiple things/projects’.

The reality is much of the above is premised on the fact that day-to-day operations are already being run optimally…….isn’t this where so much success or failure is pinned from the get go?

During our recent presentation at the IT Web BPM summit much support was expressed around the following for:

1. The inability for BPM on its own to transform operational management and guarantee results.

2. eg’s ability to either precede or implement concurrently with a BPM deployment to ensure managerial behaviour transformation.

I have the presentation slides from this event that cover how day–to-day operations are not being run optimally and what can be done to turn this around quickly, with some outstanding results.

For anyone who is interested in receiving the slides please email tonycohn@egsa.co.za

After reading an article in Management Today on management trust it got me thinking how trust is fundamental to effective organisational performance. 

“Organisations continue to flatten structures to remove unnecessary layers of management, develop team working and empower employees to take more responsibility for their own performance.  To achieve this you need leaders and you need trust”.  Download the full report at www.i-l-m.com

I agree with the report’s findings.  When an organisation is transparent, applies structure and measures performance of both teams and individuals and then reports on this, it creates a common goal so trust is bound to improve.

Management Today and the Institute of Leadership & Management investigated what trust there is between employees and their managers and leaders.  They surveyed 5,673 people in total.  They asked how much they trusted their line managers and their CEO’s to get a unique snapshot of the state of trust within their organisations.

The most trusted line managers are highly competent, understand what is involved in their employees’ roles, are principled, honest and treat people equally.  How well do you measure up?

The length of time someone has been a line manager or how long a leader has been in a post has an important bearing on employees levels of trust.  However, I would say having the right skills is just as important but often overlooked and not used to enhance business operations. 

Can you answer honestly and accurately who are the leaders, top performers and most trusted in your organisation – those who deliver business results?

eg has tried, tested and proven management principles based on production management techniques (capacity planning, short interval scheduling and line balancing) that offer an approach to improving the management of operations functions through managers managing. 

The methodology supports a software solution that alone has limited benefits.  Using this methodology people, leaders, teams and management are able to:

• Identify appropriate decisions and actions that improve efficiency and customer service while reducing costs
• Deliver consistency in management of work, resources and performance across the business
• Develop a world-class operational management capability where teams take responsibility for their own performance.

The core of the eg principles of operational management® is the eg process for managing®, where Managers and Team Leaders are coached in using management techniques to enable them to make the right operational decisions using the software.  So often we take for granted the skills of our people, teams and individuals without actually really knowing.

The better you know your line manager the more likely you are to trust them.  I add that the more transparent an organisation and its performance levels and expectations can seriously improve your business operations and enable your people to deliver results. 

Are you taking steps to maximise your own personal and team capability that develops trust through the right behaviour?  I’d be interested to hear how so please share your stories with me.
 
Note:
ILM is Europe’s leading management organisation that improve leadership and management skills.  The ILM certificates the Managers and Team Leaders who successfully complete the eg principles of operational management® training programme, thereby providing them with the recognition from a leading national professional and awarding body.

To download the full survey visit:

http://www.i-l-m.com/downloads/Index_Leadership_Trust_09_%282%29.pdf

eg would like to introduce Paul Cooper, Contact Centre Operations Manager from West Bromwich Building Society, as our first Guest Blogger.

Having spent the day at an eg user group it got me thinking re the dilemma of Quantity vs Quality.  To me it is a quandary in so much as whilst each should form the basis of a balanced scorecard, how do you balance this?  I’m not sure how you can truly achieve both, as each has such conflicting aims.

Consultants and “experts” over the years have moved their thinking away from quantity towards the quality angle.  When working as a Team Manager 10 years ago, the aim was to shift the bits of paper from the Team Inbox to the team Outbox as quickly as possible.  It wasn’t until I’d been running the team for a while that I realised that these bits of paper represented the real lives of customers – if the team got things wrong then the consequences were more than just a bit of re-work.

Now I have to take the holistic company approach for MI and forecasting purposes, I can understand completely the impact of both, with regards to reworks, complaints etc, etc… When we look at Continuous Improvement programmes the key driver is ensuring that the company does more for less, whilst ensuring that quality is of a high standard.  So the focus remains on Quantity with Quality as an important Output.

The main target for processing staff is their productivity.  Quality scores come second. Whilst we have dabbled with the targets, staff still work to ensure that they achieve 100% productivity at all times.

When a whole culture within a large department has been fostered towards achieving good performance measures and then the experts change their mind, how do you change the culture to focus on quality (within a short period of time), whilst also ensuring that staff do a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay?

If anyone has achieved this successfully I would be grateful if you could share any experiences with me. Answers on a postcard please….

Please leave a comment or contact Paul by emailing ask@eguk.co.uk

My role in the Client Implementation team involves coaching clients of eg in operations management techniques and in the use of the eg operational intelligence® software suite.  In order to measure, manage and improve productivity we spend time at the outset of each project measuring how long it takes staff to complete tasks.  The unit times we record help us to assign standard times to tasks – taking into account skill level – and these times can then be entered onto our software and used to forecast how long it will take teams to finish work and analyse how well they are performing against standard times.  This is essential to help Managers and Team Leaders understand how staff are performing and helps them to identify and correct any issues – such as training needs or underperforming staff – swiftly to reduce any impact on the performance efficiency of the organisation.

So, do you think individuals should be credited with additional time for reworking a case?

Historically eg’s stance has been no i.e. rework tasks should carry a zero time.  This is on the basis that there is no incentive to complete the case right first time if you know that you’ll get a generous allowance of time to correct it.  However, many of eg’s clients allow between 1 minute and 10 minutes to rework a case to avoid challenge and conflict.  This is inflating levels of productivity and masking underlying performance issues.  Is this still the right approach?

Please let me know what you think – leave a comment or email me terifebery@eguk.co.uk

A key element of my role as a software developer at eg is to keep up-to-date with ever-changing and developing technologies as these are essentially the tools of our trade.  I intend to write technical posts for the blog around changes and developments in the world of software.  If you have any feedback, please leave a comment and I will respond.

Retrieving data is probably the most important function of any development effort, and apart from many third party tools, Microsoft have released a couple of innovations related to representing and querying data with .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1.  The developer, now more than ever, has a myriad of ways to communicate with a database.  This post delves into these new technologies.

With the release of Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 many new data access features were added to ADO.NET 2.0 and there are now substantially more new data-related technologies and components than delivered by any .NET Framework and Visual Studio version since 1.0.

These changes have a common set of goals for the developer.  Foremost reducing the amount of code required to perform data related tasks and to reduce or eliminate what’s often called the impedance mismatch between the code for managing data, which usually involves Structured Query Language (SQL), and object- oriented (OO) programming.

What are these technologies, how do they relate to one another?

The first is the new Entity Data Model exposed as part of the ADO.NET Entity Framework.  The Entity Framework and its related designers, wizards and tools abstracts the relational (logical) schema of the data that is stored in a database and presents its conceptual schema which supports an upper layer of custom business objects, which can represent a domain model.

Furthermore a set of extensions were added to the .NET Framework for integrating queries into the programming language known as LINQ.  Language Integrated Query (LINQ) extensions were added to the Visual Basic 9.0 and C# 3.0 languages and compilers provide developers with a set of standard query operators to query a variety of data sources with a standard query language similar to SQL. LINQ extensions to VB and C# are said to implement the LINQ pattern.

ADO.NET Data Services Framework (formerly Project Astoria) enables developers to make data available as a simple Representational State Transfer (REST) Web service with Atom Publication (AtomPub or APP) format or JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) as the wire format.  EF is Astoria’s preferred data source; LINQ to SQL or other LINQ-enabled data sources create read-only Astoria services.

ASP.NET Dynamic Data (DD) is a framework for auto generating complete data-intensive Web sites from a LINQ to SQL or LINQ to Entities data source.  DD is a highly enhanced version of an earlier project named BLINQ.  DD can create an administrative Web site for a complex database in a few minutes by a process known as scaffolding.

What bodes for the future of Data Access?  Microsoft envisions an Entity Data Platform that enables customers to define a common Entity Data Model across data services and applications. The Entity Data Platform is a multi-release vision, with future versions of reporting tools, replication, data definition and security all being built around a common Entity Data Model.

With version 4.0 of the .NET Framework waiting in the wings it will be interesting to see how Microsoft moves towards its Data Access Strategy.

To continue the theme of customer service, and as eg are hosting a Software User Group today, I have decided to write a post on customer forums and their customer service benefits.

Every year eg run several operations management best practice forums, split between Focus Groups for Team Leaders & Managers and Software User Groups for Business Administrators.

The forums are developed to align event content with industry issues and client requirements and contain three core elements:

• Networking
• Operational Management Best Practice Development
• Product Development

Over the years we have found these forums have helped us to understand more closely the needs of our customers.  They also enable our customers to discuss and debate common issues, share best practice and suggest ideas for how we can develop our products and continue to help them reach their project or organisational goals.

Do you host or attend forums similar to eg’s?  Or perhaps you use online customer forums?  Who should own these forums: is it the client attending or the company that is hosting?

Whatever the case, I’d be interested to know what you think makes a good customer forum and the benefits you think forums like this can have on a customer service programme.  Please leave a comment or email me: catherinestaite@eguk.co.uk.

As this week is National Customer Service Week I thought it was appropriate to write my first post on a customer service-related subject. 

Having been at the Business Process Excellence in Financial Services Exchange at Canary Wharf recently, here is a summary of the main points and a discussion around one of the key themes: customer centricity.

The event was focused around improving business agility and performance whilst reducing cost and complexity.  Senior figures from across financial services gathered and shared views and experiences on how improving business processes will deliver this.

One question raised by eg was the metrics for process improvement – where did these derive from, was the management information trusted?  Did it identify prioritisation of improvement activities, monitor current and proposed process improvement and operationalise agreed improvements?  For almost all the answer was no.  

Customer centricity was certainly a key theme amongst the delegates.  One thing for sure is that people will need to make the quantum leap to do this.  Ensuring success will be no different to any other complex project.  Typical programme issues will be:

• getting executive sponsorship/stakeholder support
• making sure that you are addressing the right business problems
• training versus knowledge transfer.

In a sample survey of attendees at the event, 40% said they will actively take up a customer centricity programme following the conference.

Relatively few organisations have made significant progress in creating customer-focused organisations.  Whilst customer centricity is about thinking from the customer’s perspective, it is important not to forget the internal operational drivers that support this; such as end to end customer service management and aligning the resources of your firm to effectively respond to the ever-changing needs of the customer. 

Can you answer from a fact based perspective if you are actively managing work, people and processes consistently to deliver enhanced service to the customer?  I suspect many can’t or don’t have the real-time management information to do so.

I have a number of case studies of companies who are succeeding that I can share with you, so if you would like any of these then please email me at ask@eguk.co.uk

Since Catherine’s post (‘Award winning customer service’) we have been evaluating awards in general.  We posted a question about this in a couple of our groups on LinkedIn and had some interesting feedback – ranging from negative comments such as ‘awards are just media hype’ and ‘publicity stunts’ to positive reasons to enter such as ‘they demonstrate the quality of an organsation’, ‘improve team morale’, ‘raise profile’ and ‘celebrate success’.

Personally I am becoming slightly sceptical of some industry awards as we enter a number of these seeking external recognition for our business, people, products, software development and innovation, yet whilst having been recognised we have rarely won.  This could well be for a whole host of reasons but the fact is we just don’t know.  Feedback or advice on how to improve is rarely given – why is this?

The cynic in me thinks it could be part of the money making machine called vanity and it is the taking part (and paying the hefty entrance or gala dinner fees) that counts – not about industry best practice.

That is why when eg launched its own awards for clients to recognise and celebrate team commitment and reward the hard work and success of Team Leaders, Managers and their teams, the purpose was to raise the bar of performance and recognise outstanding achievements.

I am sure we all know why we need recognition from time to time and the benefits it brings.  The two basic types of recognition are external and internal.

External: tangible, outward forms of recognition – certificates, trophies, awards, etc.
Internal: less tangible; includes pride of accomplishment, self-satisfaction, and member’s personal belief that he or she accomplished, contributed, and did better today than
last week.

The eg operational excellence® awards are now in their 5th year and yes like other industry awards not everybody wins as that would be counter productive.  However, the reasons why clients enter these awards year after year is that:

All entrants are recognised and the demonstration of exceptional achievement and best practice are then awarded.  Feedback is given to every entrant at both a company and organisational level.

This way you know what you have to do to improve, where you fell down and actions that you can take back to the workplace to make it happen and improve.

So lets not have awards for awards sake – let’s hold them and reward for the right reasons or else they won’t mean a thing.

What awards in your industry do you rate and which don’t you rate?  Share your reasons why so we can get some debate on what works and what achieves the objectives of industry awards.