Something that I liked very much in the podcast about MT goals was : [b]each time you can, the goal should be zero or 100%.[/b]
I had this discussion with one of my site managers. We knew we wanted to reduce significantly the customer complaints because we know it has a direct effect on satisfaction and customer retention. The average was 47 per month.
He told me : "what you be the purpose then? Reduce by 20% ?"
Me : "it should be something like zero by the end of the month"
He : "come on boss, it is not possible, this goal is demotivating"
So there was a discussion and we decided the following : "zero type A incidents by the end of the month."
What is a type A incident? We just created it : it is the least "acceptable" incident for a customer : when an item is on the shipment bill and not on the pallet. What we did, is we listed the kinds of possible incidents and we decided on which we should focus to get the best effect.
Isn't : "eliminate type A incident by the end of the month"
more powerfull than : "reduce incidents by 20% before the end of the month" ?
The other thing : a goal should be built so it can me met once in the year. I know they won't be able to have zero type A incident the whole year. But if they do it in, say, February, they know they are able to do it every month! And each time they can celebrate.
Any other examples?
GOALS : The power of zero and one hundred percent
An example for a goal, the outcome will show during this year.
We are responsible for a HUGE Business Software Model (about 24.000 Elements). There are about 200 rules for how to modell things correctly.
Each type of a model element is bounded to a special type of programming code.
There is a Quality Inspection tool which examines the modell for rule violations.
At this time (just before Release 1.0 of the software) we have about 1.000 rules violations.
The WHOLE team commits to the goal: Zero rules violations before work on version 2.0 starts.
The interessting part is, that different team members said the goal should be zero, not just me. I did put some hints in the explanation of MT rules for extreme goals, but all team members knew that we are now at 1.000.
I think (me thinks ;) ) that this zero defect commitment is extremly helpful in focussing on the task.
GOALS : The power of zero and one hundred percent
Great.
Another from this morning Goal setting : we have a permanent backorder of 40 lines. The first goal that was proposed was "reduce it by 50%". We know that 0% back order would cost way too much in terms of stock level.
Finally we agreed on 0% back order on "premium customer" and critical products.
Premium customers are a list of special customer (high revenue and needs)
Critical products is a list of products which are a killers if you don't have them on stock.
Parsing Goals
I really like how you and your team came to define a zero-incident goal by focusing on a PIECE of the pie instead of the whole thing. I hadn't thought of it that way before - thanks!
In my office, we're developing an analysis plan with goals along the way. I can really see the team being more motivated to focus on "No errors of X type" rather than focusing on no errors in the entire process.
Cheers,
BJ
GOALS : The power of zero and one hundred percent
That's it.
And when you get a part of the pie (the biggest piece first), you put the bar a little bit higher by taking the second biggest part of the pie.
Very powerfull.
GOALS : The power of zero and one hundred percent
Just an update ... Results are ... stunning
Those unacceptable incidents were reduced from 12 to zero for 3 consecutive months (March, April and May is on its way)! I can't believe it.
And the guy in the shop were so proud of it. They offered me a drink at the coffee machine next to the "indicator chart" .
They were all smiling at me and waiting for me to see the chart.. I did not realy understand what was happening with them. Then one of them proudly pointed at the chart, then I saw it and could contragulate them. God! I could have drop a tear!
Their manager will offer them a lunch next week.