Stuck!
Professor Rebecca Henderson & Professor Nelson Repenning
MIT Sloan School of Management [email protected] & [email protected]
Or
Why it can seem to be so hard to get anything done
&
What can be done about it
Or
Why you’re sometimes tempted to think the people who work for you are lazy
&
Why they don’t think so much of you, either
Outline Why we get stuck:
An introduction to the dynamics of overload & the dangers of firefighting
Why we stay stuck: The obvious solutions often make things
worse What can be done:
Knowing one’s capacity Killing project #26 Facing worse before better
Is This Your Project Pipeline?
Are these your delivery dates?Scheduleddelivery
date
Actual delivery date
Does this look familiar?
.
Elapsed Time
Progress100%
0%
Plan
Actual
• 79% apparently complete by original deadline• 2 major unplanned iterations requiring redesign
• Actual duration: 208% of schedule
Construction ProjectProject A
• Cumulative Labor Hours: 403% of plan
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Proje
ct A
Act
ual -
Plan
Lab
or
Month
Labo
r Hou
rs
Plan
Actual
What’s going on?
Overload at PreQuipActive Projects
12345...
2627282930
(formal developmentprojects by number)
5412386
28624
35275
21515329
ResourcesRequired forCompletion(months)
82412204
369
30183
Months toCompletion(desired)
Implied Development ResourceAllocation (months)
This year Next year Year after that
4038509224
4862406029
146236
1720
1501380930
0230
220
1200
9500
(customer support, troubleshooting)All Other Support Activity –– –– 430 430 430
Total Development Requirements –– –– 2783 2956 2178
Available Resources (months) –– –– 960 960 960
Rate of Utilization (percent) –– –– 289.9 307.9 226.9
Overcommitment destroys productivity
Average
Value-Added
Time on
Engineering
Tasks
Number of Projects per Engineer
100%
80%
60%
40%
0%
20%
65431 2
And shifts attention away from early stage work
Phases
Index of Attention and
Influence
High
Low
ACTUAL
ACTIVITYMANAGEMENT
PROFILE
KnowledgeAcquisition
ConceptInvestigation
BasicDesign
Prototype Building
PilotProduction
Manufacturing Ramp-Up
ABILITYTO INFLUENCEOUTCOME
And from:
Building long term capabilityDoing strategyMaking decisions
We call this
“The Capability Trap”
DesiredPerformance
ActualPerformance
PerformanceGap
-
+
Capability
+Time Spent
Working+
Pressure toDo Work +
+
Investments inCapability
Pressure toImprove
Capability
+
Time Spent onImplementation and
Improvement+
+
B1
Work Harder
Work Smarter
B2
CapabilityErosion
DELAY
DesiredPerformance
ActualPerformance
PerformanceGap
-
+
Capability
+Time Spent
Working+
Pressure toDo Work +
+
Investments inCapability
Pressure toImprove
Capability
+
Time Spent onImplementation and
Improvement+
+
-
B1
Work Harder
Work Smarter
B2
R1
Reinvestment
CapabilityErosion
DELAY
Confidential, please do not cite or quote without author’s permission.
The Capability Trap in Manufacturing
“In the minds of the [operations team leaders] they had to hit their pack counts. This meant if you were having a bad day and your yield had fallen ... you had to run like crazy to hit your target. You could say “you are making 20% garbage, stop the line and fix the problem”, and they would say, “I can’t hit my pack count without running like crazy.” They could never get ahead of the game.” -- improvement consultant
Desired NetProcess
Throughput
Net ProcessThroughtput
ManufacturingThroughput Gap
-
+
Machine Yield
+Time SpentRunning the
Line+
Pressure to MeetThroughputObjectives +
+
Investments inYield
Improvement
Pressure toImprove Yield
+
Time Spent onImprovement and
PreventiveMaintenance
+
+
-
-
B1
Work Harder
Work Smarter
B2
Shortcuts
B3
R1
Virtuous orVicious?
Confidential, please do not cite or quote without author’s permission.
The Capability Trap in Product Development
An engineer might not take the time to document her steps or put the results of a simulation on the bookshelf and because of that she saved engineering time and did her project more efficiently. But in the long run it prevented us from being able to deploy the reusability concepts that we were looking for.
--chief engineer DesiredDevelopment
Process Throughput
DevelopmentProcess
Throughput
DevelopmentProcess
Throughtput Gap
-
+
Designs onthe Bookshelf
+Time Spent on
Design Activities+
Pressure to MeetDeliver New
Products +
+
Designs Added tothe Bookshelf
Pressure toDocument Design
Work
+
Time Spent onDocumenting
Designs
+
+
-
-
B1
Work Harder
Work Smarter
B2
Shortcuts
B3
R1
Virtuous orVicious?
In general… “I knew I was in trouble when I had to
give hourly updates….”
Overload
Declining Performanc
e
No time for up front
work
The stuff we bring to
market is…
We have to spend a ton
of time fixing it…
Overload
Declining Performanc
e
The people who work for us are
lazy
We need more
controls
Overload
Declining Performanc
e
There’s no time to do strategy
We can’t make
decisions
Overload
Declining Performanc
e
No time for up front
work
The stuff we bring to
market is…
We have to spend a ton
of time fixing it…
What can be done?
Recognize you have a problem There are two theories. One says,
"there’s a problem let’s fix it." The other says "we have a problem, someone is screwing up, let’s go beat them up." To make improvement we could no longer embrace the second theory, we had to use the first.
Kill project 26!
Why is killing project #26 so hard? (Part 1) It’s a “good” project! Good managers can meet stretch goals
(and I’m a good manager) Making difficult decisions takes
time & energy
It’s very hard to kill projects without a strategy
Why is killing project #26 so hard? (Part 2) Killing project 26 will give us very
serious problems right now…
“Worse before better”
Time
Performance
Time
Time Spent Working
Time Spent Improving
Effort
Time
Capability
Actual Performance
Time
* =
Time Spent Working
Effort
Time
Time Spent Improving
Capability
Time
* =
Actual Performance
Time
So, all you need to do is: Measure capacity & track resources
Balance long and short term effort Avoid tipping into firefighting
Develop a strategy & the ability to act Learn to kill project 26 Face worse before better Develop the ability to have “high conflict,
high respect” decisions
What happens on Monday morning?
Two case studies Medtronics Kirkham Instruments
Some Models of Change The Vision Model (aka, the Field of
Dreams model) Change happens by giving people new ideas
The Document Model Change happens by writing those new ideas
down The “My Way or the Highway” Model
Change happens by telling people to use the new ideas, watching them closely, and penalizing those that don’t
All of these are probably necessary, but none are sufficient Organizational change efforts don’t produce
change unless somebody in the organization actually does something differently
Doing things differently is tough and does not come naturally
Successful change requires: Understanding how the current situation emerged Identifying how your behavior (inadvertently)
contributed to the current challenges Taking a disciplined approach to changing (your
own) bad habits
“I Will”- new things you will do
- old things you will stop doing
“We Should”-things that others need to do to allow your new
behaviors
Good luck!