How to improve company agility and interdepartmental communication? 3

[dejan95]

Hello everyone,

I'm relatively young mechanical engineer. On my mentoring program I told our CEO that company agility (when it comes to changing something, or doing something) is very poor. Also I told him that interdepartmental communication is not at very high level.

He is a smart man and he told me to prepere a possible solutions to this question.

Does anybody have any experience with that and would be willing to help me?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Jboggs]

As an engineer at the other end of the career, honestly I have to just sit here and chuckle. Very early in my career I, too, thought that the folks that had been doing this for decades needed the advantages of my vast wisdom. Did not go well. The beginning of wisdom is to admit ignorance.

Well, now you've gone and opened your mouth, and got yourself an assignment (instead of being fired on the spot thankfully). And the first thing you do is to ask others, who are unfamiliar with the situation, for advice.

Here's my advice: Go back to that same CEO and tell him that on reflection you have realized that you spoke too soon. Tell him that after you noticed a problem, you should have at least taken the time to try to define it clearly, and then try to identify and verify potential root causes. You saw symptoms, not causes. When you bring up a problem, always have a suggested solution ready. (You will find this to be a maxim to live by in corporate life.)

Ask him for some time. (I'm thinking a few weeks to become familiar with the company "culture", the "way we do things here".) And promise a firm date on which you will come back with 3-4 well thought-out and feasible suggested changes.

You will realize that the true root cause here is human nature. We all tend to see only the world directly around us. It is not in our nature to put extra thought into how our actions, or lack of action, might affect others later. Unless there is a system in place that encourages a different result, that's what you will get.

For example, I see this every single day in my work in an engineering office in a manufacturing plant. Drawings are my life. And many of those drawings are several decades old, done by guys long retired or dead. A few of those guys would take a few extra minutes to add reference information on those drawings to let future users know a little about their history, where they came from and why they were done. That information is EXTREMELY helpful to those of us that are still using them. Unfortunately, that quality was very rare in those guys, and still is. I learned from that and always try to add that kind of helpful information on my drawings.

To quote my own my father, "Now that your academics are over your true education can begin."

 

[AZPete]

You did the right thing. Your assignment was to be paired with a mentor and receive wisdom, and you reflected your perception of your environment. Your CEO responded appropriately: see a problem, identify it, and propose a solution.

Rather than come to the experienced crowd and survey for answers, instead, figure this one out on your own. What caused you to make the assessment? What factors contributed to the perceived problem? You come up with your perception of what is wrong and what a proper scenario looks like. Could be that you're off the mark by a stretch as you say you are junior. Perhaps. But, what it will be is a genuine, albeit junior, perception. Your CEO will be able to take it under advisement and either recognize that it's not a problem, per se, and that you would likely adjust your thoughts over time as you adapt, or he may agree that something could be improved. His call, your assignment.

Make it original--yours. Let the experienced crowd know how it ends up.

 

[dejan95]

I only told this to our CEO because he asked for the assessment of the company (SWOT). So it's all friendly.

I'm thinking of possible solutions for this problems, but I'm only asking here to see if any of you already successfully implemented some solutions at your companies.

But thanks to both of you for your feedback!

 

[3DDave]

thread404-509048

How is this different?

 

[dejan95]

Well I said I'm "relatively" young engineer. I have been at this firm for 4 years and I'm being promoted to higher position. And I'm really trying to better the department and company as a whole.

But I'm still lacking knowledge, that is why I'm looking for help. If you can't help me, don't just judge me for trying.

 

[BrianPetersen]

Ask questions - particularly "why".

Why do you think "agility" is low? What evidence do you have that decision-making is slow?

With an answer to that ... Why is whatever factor that you have identified, the way it is? (Maybe a specific department is backlogged, for example.)

Then ask "why" again. (Why is that department backlogged?) Then ask "why" again.

A customer of mine long ago, identified that when something went wrong, it was best to ask "why" five times in these situations in order to come close to a true root cause. Sometimes the answer to "why" can have multiple correct responses, and it would be wise to explore those.

 

[rb1957]

also, what would an "agile company" look like ? A buzz-word is "metrics" ... how to measure agility, and so how to improve this measure. Careful ... are you improving the measure at the expense of other aspects of the company ? Are you improving the measure without improving "agility" ?

There could be reasons for being "non-agile" ... they can good reasons or bad ! An example of a bad reason is having someone in management (who is rarely available) approve (well, sign for) something. 99% (99.9%?) this is a rubber stamp ... but the 1% are real issues (at least for management).

Be aware of creating a new "agile" process ... it'll get abused at some time.

Maybe study up on Organisational Design.

Inter-departmental communication ... ah, yes ... the only thing worse than "interdepartmental communication" is "not communicating" ! It (like many things) can be a two edges sword ... too much communication is not good. We have lots of people who no longer read emails as they get too many, so you have to IM them.

I should listen to my own advice ... "why don't you knock it off with them negative waves?"

"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.

 

[SWComposites]

Ok, if you have been there four years you should have a pretty good idea about what works and doesn't work at the company. And you should have a pretty good idea about the type of roadblocks and inertia and politics that exist. (if not, well then we can't help much).

So you mentioned "company agility (when it comes to changing something, or doing something)" and "interdepartmental communication" being issues. Attack this like an engineering problem. Document a number of specific cases of these two issues, in some detail. Stick to facts and data not assigning blame or quoting names. Document the impact to the company - schedules, costs, reputation. Then as mentioned above, for each case, ask and document 5 levels of "why?"; drill down to the root issues. Warning - there are likely politic land mines in place. Depending on the company culture and your relationship with other employees, let them know or not what you are up to. Where you can, ask others for their opinions, etc. on these issues.

Only once you have done the above homework should you start formulating "solutions". Document those, figure out what the benefit to the company will be, the cost to implement, the roadblocks that need to be removed or blown up, etc. Then discuss with your mentor.

(or you could take my typical approach which often is to just start doing things without really asking for permission and only worrying about forgiveness if necessary, but this requires a having a well tuned political radar).

good luck.

 

[SWComposites]

Oh yes, "metrics" - all too often endless resources and time are spent and wasted trying to track unmeasurable metrics, which also often result in bad decisions being made. Brings back memories of daily reading of Dilbert ........

 

[rb1957]

How regulated is your business, your field of business ?

How large is your company ? Large companies tend to have detailed processes that look Byzantine from the outside, but are designed to control the process and the flow of information and to work with a large and changing group of people. Small companies can have informal processes (that look very "agile") because they all know who does what ... but then these processes fall apart when someone leaves/changes.

I'd seriously consider some formal training, maybe even (shock, horror) an MBA, but maybe at least some formal project engineering. An MBA can be a good thing, if yo don't use it as a license (to kill ?) but rather as a lens to look at the world through ... a different viewpoint from your standard Engineering workday.

"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.

 

[CWB1]

Have you not had formal certification courses in project management? Does your company not follow a standard project management philosophy/process? If the answer to either question is "no" then I'd recommend moving to a properly managed company asap. Scientific management is nothing new, most companies practice it and require suppliers to do so as well. Junior engineers typically begin PM training within a month or more of being hired, and undergo weeks of basic and continuing education as they earn various certs.

If you're new to PM I recommend studying traditional lean PM. I also wouldn't use the word "agile" around any senior manager or exec. Agile PM has been such an epic dumpster fire of bad logic and wasted time/money over the past 20 years that many react very negatively to the word.

 

[dejan95]

Thank you guys for your insight. Most of you were really nice and helpful! Really appreciate it!