Outcomes.. Or outputs?

Had an interesting discussion today. What's outcome, and what's output?
Let's say, you build a bus stop. You put in effort, consume raw materials. At the end of it, you have a bus stop. The end result of your activities, I.e. Your output is the bus stop.
What, then, is the outcome? Consider the completion. We could say that the outcome of the project is an eyesore, or public convenience. The difference, pretty much depends on whether there was any benefit from it. It's a convenience if the public benefited, it's an eyesore otherwise.
And what if no one used it? Eyesore again! Thus we could think of an outcome as a function of output, usage and benefit. The outcome is negative if any of these inputs are not satisfied.
We could apply it to our performance measures, and our outcomes would be easily separated from our outputs.

Lab Learning: Day 21

We are now on overshoot. We didnt finish in time, so our lab is extended. As the rest of the lab is testing our model, I realised that things could be far different if we had gotten the lab story wall done from day one. We didn't understand what was required, so it kept on having to be changed. Had we started with the story wall right, then our presentation would be easy to prepare as the story line would already be identified. Right now as I write, I struggle with what we have to present. How could the story wall help? When we finally understood it, our wall was organized into 4: what the lab is about, what the lab did, what the lab found, and what the lab recommends. The lab charter could be broken up into simple slides that explained it for everyone to see. That would form the introduction of our lab Our syndications summary would go into what the lab did. Had we been able to debrief at the end of each day, our support staff could prepare the slides and put up on the wall daily. By today, we would have the summary of syndications already done. Our findings could be captured during the daily debriefs. We could immediately turn it into slides and then put it up the next day. As our finding become more refined, we would then update the slides. By today, then, the latest findings would be on the wall. The same goes with the recommendations. Because we weren't able to do this, we're now struggling, as we have several versions of our recommendations on several pcs. And we haven't yet gotten a credible story line. If I could start over, I'd have the lab ensure that debriefs are done at the end of the day, and I'd also insist that a lab member captures the findings and recommendations and scribbles the slide. Then this can be passed to the support crew to turn into slides and printed to be put up on the story wall.

Lab Learning: Day 18

Today we continued refining the model. We had a big syndication session, Where our stakeholders came with guns firing. I saw it as a result of a poorly planned syndication. Its true that we did not plan with the 6Ps (Purpose, Picture, Profit, Part, Plan, Program)in mind, but our facilitator pointed out that they were coming based on what they heard the day before, and they are following the phases of negative change I..e. SARAH (shock, anger, rejection, acceptance, hope). Looking back at the response, I realise that they experienced that. The blazing guns were nothing more than shock and anger that later turned to rejection (they said so, "you can do what ever you like, just dont touch us") but later, they cooled down and left with a positive air. At shock and rejection, we cannot fight them tit for tat, but we need to let them ventilate and release all the tension in their minds. After that, having gotten everything off their chest, then they would be receptive to discussion. That was one real lesson, if you asked me.

Lab Learning: Day 16

Haven't had much opportunity for direct learning the last few days thanks to being distracted with some other things while others went about detailing our model. 2 things happened, though. We've been working to detail out our model and we have been moving forwards and stepping back. It's been frustrating, fun, painful and satisfying all at the same time. I saw that the higher the stress, the more our personalities stand out, and the anger, frustrations begin to simmer. It makes managing this lab challenging, and many times the wisdom of the lab leader in managing the group saved the day. Knowing each others profiles is definitely a big help! We've also been detailing out our model, each working on a different part of the model and we syndicated it against a big group. It was made difficult because we didn't have a big picture to work on. After the session we put together a big picture, and we realised that had this been done earlier, the syndication conversations would have moved in a different direction, probably smoother, too. Because of the many individual concerns, a big picture would have focused everyone on the whole elephant, instead of its individual parts, and we would have been able to discuss on the really big issues first. Still, an interesting experience in managing a big group discussion.

Lab Learning: Day 14

Lab wise, there isn't anything that I can post as I was away interviewing a TNB customer.
It was interesting that the 2nd most important aspect to the customer was the ability to compare our service to another service provider.
This tells me that of need to outdo the customer service of maxis or TM, coz that's what they compare our service to. It also tells me that until we benchmark our service to others, it will be tough to get very excited customers.
What a revelation.

Lab Learning: Day 12

Today we spent the day with half the group meeting vendors, and the other working on detailing the model.
Under the stress of trying to meet our deadline, our personalities are being thrust forwards and knowing the personalities at play it became easier to manage the dynamics.
Our group is complementary. As we were struggling with trying to move forwards, one of us walked to the board, and simplified the solution. Each of us have our strengths. We just need to stand up and show it when the need arise and not hope someone else can do it.

Lab Learning: Day 11

Today we continued to refine and detail our model.
I was called into a discussion over an issue unrelated to the lab, and I realized the real power of our approach.
As the parties centered over what's currently wrong and how it affects our image, and how we need to show to the regulators that changes need to be done, I realized how our approach would really be helpful.
Formulate, syndicate, sell. Instead of arguing over what's wrong, we could very well formulate what we want and already syndicate and sell to the regulators. In doing so, we would already be communicating to them our intent and commitment to change. And we could cover a whole group of internal and external parties over seven days and move forward with it.
No doubt there were the cynical ".. Some people want a lab for everything" comments, but as I listened, I realized that hey, we have the approach to give the maximum impact.
There were already people in that discussion already working on a solution, but they expect to be done in June.
It would probably take up till June for a lab to come up with a solution, too but the difference is, within the first week of the lab launch, the people who matter would probably be engaged already.
Wow.

Lab Learning: Day 10

Today marks day 10 of our Lab. I learnt that the profiling we did is quite accurate. The discourse and exchanges were quite as the profiles suggested. Its heartening to See barriers coming down and the team starting to gel. Having the profiles done is a real big help. I understand now the approach used by our lead facilitator: experience, reflect, learn, apply. Ive learnt this as a theory and used parts of this experiential learning model, but alaways I've been too quick ro jump in and help them. Here, very clearly, he's led us to experience the discomfort, and, little by little, as we can't take it anymore, he'll throw in the lessons. Even then, some get it, some don't. As all great teachers do, he patiently guides us until we really can't figure it out, then he rolls up his trousers and jump right in with us. He's done that with our model building, and he's done that with my inability to play my role properly. Today he's pulled me aside and told me where I need to play my role. He's hinted at it before, but since I haven't picked it up, the recourse is to grab me by my collar and tell me spot on. Ive looked at our story wall again and now realize my storylining skills are really needed here. If we can put our thoughts in a story line, then people can see where our lab is headed and wont need us to be there explaining stuff. As we build our basis, we can just update the storyline. I learnt also today that we're not really clear what we mean when we say "model". A model needs to be a representation of a working set of systems. Thus if we can identify what systems (management systems, not IT) thus we can test the components needed to make it work. And to determine the systems, we need to come back to basics: purpose, picture and profit. We list out descriptors for the purpose that we want, and then brainstorm systems to deliver it. Using an interelation matrix we can then map out how the system will influence the purpose. Then we test the model against what is existing, and test with syndicates to ensure it works. Of course we will need a strategy, its important that we plan the syndication from here onwards so we can efficiently test our models. Come day 11, things are going to be really interesting.

Lab Learning: Day 9

Today I conducted the morning reflection, and found that once again, I'm not guiding the team towards learning and drifting into debriefs. It's frustrating, no doubt, but I must stand my ground and earn.my place as a facilitator. It's especially frustrating when members of the group starts their own conversations. It shows that's have yet to earn my place as their facilitator.
We learnt also today what the procurement chess board is and found it to be a useful guide to determine the kind of strategy to consider based on the power of supplier and the power of demand.
I'm particularly excited when axiata suggested that there should be a procurement portal for glc; I can imagine how easy analytics on procurement spend and common spend can be. It would take supplier management to a whole new level.

Lab Learning: Day 8

I haven't anything to post for day 7 as I wasn't there :-P I took to start the day with reflection, but I found myself drifting towards debriefing and got collared for it. I realize that it's important to maintain focus and keep the group focused on thinking about what they learnt and not on what they found out. Because of the heavy syndication, when we met in the morning, everyone was like waiting to offload their syndications,as a result I lost control and the group drifted. It's important to stick to learning and separate from the debrief; The faciliator, more that anything has to keep that in focus. I learnt also today that we don't rely very much on data. We acknowledge that data is important, but we work more on perceptions and feelings than the data itself. We found instance where data is being collected,confidence level on the data is very low,the data itself is very narrow and non representative. From the data we knew how many instances a particular event happened, but we couldn't tell if this event was the most significant amongst other events. And pilots were launched on items which was not reflected by the data. Adding to this was that we didn't see steps being taken to improve the data quality. Thus, if we really depended on data, we should take efforts to improve the quality first. This also means that given that there are 500 registered vendors, speaking to 5 isn't enough. We would need to speak to a large enough group that can provide a representative view of the community I learnt (was reminded?)today how the first page of the Lab charter is organized: That the fundamental question is a summary of the case for action, the hypotheses were things that needed to be tested while the assumptions were the givens. Also today I learnt that there are a lot more to be learnt; we are kept thirsty by feeding us lessons a little at a time. As we scramble around trying to figure out what's going on, the answers are there, kept away till the moment arrives. I'm a little less uncomfortable now that I know that this is a concept lab, where our group is expected to deliver the model as a concept and not delve into the design details and implementation concerns. And by model we mean we need to come up with a representation of a working system and we need to identify the sub systems that make the part whole. In day 9 we will start defining the model. The plan is to define requirements based on the fundamental questions, list out systems required in the model to deliver the fundamental question requirements.We're gonna divide and conquer, so I think from now onwards the pace is gonna shift one notch up. And the profiles will come in handy to help us break the groups. "The answer is in the Question". We have all the answers. When do we need consultants? When we have a blindspot, need best practice, need subject matter experts or are short handed.

Lab Learning: Day 6

Today we start the second week of the 4 week Lab. It's scary, coz we still dont seem to be clear on where we are headed. We've syndicated quite a lot of people, and we have developed quite a few model, but I see the team beginning to strain at the seams with the uncertainty as each try to take the leadership and figure out what's next. We have received a lot of information, but we are getting uncomfortable as we aren't sure where to go next. Tomorrow, we're going to take stock of what we have. we struggled all day today, but I learnt that the secret (as we are going to do tomorrow) is to go back to the fundamental question of the lab. The information we now know, and the answer to the fundamental question, will guide us in deciding that functionality we want to put into our model. Today, I learnt that the approach we take is through appreciative inquiry. It is the approach that takes a positive approach within the topic. Instead of asking what's wrong, we ask what's right, what should be there, what will be there and finally what must be there. In the many approaches, Appreciative inquiry falls into 4 things: Discover: to value the best of what is being done, Dream: to dialogue and converse of what might be, Design: distil these ideas into something thought provoking and appealing,and finally Destiny: craft the future you want thru innovative approaches. Possibility = Conversation and storytelling I also discovered that SME corp has come up with a Entrepreneur Development assessment frame work, which they use to assess small medium enterprises and provide the education and assistance to become good. They will be sharing this with us in more detail this Thursday. This lab has been a great challenge for me personally as I try to learn the means of facilitating a group towards an undefined future, while managing the strong opinions and conflicting personalities all the time realizing as well that as far as the team is concerned, I'm very much a member learning the ropes, and not the all knowing, wise facilitator. Every day the Lead facilitators pull something out of a hat, and god knows there's a hell of a journey I have yet to traverse to become like that. So just as we turn foes into allies through syndication, I too must syndicate my abilities and build my army of allies. Until then, it will remain a challenge to facilitate this group.

Lab Learning: Day 1

Here is the learning from the first day: This is what I learnt today from Lab approach. 1. The lab is a useful way to build a new culture for TNB, but to do so, we need to continue with holding labs until we reach a critical mass to change culture. 2. Working in the lab forces you to change the way you work, and if enough people were to experience this, naturally TNB’s culture would change. 3. The principle behind the lab as the enabler of change: Q relations lead to Q conversation lead to Q collective thinking lead to Q plans lead to Q results. Thru labs, we build the Q relationships and enable the Q conversations. 4. Prior to setting up the lab, we conducted participant and facilitator profiling using the Myers brigg questionnaire. This is to help us understand/ predict the behavior of the participants. 5. To help with the behavior change, each facilitator has a role to play. One will challenge the team to raise the bar – push for radical solutions – while another will talent spot 6. To ensure learning, we end the day with agenda for tomorrow, and begin every morning with time for reflection. 7. The sponsors had a one to one with the facilitator to learn their role to enable the change. At the launch today, the sponsors reiterated “that they do not have the answer and that the lab must find the answer it thinks best”. 8. Being the first day today, we spent the day in great detail setting expectations on how the lab should run. In the afternoon, the lab began planning activities. 9. We also have identified the stakeholders to be syndicated. Each lab member has been assigned to contact stakeholders and get appointments. Each stakeholder will have appointments over a few days. The pace of the lab will be dictated by the stakeholder appointments 10. Being a 4 week lab, we have identified the deliverables of each of the 4 weeks. First cut of the model will be ready Friday. We need to avoid talking about current issues, and instead begin with the vision of the future. This will begin tomorrow. The vision is created by considering 6 P: Purpose, picture, profit (WIIFM), Plan, Part (my role in the picture) Program Management. 11. The lab was moved to kilat club to give it accessibility to everyone and anyone interested in the lab findings. Everyone is free to observe. Lab progress will be displayed on the wall for everyone to see and comment starting tomorrow. That’s it for now. More tomorrow. In the meantime, Low, Dr Wong, do come by to observe if you want to plan for your OSH lab.

Learning From Labs: Day 2

Here is the e-mail thread from learning on Day 2: xxxx To control our workflow, we stuck 2 pieces of Flip chart paper on the wall, one a grid of 4 weeks and the other a 5 day grid split into morning and afternoon. One represents the calendar for the duration of the lab, the other the one week plan. We use post its to track work. Green post its for syndications, yellow for To do, orange for deliverables and red for resource unavailability. We use red, green and orange on the monthly plan, and yellow, green for the weekly plan. We only started yesterday afternoon, so I hope it’ll still be on the wall when we get there today… It seems a simple visual way but it’s way better than having to switch on the projector to see the plan and way more efficient to change plans on tack. As we write on the flipchart a lot, we have two (additional) people to help with the typing and capturing. We currently used 2 SL1M trainees, and I tell you, with the right coaching, these two will learn a lot! You may want to plan ahead and try to get this 2 support staff for your OSH lab. Oh one final note: Data-> information -> insight -> Knowledge -> Wisdom -> Truth. Warmest Regards, Wan Fadzil Adlan xxxxxx wah interesting facts...keep in coming tuan. Thank you for sharing xxxxx Wan Fadzil Adlan B W Sidik wrote: Great job! Hope everyone can watch it. Btw, Apollo 13 is a good movie to learn crisis management, and there is an episodeof ER that is a good example of hazardous materials readiness. If I find the title, I'll share it. You the man, Azizi xxxx Interesting indeed.. Btw I just finished downloading The 12 Angry Men. For those who want a copy, it's 6.9GB. Sent from my iPhone xxxxxx On Apr 16, 2013, at 8:20 PM, "Wan Fadzil Adlan B W Sidik" wrote: > Thanks for the comments and interest. > We watched '12 Angry Men' a movie about a juror who went about systematically convincing the other 11 jurors that they're wrong. > Thinking about syndicating and selling ideas, this movie taught me: > facts and figures always trump emotions. > Understand what drives the other persons motivation and deal with it one at a time > Include everyone and create allies. Tackle the most difficult ones last > Self-interest and prejudices commonly drive the need to disagree > To win, u need to pick your fights one at a time. Don't just spew facts. Strategy is important. > The environment profoundly affects the level of acceptance > When arguing your case, focus is important as your opponent may sidetrack you away from your objective. > Other things I learnt was: > Think of the 20, 000 non execs we have in the company when choosing a name for the lab and make sure the name you choose delivers the right connotation. The fastest way is to think of an inspiring word, and then find the words to turn it into an acronym > We needed to come up with a model by today, but we got caught with trying to fix the current problems we had. > We should have begun with the basic definitions such as what is vendor,development, what are products and etc to get the team on the same page before starting out on the model. > As a result of that we will be continuing the drawing up the model tomorrow as well as pitching name for the lab. > Tomorrow we wil be reviewing our profiles, so it will be interesting to see how the team responds. So far behaviorally they have been spot on with the scores. > > That's it for now. There'll be more fun tomorrow.

Lab Learning: Day 3

Here's a copy of an earlier thread from my Learning of Day 3: No, we SHOULD NOT start with as is. For the lab at least. The lab Looks for radical change, and an as is limits that. What I experienced today was an eye opener. We asked ourselves what's wrong with the current process, and as we sought to understand it we ended up focusing on solutions that does not have the issues we are facing. This was exactly how quantum came up with a revenue target of rm5 million. But if we ignore 'as is', we can fix on the.purpose I.e. Provide consulting, we can picture ourselves in 5 years, and come up with a really radical figure. xxxxx En Wan, Pls correct me if I am wrong. No. 1 below actually says we SHOULD NOT start with as-is, am I right? xxxx From: Wan Fadzil Adlan B W Sidik Sent: 17 April 2013 21:35 To: TNB Quantum Solutions Sdn Bhd Subject: Learnings From Labs: Day 3 Dear all, Learnings from today: It was a long day today as we began syndications and began developing the new model for VDP. We also played “broken Squares” (our building squares game). Here are some of the things I learnt today: 1. We spoke a lot before this about how we shouldn’t begin with As-Is, and instead focus on what we want at the end. Today I found us still wanting to refer to as- is. While it may not sound too bad, it led people on the defensive and discussions were somewhat stilted. The model revolved around modifications of the current situations, thus, though comfortable, wasn’t at all radical. We need to actually start from the purpose, and then imagine the picture in order to come up with something really different. The end result? We now have 4 models which we will refine, define and choose over the next few days. 2. To syndicate, we need a strategy. We talked about that the other day, but today we sat down with a stakeholder, without a strategy and ran circles around the guy. At debrief today we got something of a rap on the knuckles for not filling up our calendar with syndication appointments and for not having a strategy. The important thing I to know the stakeholder’s mind frame i.e. the thing that he always asks about and leverage that to get what we want. i.e. if he were CK, then we should expect him to ask how much it will cost and where the funding will come from, then we should need to have a ready response. 3. From the building squares game, we learnt: a. It is important to understand the mission, the big picture and the role. It’s easily misunderstood as people tend to do what they think they need to do. b. Time is of the essence, work with the best way to get things done; if you can’t build your square, then pass it to someone who can. c. Take interest in others performance, they may need and will appreciate your help d. IF the mission is not met, offer resource. We often refuse to release people when other dept ask for help e. Look around and see what others are doing; don’t be a prisoner of your own view. f. We always compete internally, and cooperate externally – always helping outsiders, never ourselves (sound familiar?) – instead we should break silos by cooperating internally and competing externally g. Always take the leadership position (i.e. take charge!) the opportunity s always there. 4. Resist the temptation to give the answer to our staff. Let them go thru it and discover for themselves. Then only they will learn. 5. Leaders sometimes have to become managers; when there is crisis, to give rewards, and when there are changes. 6. I had a first hand experience today discussing my conceptual model with a choleric/ melancholic. Phew! Temperatures were rising up to the point I recognized the inability to deal with ambiguity and pointed it out. The other person realized that when I pointed that out, too and immediately cooled down. It made doing the profiling and discussing the results this morning really worthwhile. That’s it for today. More tomorrow!

Lab learning: day 5

I cant say much about the lab, coz today I spent the morning visiting Freescale, the chip maker. When I got to the lab, everyone was busy syndicating with several parties, and debriefing was postponed to Monday.
In Freescale I found an American company more Japanese than the japanese. They are in the process of installing super 5S, and the MD is very committed, making the Wednesday walkabout the most important matter. The quality meeting is the top meeting, and latecomers are fined.
They are a 6 sigma company, that has experienced a sigma shift, meaning, instead of 3.4 defects per million, they have achieved 0.3 defects per million.
In doing this they added 2 belts, white (awareness) for all staff, yellow (tools and techniques) for  others. There are online assessments writhe end of   each module.
Green belts have to produce 2 projects to become black belts, while master black belts are selected by a global community of practitioners.
They have several approaches to problem solving:  dmaic for optimization, dmadv for design and Ford's 8D for crisis and customer complaints.
Amazing, eh?

Lab Learning: Day 4

What us is a blog if it's not updated? I thought, for a change, I'll update my daily learnings here. At least there'll be some content on this blog. Today marks day 4 of our lab. We got ourselves a bollocking for being tardy. We're running a tight schedule, but we need to put our noses to the grindstone and get used to being timeliness. If we don't change here, we're not going to make a difference. The culture starts here. There are two types of change; positive change and negative change. Positive change: People are excited at upcoming changes, then experience discomfort when the change happens,then they see what could be possible and become hopeful for the change. These stages are uninformed optimism, Informed pessimism, hopeful realism and finally informed optimism. Negative change (SARAH): Shock when the change happens, followed by Anger, followed by Rejection and then Acceptance and finally, Hope. We spent the day in two groups, one setting up our Story area for the launch and finalizing details of the lab launch while the other group carried out syndication and work on further refining our model. We're still not efficiently working, as at the end of the day, there are still syndication arrangements not yet done, and four days have passed. We could use other resources to get the appointments done i.e. secretary, friends etc, yet because we insist on doing it ourselves, it's lost in the hustle and bustle of the other activities. In the initial syndications we were shooting in the dark over the questions we need to do, but once we realized there is a strategy needed, things started to move a little faster with the syndications. At the end of today, we were shown a simple way to keep track of the syndication findings. We had to create a table with the names of the syndicates on the left most collumns, and the different options discussed listed across as column headings. This meant that we had a tabular view of the syndicate response thus we could visually identify the opinions. At the same time, at the next round of syndication we could use it as a reference to remind them of their initial stand, thus making the buy in process easier. The table was still being drawn up when I left, so I'll post it up here tomorrow. Keeping things simple (you melancholics better pay attention! :-P) and visual really help! I think I missed an important learning as I was called away to a meeting; as I came back I found our chief facilitator end his session with ".. so remember this when you're doing.." *sigh* That's it for today. Hope that this info is useful!