Designing of Products and Services

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Last week I posted a piece on using a form, fit and function analysis in reverse engineering. This type of analysis can also be used in product or service design. The starting point is different, but the analysis works the same way. In reverse engineering, the form, fit and function analysis starts with a product or service and works backward to determine how something works. In the design of products and services the process starts with a customer need and works toward a solution.

The questions that need to be answered in design work are similar to the reverse engineering questions. The need to repeat the steps of the analysis is also similar.  The main difference is that in reverse engineering, the product or service is the focus, but in design, the customer is the focus.

There are areas of overlap in a form, fit and function analysis. This is the natural result of moving through the form, fit and function steps in the analysis process. Additionally, the steps are cyclic in that the analysis is repeated with increasing levels of detail. This “drilling down” to more granular knowledge of how something works, or should work, allows for a more robust design of a new, or refined, product or service.

As in the previous post, the questions in each category are framed around the interrogative, “What”. To repeat the analysis cycle to gain better detail, the “why” must also be discovered.  Also, a mind map tool is useful in documenting progress.

Form:

  • What customer need is the product or service addressing?
  • What does a solution look like to the customer?
  • What is the assumed skill level of the user of the product or service?
  • What tools and knowledge are typically, easily, at hand for the customer to use with the product or service?
  • What is the history of the customer need?
  • What other solutions are already available to meet the customer’s need?

Fit:

  • In what specific situation(s) is the product or service intended to be used?
  • What are the specific features of the product or service that the customer will consider critical to quality?
  • Who will use this product or service? (Who is the customer?)

Function:

  • Looking at the product or service’s internal processes, what will it do?
  • Looking that product or service’s internal processes, how does it do it?

The above questions are a starting point and will get more specific as more knowledge is gained. It is simply a matter repeating the analysis cycle until it makes sense to move forward on a prescribed course of action.

There is a lot more detail to the form, fit and function method of designing products and services than this post can cover. To learn more, check out my Lean Six Sigma book titled, “Lean and Mean Process Improvement”.

Reverse Engineering

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This post deals specifically with the form, fit and function method of reverse engineering. This is a general methodology and a good starting point. A more specific methodology may be needed for specific types of projects. Reverse engineering is an important process in Lean Six Sigma. We may not call it reverse engineering, but that is what it is. Please bear in mind that this post is a general, not a detailed, description of this methodology.

There are areas of overlap in a form, fit and function analysis. This is the natural result of moving through the form, fit and function steps in the analysis process. Additionally, the steps are cyclic in that the analysis is repeated with increasing levels of detail. This “drilling down” to more granular knowledge of how something works, or should work, allows for a more robust design of a new, or refined, product or service.

At the core of this analysis process is the strategy of documenting what you know separately from what you assume. The purpose of the next cycle of analysis is to move assumptions from the assumed category to the fact category (or eliminate them). At the end of each cycle, there will be an increase in what is known and a new set of assumptions for the next cycle. Assumptions stay assumptions until they are resolved to fact or eliminated.

The form, fit and function analysis is similar to a forensic analysis of failures. The steps may have different names, but the drilling down process is the same. The key is to avoid errant leaps of logic that lead to incorrect conclusions. The analysis is repeated at increasing levels of detail, as the detail is discovered. The analysis moves us from assumption to fact.

You will notice that the questions in each category below are framed around the interrogative, “What”. To repeat the analysis cycle to gain better detail, the “why” must also be discovered.  A “mind map” is a good tool to use in documenting the progress made in the various analysis cycles.

Form:

  • What is the purpose of the product or service?
  • What assumptions are built into the design of the product or service?
  • What is the assumed skill level of the user of the product or service?
  • What other tools or knowledge are needed to use the product or service?
  • What is the development history of the product or service? (What product or service does it replace and why?)

Fit:

  • In what specific situation(s) is the product or service intended to be used?
  • What are the specific capabilities of the product or service?
  • What are the specific capabilities lacking in the product or service?

Function:

  • Looking at the product or service’s internal processes, what does it do?
  • Looking that product or service’s internal processes, how does it do it?

The above questions are a starting point and will get more specific as more knowledge is gained. It is simply a matter repeating the analysis cycle until it makes sense to move forward on a prescribed course of action.

There is a lot more detail to the form, fit and function method of reverse engineering than this post can cover. To learn more, check out my Lean Six Sigma book titled, “Lean and Mean Process Improvement”.

Defining Leadership

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Leadership is not something that can be defined within the confines of a witty statement. In fact, it may be that you cannot easily define leadership in several pages of intelligent ramblings. My personal belief is that defining leadership is like describing a boot with nothing to go on except a boot print. Let’s see if I can describe the boot print.

First, leadership does not exist outside of the individual. It requires a host to manifest itself. This is why so many fail to capture the essence of leadership when trying to describe it as a separate stand alone quality. Leadership is not a thing to be assigned. It is, instead, a result of other “things”.

Second, leadership does to exist without followship. It works like this. Leadership exists because of followship, which exists because of leadership, which exists because of followship….

For a leader, followship comes in two forms. First, a leader gets the authority to act from their followers. Supervisors get their authority to act from higher up in a management chain. This is why you will often find that the supervisor and the leader in a group are not the same person. The supervisor will never find significant success without collaborative leadership, from themselves or someone else in the group.

The second followship comes from a leader’s willingness to follow others when necessary. Delegation and sharing of control come from trust, which is at the core of leadership. A leader knows to stay focused on those things that only they can do and delegate to others what others should be doing. A leader who will not share control is nothing more than a supervisor.

If you want to be a leader, do not seek to be a leader. I know this seems like double talk, but leadership cannot be coerced or taken like a prize.  Leadership chooses its host, when others chose to follow. In other words, you can chose to be a leader only when leadership is offered from followers. It is earned instead of assigned.

Lean Six Sigma and Chaos

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One of the fundamental flaws with process improvement programs is the assumption that all aspects of a business environment are determinant and predictable to a high degree of precision. Certainly some business systems and functions fall into this highly predictable category and fit well into the various quality programs we have seen.
What happens, though, when you try to apply Six Sigma tools to a process or function that is indeterminate? The answer is that incorrect conclusions can be drawn. To be clear, predictions that have a higher precision than the evaluated process or function is capable of, need to be viewed with suspicion. Examples of indeterminate systems are the weather and search engine impressions that a keyword receives on a periodic basis.
The internet, like the weather is an indeterminate system. With indeterminate systems, macro (low precision) predictions can be made reliability (hot in summer, cold in winter) because at the macro level indeterminate systems demonstrate repeatable cyclic behavior. At the micro level, though, this repeatable cyclic behavior becomes less consistent and less reliable. For more on this read the work of Edward Lorenz regarding chaos and weather prediction.
Getting back to the internet, economic systems are indeterminate. This does not mean that Six Sigma tools cannot be applied to indeterminate systems like internet search engine key word impressions. It is instead a matter of using the right tool for the job. In indeterminate systems, since you cannot control or adequately predict all of the variables in the system being worked on, a Six Sigma project team will focus on less precise factors (macro). This means statistical inferences that have much higher standard deviation parameters and may even defy statistical evaluation altogether.
With indeterminate systems, the Six Sigma team will be trying to reduce uncertainties surrounding the system and determine the boundaries associated with these uncertainties. We have to realize that we cannot increase the precision of an indeterminate system beyond the system’s natural state. We can, though, control the precision of how we react to the system’s behavior.
With internet impressions, you may not be able to predict search engine behavior very far into the future, but you can calibrate how you will act to take advantage of what you see. For example, you can build a website that is robust enough to deal with the uncertainty of web searches on the internet. You can also take more frequent measurements of key word impressions and use pay per click tools to react to the impression “terrain”.
Basically, what I am saying is that with determinate systems, Six Sigma teams can work directly on the process to reduce variation and improve performance. With indeterminate systems, the team must work with the uncertainty that exists outside the process to improve performance.

Effective Sales Training

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I want to discuss what I see as 4 critical to quality aspects of sales training.

  • Tap into existing team’s knowledge and skills
  • Have frequent, periodic, training
  • Measure sales performance
  • Try different sales training strategies

You don’t teach a child to ride a bike by riding around yourself while they watch. You have to get the child on the bike with your support and advice.  Effective sales training is handled the same way.

Most professional sales training providers teach sales strategy at the 30,000 foot level. Though this might be helpful to the sales management team, it isn’t very helpful for the individual sales people. Each sales person has different skills and knowledge, strengths and deficiencies. Teaching at the 30,000 foot level will not be effective in addressing this uneven terrain, which exists at the 10 foot level.  To be fair, an outside sales trainer does not have the time or resources to leverage this knowledge into their training program.

Bringing in an outside sales training professional is not a bad idea if you are targeting the correct people in your organization. The right people will probably be your sales management team, in a train the trainer approach.  In other words, teaching your sales management team how to teach sales. This approach leverages the sales training professional’s knowledge into your organization’s sales domain knowledge so that it can be brought to bear over the long haul instead of over a brief training session.

Actually, the best available resources to teach the individual sales people in your organization are your own most skilled and knowledgeable sales people. Leveraging their knowledge with that of the business’s sales domain knowledge is a potent way to develop your sales staff.

Training should be done periodically and often. This training is part refresher training and part skill development training.  A well managed sales team is like a well maintained hedge.  When maintained daily and carefully, the hedge stays attractive. But, if you neglect it, it will grow out of control and lose its beauty. Additionally, if after neglect you try to rein it in, you may kill it. Having frequent, periodic, training for you sales team will keep the team focused, nimble and effective. We have a sales training hour every Wednesday morning at 8:00 AM. We also have an hour of standardization training every other week in small groups.

Measuring performance sounds easier than it actually is. Are you measuring the right things and are your measurements accurate? Bernie Smith has made a post on this blog titled, “Measuring Things? Here’s a Way to Scare Yourself”.  This is good piece and should be read by anyone who is in the measuring business. Check out Bernie’s blog at “madetomeasureKPIs.com”. The key is this; make sure that the measurements you use to gauge your sales team’s performance, incentivizes them to do the things you want done. For example, closing percentage targets are easy to make if you are giving margin away. Profit margin per sale is easy to make if closing percentage is not important.

Not everyone learns the same way. Some learn best by seeing, some by hearing, and just about everyone by doing. What this means is that sending email, giving away books, and talking are never going to be enough.  No matter how you approach a particular training session, always include “doing” as part of the learning process. By changing the learning media from time to time, as well as the trainer, the learning process stays fresh.  A while back I wrote a sales tip on the bathroom mirror at the office. It only took minutes for the message to get around. It was new and fresh, and the sales staff was eager to share the tip. I waited two weeks and changed the message.  The change was not noticed for several days. The original tip became old and stale, which lead to the sales staff ignoring it. When I changed the message, no one was paying attention to what was written on the mirror anymore.

Here is the key tip regarding training anyone to do anything. People need coaching, not programming. Trainees need information that is relevant to them, fresh, and requires practice to integrate into their personal processes.

Why People Leave a Business

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This is from a LinkedIn discussion group. The question being discussed was” Do people leave a business because of its managers?” The following was my response.

“I believe the character, soul and values of a business are manifested by its leadership. This applies even if the stated mission, vision and values of a business say something different. It is a “you are what you do” sort of thing. If I am right, then people leave a business because of its leadership when there is no alignment in these areas.”

“I See You” Management

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Connectivity between human beings is the beginning of synergy.  It is written in our genetic code and expresses itself in our drive to connect to others and be part of a group. Since this is how we are wired, it only makes sense that the most effective management styles, as far as us humans are concerned, leverages this aspect of our specie’s corporate psyche.

I would call this “I See You” management. I did not coin this phrase, but since I cannot remember who did, I will use it for this post. The way I see thIngs, “I See You” management is based upon three levels of recognition.

I see you. You are there, or here, and I acknowledge your presence. This is important to the individual because we all want to be a part of the group or team. Recognition is a powerful fulfillment agent when it comes to our personal emotional bank account. This is consistent with the conclusions from Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne Works experiments from the 1920’s.

I see you as a person with hopes, dreams, joys and fears. A complete person fills my vision. You cannot effectively manage a person from the perspective of seeing them as an available asset rather than as a person. The ability to motivate someone comes from knowledge of their personal value proposition. Lou Holts, as a football coach, would require the players on each special team to know their teammates full names, the names of their immediate family members and some special fact about them. Coach Holts knew that a player would block more effectively for “Bobby”, who they knew, than they would for the “running back”, even though they were the same person.

I value you for who you are, not at the level of your title or your possessions, but instead at the level of your commitment and effort. This is tricky ground because I am not speaking exclusively about commitment and effort at work. Although these are critical to acceptable performance at work, I also will also value you for your commitment and efforts on behalf of others outside of the work environment. A lot can be learned about someone by how they treat others. I was at a restaurant recently with a business acquaintance who wanted to join my business team. He was disrespectful to our waitress and others he encountered while there. Even though He was very respectful to me, I could see that he only valued people for what he wanted from them. This attitude did not fit our culture and I did not hire him.

The result of “I See You” management is trust. Trust is the interpersonal lubrication that allows successful organizations to tackle tough problems and weather the storms of uncertainty. It is also the glue that keeps a team from despair and fragmentation. It keeps an organization in alignment when other forces are trying to pull it apart.

In my daily walk through my business, I try to touch every employee with a message about their value to me and our business journey together. I expect them to do the same.  It keeps us sane, focused and successful.

Measuring things? Here’s a way to scare yourself.

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Most people agree that measuring things is key for improvement. Most organizations have a basket of key measures on which they base their decision making. Pick a measure that’s regarded as important and spend a bit of time with one of the team that uses the measure (one-on-one, this isn’t about embarrassing people) and ask how they think that measure is calculated. Make sure you find out what they think is and isn’t included in the measure.

I’ve done this lots of times and have never once had two people come up with identical definitions (more often than not, they are nowhere near)

What’s surprising is that most people seem pretty confident that the definitions are nailed down, until you go through this exercise. They will sit in meetings, debating what certain measures are showing, without realising they have completely different perspectives on what the measure is actually showing.

The solution is pretty simple. Create a KPI database (even on a spreadsheet) that nails down a measure in as much detail as possible. Keep one master-copy that is accessible and use that as the ultimate reference for all calculations. Here’s a link to a free template

To read about all things KPI, have a look at Bernie’s website www.madetomeasureKPIs.com

Sales Stratgey

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Businesses only exist as a result of consumers who purchase their products or services. Consumers drive the economy. This is why successful businesses focus on the needs of the consumer in order to fulfill the needs of the business. In plain English, this means that if you want to successfully grow your pay check, make sure that you understand and satisfy the needs of the shoppers who reach your phone or store. God bless them every one.