Author: Mike Urgo
‘Wrench turner’ is a term I have used over the years, not in a demeaning way, but in a way to describe jobs that don’t really require much critical thinking. Everyone has experienced calling a customer service desk and then immediately picked up on the script being followed by the representative.
Yes, I have restarted the device.
Yes, all the cords are plugged in properly.
For the love of everything that is holy, stop reading your checklist and listen to my problem so I can get some help. Better yet, let me talk to someone who can think outside the box.
The world needs people who can follow and stick to a set of instructions, and it is important as leaders to identify those people and put them in positions of success. In the same breath, it’s important to identify those who work well with ambiguous direction and set them up for success too.
Using a coloring book as an analogy, often, early in our careers we are coloring by number. You receive a sheet of paper with a picture already drawn and you just need to color it in with the corresponding color to the number on the picture, simple. But, as we progress, first the numbers are removed, and you must decide how to color in the picture. Eventually, we aren’t even given a piece of paper, we are told we need to make something inspiring and then we are left to figure out what that means.
Google tells us that ambiguity is “the quality of being open to more than one interpretation”. In business and technology, I have found that it often means: ‘I am not sure what we need to do, go find out and then do it.’ For some people dealing with ambiguous direction from executives can be intimidating.
But it doesn’t have to be.
Lately, I have read and have heard from folks within my network that Lean Six Sigma is dying. In truth, to the extent of the rigid process, sure many companies don’t have the appetite for that level of structure. However, it’s my belief that the DMAIC process (below) will forever be applicable, especially when dealing with ambiguous direction.
As an example, years ago I was presented with a problem while working for a large organization:
There was no one singular view of the total technology spend for the whole organization at the executive level.
Leadership not only wanted to be able to see the expenditure, but they were looking for more governance and opportunities for savings.
It’s important to understand the company’s culture when dealing with ambiguous direction. I have witnessed plenty of brilliant individuals run into a wall when trying to apply a process or methodology in a rigid fashion. In this example, I understood that while certain areas of the business were welcome to rigid methodologies, others were definitely not. For example, if I were to gather a bunch of leaders in the room to fill out a fishbone diagram, I would end up stairs at a room full of people working on their laptops and not paying attention or caring.
Rather, it’s my belief that if you are an expert in a specific methodology (PMP, COBIT, ITIL, etc.), you can apply it with people without them really knowing. So, when dealing with ambiguous direction, and applying the DMAIC process, first start to think of how you are Defining the problem and who should be included.
It’s during this process that it’s also important to set up regular check-ins with your stakeholders. Make sure you are catering to your leadership, but also not wasting people’s time. If weekly meetings are necessary, do it. But for larger initiatives, it may make more sense to check in monthly or even quarterly. This way leadership can see tangible progress.
Which leads up right into the next step in the DMAIC process: Measure. It’s incredibly difficult to meet with and illustrate to leadership how things are going if there are not identified measurable items. In the current example, my team and I decided we needed to start by measuring the percentage of adjustments that had to be made during the forecast each quarter and the number of line items currently included in the different budgets.
It's during the Analyze phase that the true work begins. As a team we were able to quickly identify some root causes to different issues as well as some potential solutions. It’s at this point where it’s important to STOP and make sure you are taking the time to clearly illustrate your progress and potential solutions to leadership prior to implementing any solutions.
Side note:
In a true Lean Six Sigma initiative, this is where you would create a true hypothesis and targets and run a pilot project to objectively see what solution(s) would be best and their actual impact. The truth is many organizations do not have the time and resources to follow this process.
Depending on your leadership team and existing culture or process, it’s imperative that the data you originally measure compared to the potential impact of the proposed solutions is clear. It’s even more important that you try to find as many hard cost savings as possible as opposed to soft cost savings.
In our case, being able to show duplicative spend and unused assets was easily shown as hard cost savings and could be addressed with little to no cost to the organization. The difficult part was improving and changing the governance. This meant spending money on a new governance system and was not immediately approved.
In short, we were able to manually put some processes in place at the approval of leadership that helped establish some governance, improved transparency, and established a roadmap of maturity that could Control technical spend into the future.
So, to land the plane here, if you are given ambiguous direction, I think we can break this down into 3 key steps.
- Start by applying the first three steps in the DMAIC process
- Define
- Measure
- Analyze
- Be sure to check-in with leadership at an agreed upon frequency
- Present your findings and proposed solution(s) clearly before implementing them, unless you have the authority to do so.
For leaders who are giving the ambiguous direction, it’s important to first acknowledge that the purpose of the ask is ambiguous and that you are empowering your people to go do the research and bring back or implement solutions. The key is to be very clear on what you do expect as a result. Whether it’s a proposed solution, regular check-ins, or full autonomy, don’t let that part be ambiguous or it could impede progress.
Want to know more about how this type of thinking can have a positive impact on your organization?
Schedule a call to see how I can help you or perhaps you are an organization that is a good fit for my next full-time career move.
https://calendly.com/mjurgo
The ability to take the time to understand your organization, your people, your processes, and translate to technological solutions is what makes Intellectual Nebula so effective!
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