Trindent Client Interview: Transforming Fuels Blending Practices
A leading North American refining corporation engaged Trindent to optimize gasoline blending practices at one of their largest and most complex refineries. The engagement delivered improvements in blending value chain, behavioural adjustments at all levels of client personnel, and over $40,000,000 in annualized savings.
We spoke to
a senior workstream supervisor and one of our direct contacts at the refinery
to learn more about his experience working with Trindent Consulting.
What was
your expectation when Trindent was hired to solve the gasoline blending
problem?
Trindent had a strong track
record of performing in the specific areas that we needed help with. We had
issues with Octane and Volatility giveaway concerning the fuels blending
practices, and a sub-standard structure in the way that blends were planned,
developed, executed, and tracked. So, in other words, from the time a recipe
was sent down to the time, it shipped out. We were looking to closing that loop
and understanding how we could improve performance.
Initially, when the Trindent came in, we thought it was going to
be a regular experience where a consulting team would come in, tune us up a
bit, and then we could go about our business. But soon we realized that we were
in much worse shape than we had originally anticipated. We discovered that we were battling with more complex problems like issues with analysis
reliability, our octane lab had not been supported adequately and there
was a global issue with understanding how to execute blends.
What
was the initial sentiment among your team members when Trindent first came in?
Our team welcomed Trindent
with open arms. We were looking forward to the experience because we knew that
we had to get from point A to point B and we needed someone like Trindent to help
us navigate. I think it is the core professionalism within Trindent or maybe
they just understand what’s going on and have empathy. Nobody on the Trindent
team was ever confrontational or made anything uncomfortable for any of the
project managers, business leaders, or anyone on our staff. I never felt like Trindent
was trying to insult our intelligence or throw us under the bus. It was clear
from the start that they were interested in long-term results and had clear
objectives from day one which was refreshing.
What did
you find different about Trindent? How is Trindent different from other
consulting firms you have worked with in the past?
It's impossible to count the number of ways Trindent is different. From the customer side, sometimes when you hear about consultants you cringe because you’re worried that they’re just trying to sell their latest product once you buy that, you’ll never hear from them again. Anyone that has dealt with consultants in the energy industry knows that that’s the typical experience. But the interesting dynamic about Trindent is that their objective is abundantly clear from day one. They come packaged with - here’s who we are, here’s what we do, here’s what we’re offering. Once they go through the identifying barriers to get where we need to get, they start deploying other people both within our organization and from their team. It never seemed like we were just being thrown under the bus. Everybody on their team was high-spirited and energetic, worked hard to engage with not just me, but with the people that reported to me and this was something that’s not typical to consultants. It wasn’t like they were just going to hand us some tools, and we would’ve had to navigate the rest, they went beyond that. They had very knowledgeable people in the field that developed personal relations with people at all levels and developed a rapport and trust with our staff on the field and that made the entire process go so much smoother.
For someone in my position, it
was fascinating to see how Trindent managed to do this all so well. And I’ll be
honest, in all my years of working with “consultants” I never felt like that
but with Trindent, I felt like more than consultants - they were members of my
team and I still feel that way.
Did you
feel that our methodology and tools drove behavioral changes, enhanced
ownership & accountability, and helped blenders during execution?
Absolutely. I pride myself as
someone who can navigate through various personalities but we were struggling to
manage conversations with people across different levels at the organization
and multiple teams. Trindent gave us a
structured script to drive consistency so our message was clear. With this
script, we started to build a structure and a cadence that the blenders became
accustomed to. One of Trindent’s geniuses is sitting down, talking to people,
and reading through all the superfluous stuff to find valuable information. They
gave the blenders an avenue to vent their grievances and eventually it was
through these conversations we learned what we needed to look at.
We wanted our people to get addicted to success so once they started feeling valued, they started taking ownership.
Trindent talked to every single person. They talked to everyone from operators, to blenders and front-line supervisors. This activity was key to building a structure that was custom built for our site. So they were using a proven methodology but they had found a way to fit it to our specific needs to the point where people started to open up and started to look forward to our group conversations. They started taking personal ownership. They started raising red flags instead of us having to go find them. We wanted our people to get addicted to success and once they started feeling valued, they started taking ownership. At the end of the day, that accountability is all we needed to move forward.
Could you
share an overview of the results?
Within the first few weeks, Trindent
started putting together processes and we were able to see tangible results*
very early on. Octane and volatility giveaway were the two areas we had
problems in and if we were to attach a dollar value to them, let’s just say
that they were both running neck to neck in terms of their impact on the
business.
Within the first month and a half Trindent gave us tools with which we could finally start looking at the big picture instead of just mapping the dots. We were now starting to see the trends and I would say that within the first six months, we had seen an overall reduction in octane giveaway by one whole octane number which is massive, and for volatility giveaway, they achieved a reduction that exceeded 50% of the existing numbers and with these results, the gains were immediate.
What was
your overall view of the engagement? Could you say a few words about your
experience working with Trindent Consulting?
The first thing I would like to say is that is Trindent lived up to its sterling reputation. They’ve been involved in a lot of aspects of the refining business and I can say that the level of integrity and the work ethic that their team came with is something that I haven’t experienced with other consultants. I always felt like from start to finish Trindent truly cared about our success and it was really about them watching their clients experience success.
I would say within the first month of the project I was getting feedback from people in the field asking about when the Trindent team members were visiting next. In the midst of all this we ended up in a pandemic but believe it or not, the folks are still looking forward to the Trindent team coming back.
The level of integrity and the work ethic that their team came with is something that I haven’t experienced with other consultants.
You never felt like you were
just given a folder full of marching orders to go through. The Trindent team
members were always giving us ideas to help improve and fine-tune our
processes. They were very good at identifying where we needed to tweak, tune,
and facilitate all the different personalities on the team in a way that didn’t
make it confrontational. All our team members were comfortable with Trindent
and this ensured a smooth flow of the project from start to finish. Even though
currently we are in the midst of a pandemic, I continue to get feedback from
people in the field asking about when the Trindent team will be coming back,
and that says a lot.
To sum it up, Trindent to me stands for professionalism, integrity, and compassion.
Learn more about how Trindent can Make This Happen ™ at your refinery.
Driving Behaviour Change in Performance Improvement
Behaviour is an integral part of performance – the two terms are often used interchangeably – so it’s no surprise that behaviour is a critical component of performance management and that behaviour change is the most challenging part of performance improvement implementation.
Because behaviour change is one of the pillars of sustainability and no performance improvement initiative can succeed without it, the challenges must be overcome in order for an organization to effectively implement change.
Challenges
Behaviour management is a daunting task on its own. Adding change to the mix can create complex challenges for anyone responsible for managing another employee’s performance, and these challenges can easily thwart the progress of change implementation.
So, how can this be tackled? As with any problem, the first step must be to determine the root causes. While it’s easy to blame employees for simply not wanting to change their behaviours, organizations often forget there are two components to successful behaviour change; one is the front-line employees, but the other equally important one is the managers.
Managers need to examine their own shortcomings when
it comes to driving employee performance. They have to be able to step back and scrutinize
whether or not they have effectively:
- Communicated with their team about the change;
- Managed their team’s cognitive biases against the change;
- Understood the differences in perception on the need for the change;
- Taken into account a poor corporate culture that doesn’t facilitate acceptance of the change;
- Considered the inevitable range of emotions that always goes along with change.
Some combination of these, along with various difficulties
unique to each workplace, can create a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to
managing employee behaviour around change implementation.
Steps to Changing Behaviour
While the list of obstacles to managing behaviour
change may seem daunting, a disciplined and structured approach can mitigate
many of these and create a path to successful change.
The ultimate goal of behaviour change is to have employees internalize and take ownership of the desired behaviour, and what’s required to drive this is the good habits of active management – setting clear expectations, developing capabilities, and putting proper motivation in place.
There are several steps a good active manager can take
to successfully drive behaviour change in their teams:
- Communicate. In order to exercise appropriate behaviour, employees need to understand what’s expected of them. Expectations need to be clear and realistic, but most importantly, they need to be known.
- Measure and review. Once targets have been communicated, behaviours need to be quantified as much as possible and then tracked and reported. Knowing whether expectations are being met allows for early and easy course correction.
- Grow Capabilities and Empower Success. Skills need to be evaluated on a skills matrix and adjusted to meet targets. If an employee lacks the needed skill to successfully participate in an implemented change, training should take place right away.
- Set motivators. There needs to be a clear understanding of rewards for desired behaviour and consequences of deficient ones.
- Follow Up. By following up on performance and providing feedback where it’s needed, the loop is closed on continuous communication and the motivators are maintained.
At Trindent Consulting we help clients successfully attain behaviour change on every engagement. Visit www.trindent.com for more information on how we Make It Happen ™.
Downstream Oil & Gas: Project Recommendations for 2021
By Kai Y. Wan with contributions from Ivan Parra Tepedino
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted many industries,
especially the Oil and Gas industry. This sector simultaneously experienced a
price collapse, a supply glut, an unprecedented demand decline and a
health/economic crisis. Additionally, the sector’s poor structural and
financial health caused the oil and gas industry to be caught unprepared for a
completely changed market of grounded planes and parked cars. Demand for
transportation fuels fell by up to half (according to the US EIA) and storage
tanks filled. Refineries were forced to cut rates or even stop production, with
seven refineries being shut down since June, 2019 .
Oil and gas downstream operators experienced their sharpest shock ever, one likely to be prolonged. In 2020, most downstream refiners and their upstream suppliers, operated at up to a 45% decrease in production with prices hoovering on 30-year lows. Consequently, cost structure changed significantly, forcing some operators to curtail or shut down their operation, layoff staff, shorten hourly operator hours and endure eroded margins. As of today, the industry is entering an era of intense competition, technology-led rapid supply response, flat to declining demand, investor skepticism, and increasing public and government pressure focused on the impact on climate and the environment. However, oil and gas will remain a thriving market for decades. Given its role in supplying affordable energy, it is too important to fail. The search for ways to create value in the midst of the new conditions is therefore fundamental.
So, what should the refiners do at this time to brace
the storm and ensure long-term success? All companies are predictably acting to
protect employees’ health and safety, and to preserve cash, in particular by
cutting or deferring discretionary capital and operating expenditures and, in
many cases, distributions to shareholders. These actions will not be enough for
companies financially hard-pressed. The leading companies will focus on
continuous improvement projects with high ROI and short breakeven or payback
periods. Launching initiatives and efforts to extract every last cent of value
from optimizing refineries and their supply chains is the best response. By
investing in these projects, these companies can quickly recover their
investment, release more cash, and build future resilience. The winners will be
those that use this crisis to reposition their strategies and transform their
operating models. Companies that don’t will end up restructuring or inevitably
deteriorate. Downstream operators need to right size their large, inflexible
technical and engineering functions, refocus on controlling administrative
costs and seize new opportunities for margin improvement through digitizing
refineries.
As many healthcare experts, especially epidemiologists
and infectious disease specialists, anticipate global recovery from COVID by
the end of 2021, there still are major challenges that conventional fuel
suppliers, as well as their upstream business partners, must be aware of:
- A twofold challenge due to sudden travel interruptions
–and longer term demand decline due to the economic downturn– coupled with an
increased appetite for telecommuting: COVID-19 has sped up the process of
remote working adaptation. Some companies have already announced to shift a
significant portion of their employees from the commercial office space to the
home office permanently to reduce office spending and promote work-life
balance. While the transportation fuel market may still grow in the coming few
years, the rate will be significantly lower than anticipated. Airline-miles
traveled are projected to remain down 15–20% in the near term, including a 50%
reduction from 2019 to 2020. Road-miles traveled will also feel the impact of
the substantial increase in telecommuting. - Increased focus on protecting environment and an
increasing shift to greener energy: the UK recently announced its 2030 plan to
stop selling gasoline/diesel-powered vehicles while EU countries follow similar
footsteps. Environmental concerns will gradually pressure refiners and their
upstream suppliers to provide higher quality fuel with lesser pollution and
higher production cost. Regulatory compliance costs have increased threefold
while health and environmental governance and corporate social-responsibility
impacts are driving conservatism. - Challenges from electric vehicles: Recently, Tesla has
become the largest car manufacturer globally, and its stock price and sale
continue to soar. At the same time, Tesla has been investing in building a
similar ecosystem like Apple to include the battery, charging station,
software, and autopilot. Traditional transportation fuels will be disrupted by
these new technology advances and eventually have to face demand decline as EV
infrastructure matured. - High inventories of crude and products as a result of
the abrupt demand shock result in margin pressure. For example, processing more
barrels when cracks turn positive will extend supply surplus. Significantly
curtailed jet-fuel demand is also likely to cause crack and yield challenges as
rates increase while reopening markets could cause geographic arbitrage and short-term
instability, all of this in an environment of limited price stability.
In summary, we recommend the following types of
projects that Oil and Gas operators should focus on during the next decade:
- High ROI, short payback period projects to generate healthy, positive cash flow coupled with cash-management readjustments to preserve cash until the market breaks
- Create value through precision, limiting product exceedances of minimum-quality requirements by improving product-demand forecasting, blending processes, or using in-line measurement tools. Refiners with optimized operations planning spend less on the components that make up their finished products, from gasoline to asphalt.
- Free up working capital and reduce energy consumption trough improved production planning, including a rigorous calculation of the refineries’ material balance closure. The worst performers cannot account for as much as 5 percent of their throughput. That contributes to sub optimized operations and subpar commercial decisions.
- Environmental projects to achieve a lower carbon footprint and pollution cost in compliance with new environmental focus
- Long-term transformation projects to shift future production profiles to build resilience against the disrupted, fast-change transportation fuel market”
Dissecting Trindent’s Values for New Applicants – Character Before Skill
Think of your next job as an investment. When you invest in something, you first want
to make sure the asset meets whatever criteria you define as a “good fit” –
whether it’s the level of risk, or the rate of return, or some other factor. Throughout your career, the same methodology should
apply when you are assessing a potential employer – do they meet your criteria
of what a good fit is?
One of the most reliable ways to determine if
a potential employer will be a good fit is by looking at their values and
assessing how similar they are to yours.
At Trindent, one of our three core values is “Character Before Skill”, which can be broken down into two parts.
- Character
- Skill
Character
Your character defines who you are. It is the sum total of your of morals, your
ethics, your worldview, your approach, your attitude. When
it comes to hiring consultants, Trindent believes that it is attitude that sets
apart the candidates who will succeed from ones who may struggle. Consultants
must have the right mindset – the right attitude – if they are to succeed in
their role.
In our engagements, there is no “one size
fits all” solution to every challenge that our clients face; therefore, consultants
are constantly juggling unknown variables while remaining versatile and
persistent enough to “overcome [even] the most daunting of challenges.” In addition, consultants must have the ability
to remain positive through whatever happens. The nature and speed of our business and
engagement schedules creates ups and downs with regular frequency, so the
ability to remain focused and resilient is necessary to deliver the best
possible results to our clients.
The right attitude is not only for the
benefit of clients but also for the team you will be working with. Trindent teams are lean and work closely
together, often through months-long engagements. To be successful, this dynamic relies on a
good working relationship between everyone on the team. Someone who is easily discouraged or isn’t
agile or just lacks the energy and motivation of the rest of the team will create
a distraction to the engagement and make it difficult for everyone to function
as a group.
Skill
A skill is “a learned power of doing something competently:a developed aptitude or ability”. For Trindent, the key word from that definition is “learned”.
Consulting can be complex and demanding
work; and the skillset it requires is a robust one. However, these are skills that consultants
have accumulated through advanced education and years of experience, and ones
they’ll continue to hone as their careers advance. There is, of course, a substantial set of requirements
that every applicant must meet. But we
recognize that if what’s standing between us and a really great consultant who
fits the Trindent mold is a missing skill that can be developed, it may not an
obstacle at all.
Conclusion
Skills do not build relationships, the right mindset does. The relationships we build with our colleagues and our clients drive our overall success
Character traits are static; skills can be taught.
Trindent likewise approaches the recruitment
and selection process with an investment mindset. We want to select the best individuals who
will fit our paradigm, bring the right attitude to work, and pay dividends on
the investment we make in them.
This is why, for Trindent, Character comes before Skill.
Increasing Executive Engagement On Improvement Projects
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” is perhaps the most well known self-help book ever sold. While Trindent doesn’t offer guidance on making friends, we coach our clients on how to ‘manage up’ effectively and exert influence, particularly when it comes to executive engagement in continuous improvement initiatives. This article will focus on three aspects of influencing the behavior of executives:
- Why it’s important to have them in attendance at project milestones
- How to ensure their attendance, and
- How to improve their engagement
Executive Involvement in Project Meetings
First, why is it important to have executives in attendance
at project milestones meetings? Pragmatically, if an executive is providing
resources to a project, whether it’s in the form of personnel or financial
support, they are inherently interested in the results being generated. After
all, they report to shareholders or owners and need to be able to justify their
investment. Tactically, executive attendance signifies the importance of the
project to the company and brings gravitas to the presentation. This signals to
the project team, as well as the rest of the organization, that the initiative
is an important one and deserves respect and attention.
If their attendance is so important, what can we do to ensure it? From the early phases, executive attendance needs to be communicated as a critical success factor to the project, and their commitment and attendance should be requested. If this is an issue, or they aren’t comfortable committing to attending, then it may be time to take a step back to determine if the project is a priority for the organization because if it’s not, it will be challenging, if not impossible, to complete it successfully. Once you have their initial commitment, make sure the meeting is calendared as soon as possible. Then, during the lead-up to the presentation, remind stakeholders of the date and time and provide a countdown, if necessary, to renew their commitment.
Finally, with a commitment from executives that they will be
in attendance, how do you ensure they will be engaged and actively
participating during the presentation instead of checking e-mails on their
phone or otherwise being a passive observer. Being engaged requires preparation, so do them
a favor: pre-wire the presentation along with talking points and questions
ahead of time, which will guide them on how and where to contribute. This is
also a good opportunity to address any potentially contentious questions ahead
of time, rather than allowing them to derail the presentation in progress.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, having your executive sponsor, and if
possible, their superior, attend milestone presentations is important in successfully
executing projects. The easiest way to ensure their attendance is to ask for it.
Get a commitment early and provide
reminders leading up to the presentation. Finally, help them engage in the
presentation by providing them with some reconnaissance: suggest talking
points, questions, and praise on an advance copy of the presentation.
Contact us today to learn more about how our approach to solving complex problems can benefit your organization.
The author of this article - David Kerry is a Senior Engagement Manager at Trindent consulting.
The Willingness To Change Operating Workflow
Most hospitals define turnaround time as previous patient ‘wheels out’ to the next patient ‘wheels in’ – where ‘wheels out’ and ‘wheels in’ are the exact times that a patient bed rolls out of or into an operating room (OR). This is a key metric in determining OR efficiency, as long turnarounds reduce available operating time and longer-than-planned turnarounds cause OR delays. Because this is so important, most hospitals know what their OR turnaround times are and if they are increasing or decreasing. What many hospitals rarely have visibility into, however, is why their turnaround times are moving. This is because most hospitals only record their ‘wheels out’ and ‘wheels in’ times. While this provides them their total turnaround time, it fails to provide visibility into how each step in the process is performing. We believe that breaking turnaround time into three areas – namely: clean time, preparation time, and delay time – allows for a complete picture into why turnaround times are changing, and most importantly: where they are changing.
Clean time
Also called turnover time is the amount of time it takes to clean the room from the previous surgery. Hospitals generally manage this area very well, as leadership often thinks this is the key to reducing their turnaround times. Although these times are rarely regularly recorded in a hospital, this area, somewhat surprisingly, has the smallest opportunity area for improving turnaround time since it often has the most policies, procedures, and guidelines surrounding it – not to mention hospitals are subject to certain constraints regarding critical cleaning chemical instructions.
Preparation time
Refers to the amount of time it takes to bring in and arrange the bedding, instrumentation, equipment, and all the other supplies required for the next surgery. This time is more variable as it is more unique to the type of case being conducted. For example, vascular and orthopedic cases have much more complicated equipment requirements than general surgery cases (hernias, for example) and, therefore, take much longer to prepare. In the current environment of updated preference sheets and tray optimizations, it has become a very routine task to set up a room for any type of surgery.
Delay time
Delay time is what most hospitals generally refer to as any delay between the scheduled start time of a surgery and when the patient wheels in to the OR. What hospitals lack understanding on, though, are the three hidden delay buckets, namely:
• Delays between wheels out and clean begin,
• Delays between clean end to prep begin, and;
• Delays between prep end and scheduled start
Opening your eyes to these three hidden sources of waste may be critical as they may have as large of an impact on turnaround time as the usually-documented turnaround time delay (scheduled start time to actual start time). If you, cumulatively, lost five minutes from wheels out to the scheduled case start (or approximately 100 seconds for each of the three aforementioned hidden segments of potential delay) for each turnover and did 160 turnovers per week (~200 surgeries per week) at your hospital, you would lose 800 minutes a week, which is nearly 700 hours of delay per year. Recapturing even half of that time (2.5 minutes) would equate to ~250 additional surgeries per year. This could be ~$750K per year depending on your contribution margin per surgery.
Now that it has been pointed out, the hidden elements of waste in your turnarounds and how minimal improvements here can make a large improvement in your OR, you can address how to capture these metrics, determine causes of delays during these times, and identify solutions to these problems. These items will be addressed in a future post.
When to Start a Consulting Project
By Adrian Travis, President
When I meet with executives, the notion of ‘the right timing’ frequently comes up as a question as part of the scoping and structuring process. While there’s never a convenient time to undergo an intensive consulting project that is going to challenge staff and drive business results, there are some relatively good pointers that I can provide. In deciding when to engage in a consulting project, an executive’s prime consideration should always be maximizing the likelihood of a project’s success.
First, a good question to ask is whether your consulting partner has the right people available. Often projects generate sub-optimal returns because a client is in a rush to meet an artificial deadline, or feels pressured to engage by certain point in time – to placate upper management, to meet the constraints of a particular fiscal year, for example. Take the time to ask your consulting partner when the ‘best possible’ staffing scenario would be from their perspective. The relationship should be a two-way dialogue. You should seek to have not only the most seasoned consultants on your project, but also the ones who are motivated and would enjoy the particular consulting assignment. If a consultant is slightly out of their element, or might not be a match for the particular working culture, or geographic location for the project, you can expect lesser results. Be wary of any consultancy that can accept a project on short notice. Strong consultancies have good people and a backlog of work, and typically book their teams three to six months ahead – because there is demand for their expertise. You wouldn’t trust a roofing or plumbing contractor who could start work immediately, would you?
Second, steer clear of starting a consulting engagement in the summer, or immediately preceding the holiday season. While most workplaces never stop, there are some periods of time in the calendar year that significant involve staff vacations, and may slow the pace of delivery on any consulting project. Consulting teams need unfettered access to your staff, and enough people in the workplace to get things done. Also consider the vacation schedules of the consultants staffed to your project – ideally they should be focused on the project.
Third, ensure the setup is done right. A well-run consulting project involves advance data collection, nuanced stakeholder communication, and ensuring that there’s a very clear set of operational and financial objectives for the project. Part of this process is meeting with your consulting partner enough so that there is a clear understanding of the particular problem, and your business objectives. Always ensure that your staff are thorough and careful in providing the right data and information.
The makings of a successful consulting project are rooted in good preparation. If you ensure there’s a good project team on your assignment, ensure that your people are 100% available and engaged in the process, and there is enough time for proper setup and diligence, you stand a much greater likelihood of a resounding success.
Hidden Opportunities to Enhance Your Margin
We are pleased to share a new article titled, Hidden Opportunities to Enhance Your Margins, written by our very own, Stephan Rajotte, Executive Vice President and Global Financial Services Leader. The article is featured in the March 2016 issue of Asia Insurance Review.
Read how improving human capital efficiency is an effective way to increase margins and how it will be a key to Asia's success.
About Asia Insurance Review
The Asia Insurance Review publishes breaking insurance industry news. It was first launched in January 1991 to meet the information
needs of insurance practitioners in Asia. It is now considered the premier professional regional magazine.
This article first appeared in the March 2016 edition of Asia Insurance Review.
The Right Tool for The Right Activity - Thinking Beyond Spreadsheets
How
many times have we found ourselves using a common tool to solve a multitude of
tasks knowing that this tool may not be optimal for the particular task at hand?
In the consulting industry, we rely on tools
that provide quick answers, and these tools are accessible to our clients as
well. But sometimes, things can be a bit like the old saying “If the only tool
you have is a hammer, you will start treating all your problems like a nail.”
For
instance, at an oil refinery, one wouldn’t use duct tape to stop a hydrocarbon
leakage, even though logically that may sound like a solution. As consultants,
we have the responsibility to assess the client’s most complex issues and
provide a solution that is specific to that issue.
One
example comes to mind: For a long time, many industries saw countless
dashboards developed in Excel. No complaints here, I use spreadsheets for
almost everything, even grocery shopping. Spreadsheets have provided,
spectacularly nonetheless, solutions to an almost infinite number of problems -
from the very simple bookkeeping to powerful answers to linear programming
models in the Oil & Gas industry.
Spreadsheets
have also allowed us to create management systems, where we can pull numbers,
transform them, plot them and generate actions. However, this can be a trap of
our own making: In the past, we never saw software versions coming up that
could make incompatible our old tools, but that is not the case currently.
The
questions we should be asking ourselves are - Should we acquire licenses for dashboard-specific
software when we need to share KPI’s with the upper management? Are we extracting
valuable information and transforming it into actions? Are we successfully upgrading
our tools to provide better insights?
One
area I want to highlight when it comes to upgrading and enhancing our
dashboards is the costs related to implementing these solutions. This is a list
of the top three that come to my mind:
- Converting
old dashboard from spreadsheet to a Business Intelligence solution: We find many times that
back-engineering dashboards can be time-consuming (hence, expensive), particularly
for dashboards that haven’t been in use for a while (did the previous user
leave instructions on how to maintain and update all the spreadsheets?) This
includes having the right resources to take care of the job, or if you are
considering developing in-house talent to take care of it. - The
cost of the solution itself: We see a wide range of prices, some very low coming
from a startup that has a particular feature we would like to have. Or even at
a zero-cost acquisition (there is a Python open-source library that can do the
trick), though user-friendliness is not anywhere nearby. Other are expensive
and provide powerful data analytics and impressive graphic displays. - IT
department:
Finally the company’s IT department will need to fully support the effort. On
the one hand, it is required that they provide accessibility to the data (permissions
and the right queries). On the other hand, this can be a shared responsibility between
IT and the Operations department, and it is critical: Data Quality. We have
encountered data fields that are a mixture of numeric and alphanumeric entries,
or typos if the data input is manual (as can be the case at a lab). An
additional effort would be required to guarantee that we are looking at the right
information by implementing features such as frequency histograms or time
series that allow us to spot outliers and errors and apply filters if required.
You have to spend time developing rules and filters, and many times this will
be an interactive process between the specialists and the developer to get to
an understanding of what is needed.
It is our view that dashboards provide visibility to different areas at different levels, promote accountability, and improve behaviour among all actors. As management consultants, we support moving to the next evolutionary level using and exploiting the right tool for a deeper insight. However, keep in mind that you should have the right resources in place, both for covering the cost of licenses, and the team to develop and maintain your new, shiny, and enhanced tool.
The author of this blog, Gerardo Luyando is a Senior Consultant at Trindent.