Many of my clients often are overwhelmed with the size of tasks and data that is required when implementing a new system and it’s always in the back of my mind to bring things back to the Pareto Principle. So what is the Wikipedia definition?

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

 Business-management consultant Joseph M. Juan suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Wilfred Pareto, who observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population; he developed the principle by observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas. It is a common rule of thumb in business; e.g., “80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients”.

So why does the pareto principle figure so prominently in productivity? Because it reduces time wasted on things that are not important or not important right now. Why spend time worrying about the 500 parts that need to be added to the system because we might get an order sometime, rather get right the ones that are being ordered constantly. Of course this needs some measurement to find the 80% ( or 20%) but most of the time gut feeling gets you to the same place.

 So next time you have a project keep in mind Signor Pareto and think can i break this down so I can get the bang for my buck quickly.

Till next post

Save some time…….and spend it doing something you love!

Tim

Some uses & how it can improve your productivity:

Create an easily accessible knowledge base.
As most Wikis are web based this enables authorised staff to access data from anywhere and they don’t need
to rely on finding documents on either local PC’s or via a server. The data is live and can be updated
at any time by group members. There has to be some time and frustration savings here.
Knowledge Base data may be in the form of  FAQ’s ( Frequently Asked Questions) about your company
products/services or more detailed technical information recorded during troubleshooting and implementation.
Imagine the benefits of being able to get all the accumulated knowledge of your people added on a regular basis
that can be accessed in one place. 

Manage Meetings.
Post meeting minutes and actions in the wiki to improve communication and reduce distribution management.
Collaborators can use the Wiki to clarify actions, confirm completion of actions and attached supporting information
where applicable. Productivity opportunity ?…….less time spent chasing & following up meeting members.

There are other applications such as Project and document management but the level of complexity rises and the first two
uses would be a good start for new users.

Check these resources for advise on how to set up your wiki.

http://webtrends.about.com/od/wiki/a/getstarted_wiki.htm
http://webtrends.about.com/od/wiki/a/guide_to_wikis.htm
http://webtrends.about.com/od/wikireviews/fr/wikidot_Review.htm

PS - ’don’t forget to check out Evernote  which can also be used by multiple people for a very
reasonable monthly fee and requires very little set up.  Check out an earlier post on Cloud Magic for more.

Save some time…….then spend it doing something you love.

Tim

Obviously not everything you do can  be delegated but a quick review of your daily ,weekly and monthly tasks should give a starting point for picking some of your work that can be delegated.

Consider the following filters

1. Is there sensitive information included in the task?

2. What level of skill is required to perform the task?

     a. Technical

     b. Computing

     c. Physical

Create a simple matrix of the tasks with details as above with the view to assigning specific staff .

Decide who you will delegate the task to and get them  involved in the process. Discuss the reason for the task, frequency and why you  believe this staff member is best placed to perform  it ( maybe you need to ask about current workload as well !)  Then …..And this is the really important part, document what you currently do to complete the task now and then when you have done that , pass it on to your delegatee for them to review and suggest improvements.

Once you have both  reviewed the process and  agreed on the how,what and when of the task pass it over and start thinking about the other things you can catch up on.

Save some time ….and spend it doing something you love !

Tim

The second “S” – Straighten

The main points in the Straighten stage are: 

• There should be a place for everything and everything should be in its place
  • This is the state of mind you will need to foster amongst staff to successfully implement your 5S system. Most important though is to Lead by Example.
• Limits are set on the amount of work in progress (files, drawings, samples) at the desk or office space.
  • This is a difficult one to address in the office environment because many office workers have their own space ( as opposed to shopfloor staff who “share” their workstations with other shifts and rotating staff) and this ownership leads them to believe that they work to their “own” rules! So the key here is to go slowly , get everyone involved in the 5S game and don’t de-personalize their workspace.  For determining what your limits on Work in Progress are, start with the hardware. If you have the intrays and filing cabinets, agree that these are the places for WIP, NOT all over the desk!  If you don’t have the hardware , take the team to your local office supplies store for an hour and do some group shopping.
• Improve the workflow to cut waste, improve efficiency and productivity.
  • In one of my earlier posts I talked about creating flow charts (Go with the flow) and this is good place to start. You will need to understand the current workflow to know what “everything” is and then “where is its’s place”.Once you know these two things think about how to improve it.( again, don’t try to fix everything at once). Try to use simple flow charts that everyone can understand. Don’t make too many steps per chart.
• Work to be done and supplies needed should be near each workstation.
  • It could be debated that in the office you want people getting up from the desk and moving around regularly for health reasons but consider the layout of the office and focus on repetitive actions that are difficult or uncomfortable ( bending,twisting ,navigating obstacles etc) as these will tire and frustrate people very quickly.
• Clearly label your common processing points and storage areas.
  • Once you have your hardware and decided what goes where, simple labelling of intrays and filling stations should be enough. Don’t go overboard with the Dymo labeller ( although they are addictive!), people need to feel comfortable and enjoy their individualism to be happy and productive I believe.   Read more on filing systems……

Since starting my productivity posts I am taking a little more notice of work environments and as I am on the road quite a bit I see many and varied offices that seem to be overlooked in the current improvement strategies that workshops and manufacturing businesses are undertaking. This is unfortunate as the “office” is where all the planning starts and the larger amount of staff the higher the opportunity to save time and money. Just think about the 3 estimators you may have , if you can save them 2 hours per week each , conservatively that’s about $11,000 per annum in wages or conversely the opportunity to organize/estimate/follow up on another 294 hours of jobs each year.

Dont forget that the brand new machine you may have needs to be fed and the quicker and more efficiently you can feed it , the greater the ROI (Return on Investment) !

So , for this post I want to focus on running a 5S program for the office. If you have not heard of 5S before this is a brief description form Wikipedia:

‘5S’ is the name of a workplace organization methodology that uses a list of five Japanese words which are seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu and shitsuke. Translated into English, they all start with the letter S and are:

Sort, Straighten, Shine, Standardize, Sustain

The list describes how items are stored and how the new order is maintained. The decision making process usually comes from a dialogue about standardization which builds a clear understanding among employees of how work should be done. It also instills ownership of the process in each employee.

So the first S in the five is

Sort: Clear out unused or rarely used items from the work areas.

If you can , organize a sorting day or part thereof where all office staff, along with a manager do a walk around the office looking at everything asking the question; Whats this for , when was the last time we used it and , are we likely to use it again. This is a very deliberate process because I’m sure you all know that once you are familiar with your environment you can “overlook” certain things in your home and in the office  for years , they are just a fixture!

Use the sort process to throw out unwanted items , anything from old bits of steel used for measurement of a job 3 years ago to a stack of tender documents/drawings for a job you didn’t win !  While doing the rounds you can be tagging items with postits or moving  them into a specific place depending on how they are categorized. EG: Return to Material Rack or Tool drawer, Box up and store in 2008/09 archives, give back to the manager for him to decide on! The goal is to categorize and process.   Once you have done this take a break and reconvene next week for the 2nd “S”.

Be back in 7 days to discuss the second “S”

Save some time and spend it doing something you love!

Tim

Tool no. 1: Flow charts

MS Office programs such as Excel, Word, Powerpoint or Publisher all have common Flow charting symbols in their toolbars – Look for “Basic Shapes” in the shapes menu. You can also download some simple Charting programs cheaply such as RFFlow . The main shapes I have used in the past are :

You can use these basic shapes and add the specific information inside them to illustrate any process that happens within your business. They are easy to create , easy to display and understand. See the example below for a simple quote request process.

Tool N0.2 How to’s/Procedures
Create simple how to and procedure documents  in Word and use the snipping tool program ( in MS Vista and Windows 7)  for screenshots of software programs functions or any item on your PC. As they say ( cant remember who now!!) a picture paints a thousand words. An example of a simple instruction for a process in a software system is shown below.If you dont have the “Snipping tool” program there are a number of programs available to download such as Snagit or Fastone. You can also use the PRTSC key on the keyboard, open MS Paint or Word and paste the picture of the screen and edit to size.

Using these tools enables all staff to create very quickly easy to read and understand documentation.

Finally, put these documents in a place where people can find them – Centralize the filing structure and make it easy to find. Tell everyone that there is a procedure, its not a secret!
Even at its most simplest , if you can implement some standard processes you can save many hours and a heap of frustration.
Make a promise that you will spend a half hour each day/week doing some documentation of a process.

So to summarize:
1.Make the commitment to improve yours and your teams productivity.
2.Try some of the tools and practise using them so you can create documents quickly.
3.When you have someone ask, “can you remember how we do ……….” , this is  your alarm to say ,” yes, but lets create a work instruction for it – NOW”.  Because even though you may need to put aside another job for 15 minutes now , you’ll have that extra time next time and next time etc.
4.Keep reminding ALL your staff that these documents exist !

Save some time, then spend it doing the things you love!

Tim