Tag Archives: flexibility

Achieving individual success in a team organization

Individual success in a team organization is radically different from what it was in traditional organizations. To become successful as an individual in a team-based organization, you have to take action on three levels: 1. you and your talent, 2. you and the team you work with, 3. you and the organization you work in

Michael Jordan said it best: “there is no I in ‘TEAM’ but there is in ‘WIN’”. In sports, the most talented individuals are recognized as being the most valuable. In team-based organizations, e.g. Agile organizations or Super7 Operations, this is not yet the case. But it has to, if these organizations want to keep their most talented individuals on board.

In traditional organizations, the results of talented individuals were very visible. Based on their individual results, they would quickly get promotions and pay raises. In a team-based organization, however, success is always the success of a team, not of an individual. On the short-term, this work fine, much better even than traditional organizations. But after a few years, the real talents get restless and will demand recognition – or they will leave.

Change is needed on how individuals and organizations see and reward success. You as an individuals need to know what defines success for you. And organizations need to recognize unique talents within teams, and reward them proportionally.

It starts, however, with you. From my years of experience with team-based organizations, I’ve developed a practical model that you can use to become successful within your team organization.

Model by Menno R. van Dijk

Model by Menno R. van Dijk

First, you need to become “The I in Win”. For this, you need to work on understanding and improving three elements for success:

  • your values that define success to you (what drives you)
  • your talents that you can use to be successful (what makes you unique)
  • your experience that you have built up in using your talent (what you already know and did)

Secondly, you need a successful team. On this level, you need to work on improving two elements for success:

  • best-practices that enable teams to be succesfull (e.g. Lean, Agile, Super7 Operations)
  • excellence in cooperation, making optimal use of the different talents within your team

And finally, you need to manage your surroundings. The better you get a managing yourself and your team, the more successful you will get. At that point, you need to work on improving two elements for success:

  • make sure that you are rewarded for making the best use of what you do best, not for trying to improve on what you do worst. In a team organization, you don’t have to excel in everything.
  • find the best people to work with. Use the success of your team to increase your circle of influence. You will be able to choose your team and the organization that suits you best.

For more information, practical exercises or coaching (in Dutch or English), please check this site: www.persoonlijke-innovatie.nl

Menno R. van Dijk

Principles of Agile and Super7 compared

Many companies are adopting the principles of agile, nowadays. And they often find that their operations departments are ahead in this field. This is because of their experience with Lean and autonomous teams – their experience with Super7 Operations.

So, how do the principles of agile compare to the princples of Super7 Operations?

The agile principles (source: www.agilemanifesto.org):

  1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
  2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change or the customer’s competitive advantage.
  3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
  4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
  5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
  6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation
  7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
  8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
  9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
  10. Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.
  11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
  12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

The principles of Super7 Operations:

  1. The Super7 team has a goal that is relevant for the customer. The Super 7 team can help each other in achieving this goal. The goal is translated daily to a goal for that day. The Super7 team is committed to achieving the daily goal. When problems arise during the day and the daily goal can’t be met, the Super 7 team responses by doing what they can to come as close as possible to the goal. When that isn’t enough to reach the goal, they ask for help from their team manager.
  2. All Super 7 team members have the skills for all types of work. The Super7 Skills-Matrix shows who can do what, and at what skill level. The Super 7 team members are sufficiently flexible in working hours to be able to meet customer demand on busy days.
  3. Team manager steers on output. Manager stimulates the Super 7 team to come up with solutions. Manager is available and helpful when the Super7 asks for help.
  4. The daily rhythm is tuned to the rhythm of the customer requests. There is a fixed schedule for Super 7 team stand-up meetings, focused on achieving the daily goal.
  5. Super 7 team is autonomous in work distribution and who does what. There is a standard way of working. The team can deviate from this standard, as part of an improvement experiment.
  6. The Super 7 team is stimulated to continuously make the daily goals more challenging. Standard norm times are improved and planning is made tighter. This is done though Improvement Kata and Kaizen. As an Improvement Kata habit, a Super7 conducts small experiments, aimed at achieving the next target condition. For larger improvements, they plan a Kaizen event. There is a constructive performance dialogue, based on facts and figures, on all level of the organization.
  7. The Super 7 uses visual management. Daily goal and progress towards this is visible on the Super7 team board. Performance of last period is visible, as is the trend. Running and planned experiments and improvements are visible on the Super7 team board.                                                                                

The similarities are clear:

  • Delivering value to the customer is the main priority
  • Teamwork is key
  • Self-organization
  • Flexibility over planning
  • Face-to-face is the best way
  • Continuous improvement based on reflection on performance

Because of these similarities, experience with Super7 Operations will facilitate the transition towards agility.

Menno R. van Dijk.

 

40% flexibility in capacity to cope with fluctuation: Super7 Operations

Just how flexible is an Operation that is organized in Super7 teams?  40%. Super7 Operations can cope with a difference of 40% between a quiet day and a busy day.

From the many examples in day-to-day operations, we know that Super7 Operations increases the flexibility of a back-office. Impressive results have been achieved with this over the past few years, in many operational departments of large financial service providers.  Examples of this can be found in my book: Super7 Operations – the Next Step for Lean in Financial Services.  

Recently, one of my clients asked me to calculate just how flexible a team will become. How much can the daily demand fluctuate when working with no customer queue when the team works as a Super7?  An alternative could be replacing a part of the employees with flexible contractors: so called min-max-contractors, who work between 20 and 40 hours per week depending on demand. Could the same flexibility be achieved with Super7 Operations?

From experience, we know that a Super7 team is able to work one hour longer on busy days. The end time of the working day is flexible, and the members of a Super7 team make arrangements among themselves when one of their team has obligations preventing him/her to stay longer that day. Next to that, we’ve measured 5 to 15% higher productivity as well when the pressure is on. And, these extra hours are compensated by leaving early on quiet days, which means no extra hours to pay. This results in the following graph, showing the 40% flexibility:

 

Super7: flexibility to cope with fluctuation

Super7: flexibility to cope with fluctuation

Next to this, our analysis showed that Super7 Operations delivers greater flexibility than replacing 20% of your people with min-max contractors.

Naturally, things like team meetings and training are done on quiet days, and when they are planed on busy days they are rescheduled. This results in up to 20% lower ‘availability for productive work’ on quiet days – but this can be achieved without Super7 as well (we’ll call this scenario 1).

20% min-max contractors give you the flexibility to ask 20% of your workforce to stay longer or leave earlier, as long as you stay within the 20 to 40 hours per week range.  (This is scenario 2)

Super7 Operations is our Scenario 3

To be complete, we added a fourth scenario: Super7 Operations and replacing 20% of the employees with min-max contracts. 

The graph below shows these four scenario’s next to each other.

 Flexible capacity in 4 scenarios 

Surprising results, don’t you think?

Menno R. van Dijk.