Hope…and two cows…
I saw an article on social media some time ago that used cows as a vehicle to explain communism. (Honestly. Google it!). The post continued to use the analogy of cows to explain different political systems and eventually went on to poke some fun at companies in different countries. It explained an American Corporation in this way
AN AMERICAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows,
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has died.
Whilst I can’t remember what platform I saw the article on, I remember noticing that the number of likes for this post was huge, with hundreds of comments, most of which were voicing their support for the premise. The reason it came to mind recently is because there is a danger that this is the unintended reaction to the reduced margins many industries are experiencing as a result of the recent Covid outbreak.
For example, as profits shrink and margins become tight, organisations are being forced to reduce expenditure . Whilst this is often unavoidable for businesses to stay afloat, the reduction is often treated as the solution in and of itself. When the budget or available resource is reduced this is often not followed by any change in expectations or ways of working, which is problematic. To use the maintenance sector as an example, when budgets are cut and outsourced resources reduced, whilst obvious major scopes are shelved, often the volume of routine work that needs to be executed remains unchanged as the equipment still needs maintained. In many instances there were already maintenance backlogs before any cuts, so this reduction in numbers makes a difficult task impossible.
If available resource is reduced the organisation can’t reasonably expect the same volume of maintenance work to be executed as before without something changing. It must do one of two things :
Increasing the productivity of the remaining resources to maintain the same output level.
Accept that output will reduce as a result of the reduction in available resources, and be explicit with what work will still be executed and what will not.
Maintaining output
If output is to be maintained with fewer resources, the productivity of the remaining resource has to go up. This won’t happen on its own. Simply giving the remaining workforce more work today and expecting them to be able to do it is putting hope ahead of reason.
“Hope is not a strategy”
To improve productivity, organisations have to assess how their work is being executed, identify areas for productivity improvement and invest effort in improving those areas. They have to actively work to make improvements otherwise the work simply isn’t going to get executed and the downward spiral will continue.
Reducing output
The alternative is for organisations to accept that output will reduce as a result of the reduction in available resources. In doing so it’s essential that the organisation is explicit with what work is not going to be executed as a result of the change. They have to actively invest effort to identify what work is to be complete and, often more importantly, what is not going to be complete.
If there is not a structured approach taken by the organisation to identify what work is no longer going to be executed, the decision will fall to those supervising the workforce executing the work as they are the ones that ultimately have to decide what their teams have to go and work on. Whilst these choices may be made with the best intentions, they are likely to be made focusing on what is deemed to be the highest priority on any given day, with the rest falling into backlog. It is unreasonable to expect that these decisions will be made with full awareness of what cumulative impact not carrying out certain works will have in the medium and long term.
It needs to be a conscious, outcome driven choice by the organisation what work is not going to be executed. Simply leaving backlogs to increase and hoping to maintain the same levels of reliability and availability is, once again, putting hope ahead of reason.
When less work is to be executed it is essential that the work that is complete provides the greatest return for the effort invested. All work must be reviewed and reprioritised in light of the reduced execution capacity in an active, structured way. The impact of work not being complete should also be factored into any reliability and availability modelling for the assets going forward. If there are not resources within the organisation with the capacity to carry out these reviews then it may be worth considering calling in a consultant before the cow has died, as opposed to after.
What organisations can’t afford to do is to simply reduce budget and available resource then do nothing else. To expect the same volume of work to be executed as before, or to simply accept that backlogs are going to increase further with no conscious strategic decisions on what work is not going to be complete, is to surrender delivery of the organisations outcome to hope.