Trindent Consulting

Agile Manifesto in Operational Improvement Projects

Traditionally Agile approach (and its components, such as Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP)) are associated with software development projects. Management Consulting projects typically follow a more traditional Waterfall methodology, based on PMBOK® guidelines. However, our clients today are operating in a more dynamic environment, that requires a higher degree of flexibility in delivering projects. Here are some elements of the Agile Manifesto that we, at Trindent, are using in our operational improvement engagements.

1. Satisfy Customers Through Early & Continuous Delivery: One of the key focuses of our engagements is in identifying and delivering “quick wins” early in the engagement. This helps to motivate teams, build early buy-in from stakeholders, and start delivering value to the customer.
2. Deliver Value Frequently: This becomes especially noticeable when we develop and install Management Operating system elements, like dashboards, performance trackers, etc. Trindent consultants work closely with client team members to deliver system tools on weekly basis through multiple iterations. This allows clients to test the tool, provide feedback, modify requirements or needed functionality. The result is a system tool that fully satisfies client needs, and the client takes ownership early in the process.
3. Break the Silos of Your Project: All Trindent engagements span across multiple departments in the client organization. It becomes vitally important for the success of engagement for all these departments and stakeholders to work in a coherent and synchronized way, focusing on aligned goals
4. Regularly Reflect and Adjust Your Way of Work to Boost Effectiveness: One of the key project governance elements of Trindent engagements is the weekly Engagement Status Report meeting. This highly structured event brings together all engagement participants to review engagement progress, schedule, and develop corrective actions as required.

These are just a few of the Agile Manifesto elements that we use on our engagements, that allow achieving planned results while maintaining a high degree of flexibility and adapting to changing business environments.

The author of this blog, Anas Dabbakh is a Senior Consultant at Trindent.

by Trindent Consulting

Tips on Working Abroad

By Adrian Travis

In management consulting, there’s no deeper end of the pool than an international consulting assignment.  At Trindent, we call this a complex business challenge, because of the various cultural nuances, language barrier, not to mention jet-lag and isolation it causes staff while on assignment.  However, for the right person, and the right client, it can both be a valuable driver of business performance for a client. Working abroad can benefit a client that doesn’t normally have access to excellent consulting talent in their particular city or country and it will also be a gratifying learning experience for a consultant to explore new frontiers in business, and their personal lives.

As a consultant, I’ve had the pleasure to work for long periods of time in places like Tokyo, Hong Kong and Munich.  It was a tremendously gratifying experience and I felt that I grew as both a consultant and a human being.

Opportunities Abroad

Asia Pacific is well-known to have a rather immature management consulting talent pool.  Even the biggest and strongest management consulting firms have rather spotty track records in developing markets, particularly those in markets where educational systems minimize free-thinking and criticism of ideas. As businesses grow and the demand for consulting talents in Asia become necessary, management consultants will grow. For now, this market is still a frontier market for consulting services.

Working Abroad

The number one complaint from clients looking to perform a project in Asia is international travel expenses, followed closely by local linguistic expertise.  The common questions that I ask international client executives are:

“Would you mind the additional travel expense to have an expert on your team?”

“Would you like the problem solved with the strongest possible team, or would you like us to trade that off for local language proficiency?”

Sometimes clients wish to minimize travel expenses by keeping their consultants on site 100% of the time.  Like any good employee, isolation from friends and family is likely to lead to burnout and lack of engagement.  It’s a good practice to keep your consultants engaged and operating at their peak performance.  Rotations home to see loved ones are essential in achieving this.  Sometimes the incremental results generated from a properly-run project with fully-engaged staff and consultants can easily outweigh any travel expense incurred.  Forward-thinking client executives will typically understand this.

Trindent Consulting has had a strong track record of delivering results in Asia, and we’ve been able to open up this market to top-notch consulting expertise.  It’s not without it’s challenges, but any project’s chance of success can be achieved by favoring the strongest possible consultant, regardless of geography, language proficiency, and ensuring they’re motivated to perform.

by Trindent Consulting

The Future Supply Chain

What Does the Supply Chain of the Future Look Like?

Many of our clients are interested in moving to the ‘next-generation’ of supply chain, as a reaction to competitive pressures or changes in market dynamics.  The salient question is – just how far in the future can we push a supply chain?

Evidently, the focus will include some form of advanced technology, like RFID and Electronic Ordering, and complete system integration. However, these technologies are largely here now, almost by definition, since they are used in isolated corners of most supply chains.  Since no one has really implemented all of the technologies, certainly all together, it does represent the “future,” but maybe the relatively near future. It’s simply a matter of the adoption curve.

Every organization struggles with the temptation to paint a picture of a supply chain world in which simply everything is automated – though, indeed, that may very well be a huge component of the future vision. In fact, Trindent has pondered this topic – when do we reach a point in the level of supply chain automation, both physical and informational, that there just is not a whole lot more we can do in terms of supply chain improvements? Is that point likely to come fairly soon, or is it decades away?

System Integration is at a similar crossroads. It would also be relatively easy to simply paint a vision where we have virtually 100% integration both within the enterprise and across trading partners and networks. Much more unpredictable, of course, would be forecasting the timing of this (remembering, for example, the lessons and history of EDI), but even beyond that, does foretelling a world of near perfect automation and integration really tell us much? We don’t think so.

Processes are a part of the solution, and less is better.  By less, we mean removal of unnecessary steps, paper processes, data entry, ordering, repackaging and returning.  Most organizations have not approached supply chain redesign by asking, why are we doing this in the first place?

There is a Behavioral component as well.  Even the most automated, sophisticated supply chains are susceptible to self-inflicted, surges and spikes in demand, poor sales force and customer ordering practices, and grossly-optimistic marketing and product development timelines and demand estimates.  Trindent believes that the supply chain of the future will need to push the limits of human behavior and habit.

All this also makes us wonder how far out companies themselves are thinking about this. What is the horizon of your company’s supply chain master planning? It is really just a timeline of advancing today’s basic strategies, or does it really encompass innovation? As most of our present clients today view “strategic planning” often has a horizon of only about 18 months, since many think the world is too dynamic, especially right now, to consider a horizon much beyond that. It was partly an exaggeration, but a good one to make the point about the environment we operate in today.

by Trindent Consulting

Change Management and Resistance

Anticipating and understanding resistance to ideas can make the difference between a truly outstanding project and mediocrity.

Why must organizations change?

Today’s dynamic business reality forces organizations to continuously search for ways to improve and remain competitive in the marketplace.  Being able to anticipate the ‘traps along the way’ and develop support for changes and improvements are the keys to continuous improvement, and an area of critical focus for any Trindent consulting engagement.

by Trindent Consulting

New Approaches to Cost Savings

Small but Scalable

Why Organizations need to Re-Conceptualize their Approach to Cost Savings

Overview

In recent years, both public and private organizations have been under immense pressure to reduce capital spending. Scrutiny from shareholders, employees and customers has forced many organizations to look inward for ways of reducing costs. Emphasis has been placed on scaling back items considered to be extravagant and unnecessary by onlookers, such as corporate jets and conferences in exotic locations. While many organizations have been diligent in their efforts to identify and purge unnecessary costs, one could argue that the most costly expenses only appear to be the most significant. Large opportunities for savings are being left on the table by institutions who just don’t know where to look.

The concept of economies of scale is frequently addressed in management rhetoric. It most commonly refers to the cost advantages that an organization obtains through purchasing en mass, amalgamation, and increased output. The basic premise is that the greater the volume of output, the lower the unit cost. The concept is frequently applied to production, expansion or acquisition but less often thought about when managing the business on a day to day basis. More specifically, managers tend to focus on large savings opportunities but tend to forgo the pursuit of smaller, more scalable avenues of cutting costs. This is likely because these opportunities appear too small, numerous or perhaps too arduous to capitalize on.

Small, if scalable, does not always mean small; in fact, ‘small’ can have a significant impact to the bottom line if it possess certain characteristics. The age old saying of “don’t sweat the small stuff” can be misleading when so much can be gained by getting into the details.

A Case Study

During a recent engagement, I worked with a medium sized call centre in Ontario, Canada. The focus of the engagement was to enhance profitability and improve service levels. The client had a management team comprised of twelve key individuals, one of whom I worked closely with throughout the duration of the project. At the project’s onset, I asked him what measures the company had taken to cut costs. Proudly, he explained that the management team had decided to forgo the annual management retreat at a resort in Northern Ontario. “It’s too bad really, but think about the savings. We’re going to save almost $8000 dollars from that alone,” he exclaimed. While the management team’s efforts to cut costs were admirable, a few thousand dollars to a multi-million dollar operation seemed insignificant. On the contrary, having twelve of the company’s best minds working, uninterrupted, though tough management problems for three days was probably more valuable than the actual cost of the retreat. This made me realize that the client had a long way to come in learning about more efficient ways of scaling back the company’s capital expenditures. While congratulating my client on taking the hit, I felt that point in the conversation was an opportune moment for me to explain the value I would be bringing to the organization.

To illustrate my point, I asked my client to provide me with some general information about the company’s operations so I could perhaps draw some on-the-spot conclusions. The call centre, he explained, had an annual call volume of four million calls. I asked him what his major frustrations with the process were. He explained, “When I walk onto the floors, I just see so much paper handling. I don’t understand why so many papers have to be printed at a call centre.” As our discussion evolved, he explained that a fifth of all calls needed additional information, and for each piece of additional information, an agent had to complete a form noting what information was outstanding. After filling out the form, the agent would have to deliver it to an administrative assistant who would send them out to the client. “What are the main types of information that they have to send out for?” I asked. “Credit rating, payment history, that sort of thing.” Immediately my mind began to put together a solution that, even if not immediately viable, would help illustrate my point.

“Why not automate it,” I said, and began to explain a simple process change. “Create a web-based form with multiple choice options that could be e-mailed instead of delivered by the agent. This would certainly expedite the process.” The client looked skeptical. He responded, “Yes, but that probably would only save a few moments, and not even on every call. It would hardly even make a dent in our operations.

As I wrote out a quick calculation to illustrate my point, I reminded him of the importance of scalability.

As he looked at the estimated annual impact, he was shocked by the result. He was beginning to realize that, at a very micro level, saving a few seconds for even a fraction of all calls could amount to savings far greater than cancelling the management retreat or scaling back the company summer picnic. The point helped illustrate my argument that finding small but scalable changes can result in a significant cost reduction to the organization.

Opulence or Ignorance?

One might argue that the reason organizations have placed greater emphasis on slashing unnecessary business trips or selling off the corporate box seats is because such gestures portray fiscal responsibility. While it is important for organizations to purge unnecessary, and often extravagant costs to shareholders and customers, I might argue that it is management’s sheer inability to scrutinize their own processes that clouds their capability to identify more scalable, lucrative changes. Managers too often focus on managing the day to day operations and fighting fires, seldom leaving any time to devote to process improvement. Without the time or the training to identify opportunities for improvement, managers neglect the most significant opportunities for improvement within the organization.

Moving Forward

A healthy operation is one that scrutinizes every action taken to produce an item, deal with a customer or provide a service. Managers should constantly challenge what is deemed to be necessary and encourage their staff to become creative in the way they see processes unfolding. Supervisors and front line staff should constantly be encouraged to ask themselves the following questions

• Why do we do this step?
• Are we documenting to excess?
• If I were a customer, would I be willing to pay for this?
• Could we do this step in a more efficient manner?
• What frustrates staff about this process? Can we fix that part of it?

Engaging staff in the process of improving their own workplace will increase employee engagement, improve morale and reduce the costs of doing business. Additionally, it is a far more sustainable and seamless approach to cost reduction in the long run.

by Trindent Consulting

Profitable Growth Fundamentals

Every organization requires a different growth strategy depending on where they are in the business lifecycle, organizational goals and direction, and capabilities.  Additionally, there are a multitude of other factors such as the economy, competitors, and technology outside of their control that directly impact an organizations ability to create sustainable growth.  Subsequently, each business has to evaluate their current environment and depending on where they are situated, develop initiatives to move them forward.  Almost any organization strives to attain sustainable growth either organically or through other means in an effort to achieve top line growth and bottom line results.

Fundamentals – Who, What, Where, When, and How

Who

With increasing competition and the internet paving the way for ease of market entry, companies must rely heavily on their employees’ creativity, imagination, idea generation, and opportunity capitalization to realize sustainable growth.  Executives often set the strategic direction and mandates for the business, but without the right employees to execute initiatives and complete the necessary work on a day to day basis, the strategies and corporate plans are worthless.  Organizations need to focus on empowering employees, enhancing the work experience, and bringing out the best in every member which leads to improved quality, cost structure, culture, and customer service.  This not only creates a truly engaged workforce but also sets the foundation for continuous growth.

What

For an organization to truly manifest the characteristics required to attain sustainable growth, there must be balance in the four major functions – financial, customer, process, and learning & growth.  Businesses that are able to consistently refine their goals, adapt to market conditions and fluctuations, respond to competitor threats, and sustain their competitive advantage are well situated for continued success and growth.

Where

Organizations must continually review strategies and goals to ensure they are properly aligned with the direction of where the business wants to go.  Organizational road maps, typically 1-5 years forward looking, are powerful tools utilized by Executives in many organizations to display and ensure alignment with business goals, objectives, and desired results.  However, they require consistent monitoring and updating as business needs and environments regularly change.

When

A critical aspect in creating a sustainable growth strategy is knowing when to modify plans, change strategic direction, or shift resources to capitalize on an opportunity.  In the ever increasing competitive market, timing is everything!  If all four of the major quadrants are balanced and Executives are fully engaged in the process, they will be able to make informed decisions on how to move and when to move which are critical factors when capitalizing on opportunities or leading change.  Change is inevitable; innovation and continuous improvements are necessary for organizations to remain competitive and continuously grow.

How

Businesses that are able to develop strategic alliances and partnerships with customers and suppliers have a strategic advantage over competitors.  Organizations that are able to establish mutually beneficial business contracts with suppliers while providing customers with great products and timely delivery are well situated for long term growth and capitalization.  Additionally, by leveraging best practices, process innovation, and core competencies, organizations can maximize revenue streams through increased customer partnerships while improving processes and reducing operating costs.

Conclusions

Creating a sustainable corporate growth strategy requires many different functions to work in unison and continuous monitoring and execution of the fundamentals.  A balanced business focusing on the financials, customers, processes, and learning and growth opportunities will result in fully engaged employees and be well positioned to execute on or react to possible threats or opportunities that may arise. Feel free to contact Trindent for more details on this business challenge.

by Trindent Consulting

Leadership and Power

Strong organizations have leaders; stronger organizations have followers which lead!  Leadership is vital during times of change. “When the Rubber Meets the Road” so to speak… do the managers influencing this change truly process the leadership skills required to achieve the Results expected?

First off we define leadership as; “the ability to influence a group towards the achievement of goals”

The projects Trindent typically perform require leadership at all levels of the organization, so we would bucket Leadership characteristics into a few themes, Traits, Behaviors, and Decision Styles. All of which make sustaining change critical.

Traits:

The leaders which Trindent Management have been fortunate to work with posses these common traits:

• drive and ambition
• desire to lead and influence
• integrity
• confidence
• intelligence
• technical knowledge

Trindent has discovered these traits are vital to sustain change within dynamic organizations regardless of industry.  In the past year the world has witnessed the financial service sector fail many of the communities they serve because of poor leadership. One can argue that these traits were severely missing from the leaders of the most well known and respected financial institutions of the world.

Behaviors:

Leadership as it is defined in terms of one’s behavior debates the balance between being a job-centered or employee-centered leader. A job-centered leader only cares about the task at hand, win at all cost mentality, where as an employee-centered leader achieves the results through group cohesion, promoting a supportive work environment, and focus on the employee’s well-being. Clearly leadership behavior all depends on the situation challenging the organization, therefore recognizing the leadership behavior within the organization is pivotal to align the proper leader and his/her style with the employees executing the change.

Recently, two different clients were looking to establish operational baselines for their business needs, one clients approach was centered only around the companies objectives and goals (Job-centered), where are the other client leverage their distribution base to establish operational goals and relied solely on the outside opinion of the group to establish the goals (employee-centered). In each case the goals were established and the leverage their leadership behavior to meet their objectives. So, there is no perfect behavior, just the need to recognize how to lead the team

Decision Making Style:

Leadership decision making style is similar to behavior, however the intent of the actions are different. The styles are dependent of variables such as the quality of solutions needed, acceptance of the solution, and the time to make the decision. With those variables the leader may take action in multiple ways:

• leader decides alone
• leader solicits information, decides alone
• leader discusses problem with subordinate individually, decides alone
• leader discusses problem with subordinates as a group, decides alone
• complete group decision making (e.g. consensus, majority)

As a result, a leader’s decision making style may be influenced by the dependent or independent variables of the task at hand. A dependant variable being:  the follower’s performance behaviors, and an independent variable being:  all those things that a leader can do to influence the follower’s performance. The means by which the leader influences the follower’s performance is due to the Power the leader has over the follower.

Power:

It is common when speaking about leadership to incorporate Power into the discussion. Power is defined as the capacity to influence someone to do something they would not otherwise do. In the US, we tend to be suspicious and cynical about power, even if it is used for “good”.  As Trindent grows globally we have witnessed the cultural differences of “Power” within organizations as well.

There are two faces to power, a Negative face of power which is dominance and coercive. I have greater influence over you, so you have less influence over yourself.  I win, you lose. Factory settings are common places for this display of power. The Positive face of power is enabling, inspiring. Here’s how you can reach your goals; you are capable and strong; working together we can accomplish these goals. One of our successful European medical device clients operate with this approach to power.

Conclusion:

What are successful organizations doing to lead change? They are leading with integrity, confidence, and intelligence. They “Read the Room” so to speak and lead with flexible behaviors and decision making styles while keeping a power position that inspires the team to reach its goals.

by Trindent Consulting

Leadership and Motivation

Leadership is the art of influencing behaviors towards a common goal.

Leadership Overview

There are many different thoughts and extraordinarily wide range of definitions when people describe the term ‘Leadership’, but at its grassroots, it is a management skill and ability to influence the behaviors of a group of people toward a common goal.  The ‘goals’ and ‘leaders’ will differ at all levels of an organization, from Corporate objectives to departmental targets and C-Level Executives down to Supervisors, but everyone must understand and strive toward a common objective to ensure full coordination and greatest level of success.

Results Based Leadership – Connecting Attributes to Results

When it comes to leadership competencies, many academics and industry professionals tend to focus solely on attributes, such as personal integrity, personality, analytical ability, and vision to define a successful leader.  Potential Leaders are assessed on who they are (values, character, motives), what they know (skills, experience, knowledge), and what they do (style, behaviors, decisions).  They often fail to make the connection between these attributes and what truly defines a successful leader, results!  A leader’s job requires more than personal attributes and knowledge, it demands results.  The Results Based Leadership equation makes this connection and evaluates leaders on both attributes and their ability to deliver on predefined goals and objectives.

Leadership = Attributes x Results

Each variable in the equation is multiplicative, they are not cumulative, and propose that Leaders must strive for excellence in displaying specific attributes and obtaining desired results.

Leaders exhibiting ideal attributes but fail to deliver desired results have ideas without substance.  They rely heavily on who they are and how they conduct themselves rather than what they deliver and are not long remembered when they leave an organization.  Conversely, Leaders who deliver results but lack the ideal attributes find their successes short lived.  These Leaders fail to motivate employees and with a results only oriented attitude, their successes often disappear shortly after being implemented.

A Results Based Leader needs to be able to define and measure desired results.  Desired results in any organization should focus on being:

1)      Balanced – one part of the company should not be ignored so that another can thrive.

2)      Lasting – long term success is not sacrificed for short term gains.

3)      Strategic – link to the firm’s strategy and strengthen its competitive position.

4)      Selfless – work to benefit the organization as a whole, not single areas or functions.

Additionally, there are four areas of an organization that a successful Leader must deliver results on and consider when outlining the organizations desired results.

• Employee Results – developing the organizations human capital.
• Organization Results – creating an environment conducive to innovation and learning.
• Customer Results – achieving target customer satisfaction and providing services and goods that they value.
• Investor Results – Maximizing resources, reducing costs, increasing returns, growth.

Different industries and lines of businesses will force organizations to shift the balance amongst Management, but inevitably, all four areas must balance in order for the company to succeed.  For example, if an Executive fails to deliver on employee results, the organization will have a hard time attracting and retaining talent, leading to organizational, customer, and inevitably investor results issues.

Conclusion

Many Leaders fail in their attempt to create a truly balanced results oriented organization.  It becomes the Senior Leaders’ ability to shift priorities and identify the necessary desired results that ultimately defines their long term success.  A results based approach from the top down helps a Leader cascade this mindset and approach down to all levels of Management throughout the organization.

by Trindent Consulting