Category Archives: Continuous Improvement

Continuous Improvement

Make Meetings Count – Literally, with Meeting Ticker and Clockwork Meetings.

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Ask the internet and often it delivers more than you expected. Today was one of those days.

About two weeks ago I ended up in a Twitter discussion with Shirley Ayres and Paul Taylor about how much time gets wasted in meetings. It started with a post about are meetings are the symptom of bad organisation, and ended up with some ideas around calculating just how much meetings cost.

One of the things mentioned was doing the following calculation, in your head:

Number of people x Hourly pay x Hours spent meeting = Meeting Cost*

*This doesn’t include travelling to the meeting or preparation time, which probably needs to be built-in, but it’s a good starting point.

The idea is that you then compare this cost of meeting figure against the benefits that have resulted from having the meeting, simple. The benefits should be greater than the costs. However, calculating the monetary value of the benefits of a meeting is a bit more difficult to work out.

That was where I left the discussion until Shirley and Paul picked things up again this morning (I have a good reason for being absent, honest).

Say hello to Meeting Ticker and Clockwork Meetings, these are two very helpful programmes that allow you to display the costs of your meetings. To quote Nick Atkin of Halton Housing Trust, “this would shorten meetings by about 75%”. This is how they work:

Meeting Ticker was introduced by Paul this morning. This is open source software which has been developed on GitHub by Toby Tripp, Lydia Tripp, and Roy Kolak. It is worth reading the explanation of why Meeting Ticker was developed ….’expensive consultants sitting on their butts for hours on end’ was a big motivator (sound familiar?).

This is very straightforward to use; you add in the number attending, make an estimate of the hourly salaries and press start. You then watch a meter rapidly adding up the pounds and pence with “stop the bleeding” written dramatically below. It is slightly mesmerizing and would shorten meetings I’m sure.

A couple of observations:

  • Meeting Ticker is written on GitHub, open source software so anybody (with the necessary coding skills) could develop it further, for example to include a choice of salary ranges or a salary calculator.
  • It might not work using Internet Explorer. There is an advisory note saying “If this works on Internet Explorer, it is purely by accident”. Worth knowing if your organisation (there are plenty) only allows an ancient version of Internet Explorer as the web browser.

Clockwork Meetings This afternoon Ed Bullock from Halton Housing Trust came up with this free app on iTunes. It is just as easy to uses as Meeting Ticker, you add the number of attendees, hourly salary cost and press start. The big difference is the ability to set an audible ‘click’ to make a noise at set intervals. Just what you need in case you forget the fact there is ‘money on the clock’.

The discussion hasn’t ended here. There is a lot of activity ongoing to find the best on-line salary calculator that could be used in conjunction with either of these applications.

I’d suggest that you also need a large screen in the meeting room, so that everyone can see the costs rising as the meeting progresses (or drags on). Hopefully it will focus minds to think about costs and benefits.

I know we haven’t yet worked out how we measure the benefits of meetings. Maybe that’s something Shirley can encourage debate about next weekend?

So what’s the PONT?

  1. There seems to be software programme or app for just about anything you can think of, somewhere on the internet. You just need someone to look in the right place.
  2. A highly visible display of the costs of a meeting is likely to have an impact on how people behave and long the meeting takes.
  3. Slight word of caution here. Don’t let this approach fall into the wrong hands. I worry that a few people might misuse ‘meeting cost measures’ and force people into hasty decisions, when a more thoughtful consideration of the evidence is required.

Picture source: Meeting Ticker http://tobytripp.github.io/meeting-ticker/

Clockwork Meetings: https://itunes.apple.com/ye/app/clockwork-meetings/id384045562?mt=8

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Don’t spend any money on NHS Jargon Busters – it’s sorted! Download the Apps.

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20130509-224405.jpgI’m not ashamed to admit my naivety and ignorance. In the last post I was astonished to find out there was a book available called ‘NHS Jargon Explained’. I was just scratching the surface…..

On the basis that jargon is “the specialised or technical language of a trade, profession or similar group”, and the NHS is a massive organisation with very many specialist groups, this shouldn’t be surprising. A quick search using twitter turned up some interesting examples of NHS ‘jargon busters’. These are my favourites, apologies to anyone worthy who’s not on the list.

Guardian Newspaper, Glossary of Healthcare Jargons and Acronyms. This is 2011 vintage and has about 70 examples of the most common NHS jargon. I was a bit surprised to see BT (British Telecom) feature. Apparently it’s something to do with them running the N3 Network. Have a look at the Guardian article to find out what N3 means. You also need to know that a ‘spine’ isn’t necessarily that thing in the middle of your back.

NHS Local, West Midlands. This is provided by a group of NHS organisations, Universities and private sector organisations that are “transforming healthcare by changing the conversation between patient and the NHS” (that’s not jargon is it). The jargon buster has about 70 explanations, mainly to do with maternity services. Very useful if you need to use that service. A great explanation of ‘oily fish’ can be found here.

Leicestershire NHS, Health Informatics Service. This is blog by a Communications and Marketing Officer in Leicestershire NHS, that explains about 30 Information Technology terms used in the NHS. Helpful information about the language used by another specialist group that will be of benefit to those who don’t work in IT or understand it. Unfortunately there was no explanation of exactly what ‘informatics’ means (is it just me?).

Health and Social Care Information Centre, National Casemix Office Jargon Buster. I had to use the jargon buster to understand what a ‘Casemix Office’ does: “A system whereby the complexity of the care provided to a patient is reflected in an aggregate secondary healthcare classification.” Phew, thank goodness that’s cleared up. There are about 60 definitions here, some of them pretty baffling, but it is the language of a very specialist group. Well worth a look if you want to understand what ‘complications and comorbidities’ are all about, alongside ‘cliff edges’, ‘unbundling’ and ‘spells’.

NHS Confederation Acronym Buster. This has a bumper 500 acronyms explained. There is even Application Software (an App, see the NHS Leicestershire definition) available to download for free. This is very helpful and something you could keep under the desk for emergency situations when the healthcare experts are running wild. My only gripe would be that defining acronyms is only half of the problem solved. The jargon remains.

My Health London.  This is an award-winning information website for health services in London. The jargon buster is in a section focussed on young people and there is also a free App you can download called ‘Well Happy’. This is worth a look as it has very clear, jargon free explanations under headings such as ‘Sex and Relationships’ and ‘Alcohol and Addiction’.  Very useful for those difficult conversations with the teenage kids.

This has been a bit of an eye opener. Specialist groups certainly do have their own language, unfortunately jargon to outsiders. There were other examples I stumbled across from the third sector, IT, property and law. Nothing I could find specifically from the world of Local Government… yet?

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. In a large and complicated organisation like the NHS the occurrence of many specialist groups with their own technical language (jargon) is inevitable.
  2. The specialist groups need to make sure they don’t exclude outsiders by the use of technical language that isn’t easily understood.
  3. The good news is that may specialist groups are trying their best to share their ‘jargon busters’ which are free for everyone to use. Hopeful those who aren’t as well-developed or inclusive will pick these up and use them.

Picture Source: My Health London, Young Peoples, ‘Well Happy’ App.

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https://www.myhealth.london.nhs.uk/health-communities/young-people/download

Better Understanding – the benefit of meetings. Remember the first time?

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20130421-204621.jpgDoes anyone remember the first meeting they called?

I can, it was quite an anxious experience. Suddenly I had POWER! Power to take people away from doing something useful and have them sit around a table with me for a few hours. Outside of the work that kind of power would be considered a big deal.
The consequence of my anxiety was asking many questions like:

  •  Why do we need this meeting?
  •  Do all these people really need to be there?
  •  Is the journey from South to North Wales justifiable?
  •  What will it cost to put these people in a room for half a day?
  •  Is there an alternative way to achieve what we want to do?

The result was that lots of meetings never actually happened. There was often an alternative way to get things done, it just needed thinking about. That however was long time ago and I’m ashamed to say that I probably don’t put as much thought into calling meetings nowadays. Perhaps all that anxiety wasn’t such a bad thing?

The one thing still do quite often is a quick calculation of the cost of the meeting based roughly on salaries. Following the last weeks post about meetings being the symptom of bad organisation, Shirley Ayres mentioned that she also does this. Shirley takes it one step further by challenging those present with a question about are the outcomes of the meeting value for money? I might try a bit of that.

Ultimately there is great deal of power that comes with the ability to drag people away from what they are doing and into a meeting, it needs to be treated with respect.

So why do we have meetings? There’s plenty of advice available on how to have effective meetings, have a look at businessballs.com for useful and practical material.
Amongst this they have an interesting view on why we have meetings which is about understanding.

Essentially the most useful purpose of a meeting is that face to face contact between people which increases understanding and meaning. Quoting the research by Dr Albert Mehrabian they make some points about how people develop understanding:

  • Written Word = 7% On this basis completely substituting meetings with emails will be challenging.
  • Tone of spoken word = 38% Telephone conferences will improve things, but there is still potential for lots of misunderstanding.
  • Facial expressions and non-verbal signals = 55% Face to face meetings stand a much better chance of achieving understanding and meaning. They also point out that meetings are the most effective way of; securing commitment, exchanging knowledge, creating new ideas and resolving conflict.

I’ve not seen any figures for how this works with video conferences. Face to face communication through facilities like Skype and FaceTime are normal business practice for many people. A video conference certainly feels more useful that a telephone conference, but is it as effective as a real time face to face meeting?

So it’s not just a social thing. The point about getting better understanding and meaning is a huge benefit and good incentive to have meetings. However, it doesn’t automatically follow that the benefits will happen just from meeting face to face. There is plenty more that needs to be in place to have a effective meeting, just scroll through the businessballs advice.

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. The improved understanding acquired through face to face meetings is a big incentive for holding meetings.
  2. The ability to call a meeting is powerful. Meetings use up lots of resources. Outcomes need to pass the value for money test.
  3. It’s worth remembering the ‘first time’ you called a meeting and using the same level of care and attention that went into planning that first meeting for all.

Picture Source: Dilbert by Scott Adams

Links to other posts: http://whatsthepont.com/2013/04/14/meetings-are-the-symptom-of-bad-organisation-yes-but-no-but-maybe/

Meetings are the symptom of bad organisation. Yes, but no, but maybe?

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20130414-191305.jpgFor anyone who works in a large organisation this will resonate. You can back it up with comments you might have heard over the years, like; “meetings suck the life-force out of me”, “that’s two hours of my life I will never get back” and “that was a big waste tax payers / shareholders money”.

Top tip for really dull meetings: pretend you have to visit the bathroom. Go and do some useful work, then return just before the end of the meeting. Nobody will have the courage to ask why you took so long.

Back to the full quote by Peter Drucker, “meetings are the symptom of bad organisation. The fewer meetings the better”.

The point seems to be that meetings represent a failure to properly plan and organise what you are doing. As a result you end up in meetings trying to fix things that haven’t worked. Ultimately if you have to spend time in meetings, you aren’t doing the things that really matter like: making products or delivering services.

There is plenty of research and figures to back up the idea that meetings are a problem. This paper by Romano & Nunamaker analyses a huge amount of the research written about meetings and presents some depressing findings:

  • Many reviews and surveys reveal that meetings dominate workers and managers time and yet are considered to be costly, unproductive and dissatisfying.
  •  The number of meetings and their duration has been steadily increasing.
  •  Studies of managers and knowledge workers reveal that they spend between 25%-80% of their time in meetings.
  • Self estimates of meeting productivity by managers in many different functional areas range from 33% – 47%.

I said it was depressing. Just imagine you are one of those knowledge workers or managers who spend 80% of their time in meetings, of which only 47% of that time is productive. That’s over 40% of your time in work, 2 days a week, doing something that is useless (and we worry about people wasting time on social media…….).

This lack of achievement and the frustration that goes with it has to have an impact upon your level of engagement and sense of job satisfaction. This paper by Rogelberg et al in Human Resource Management (March-April 2010) makes the link between overall job satisfaction and meeting satisfaction. It goes on to suggest that meeting satisfaction could be used as part of job satisfaction measures and employee engagement.

If you fancy a more in-depth look at this topic, and potential solutions, one of the co-authors of the paper, Joseph A. Allen runs the Centre for Meeting Effectiveness Lab  at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska. There are some useful links on the page to work that the Lab is doing.

So, we need to ban all meetings! (Not quite yet……Rambo)

This could be one response to the ‘meetings problem’. As attractive as it might seem (to some people) it might actually make things worse. Meetings are very necessary for transparent decision making, relationship building and knowledge exchange. I’ve argued before that knowledge exchange is a social process  and meetings are a good place to achieve this. What we need is better meetings.

Having better meetings depends upon better process and people’s behaviour. Before any of this you need to be confident that you need the meeting in the first place, which links back to the Peter Drucker quote, “the fewer meetings the better”.

Meeting process and behaviours are two things I plan to write some posts about soon. In the meanwhile some more meeting quotes: (there are thousands on the web)

  • “A meeting is an interaction where the unwilling, selected from the uninformed, led by the unsuitable, to discuss the unnecessary, are required to write a report about the unimportant.” Kayser
  • “An employee who needs permission to buy a box of paperclips can spend tens of thousands of dollars worth of employee time on bad meetings.”

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. Meetings are very necessary for many good reasons like; transparent decision making, relationship building and knowledge exchange.
  2. The numbers and duration of meetings for managers and knowledge workers is increasing.
  3. The costs of bad meetings in lost productivity and reduced staff satisfaction are huge. We need to have better meetings, starting now.

Picture Source: http://venturevillage.eu/make-meetings-effective. Some useful tips here on how to make meetings more effective.

20130414-191327.jpgAn old favourite.

Clump Recruiting, Old Wine in New Bottles? What about the Pals Battalions and Richard Arkwright?

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20130404-224803.jpg‘Clump Recruitment’ is a jazzy new expression I recently heard mentioned at this event. The gist is that you can recruit Generation Y  people as a group or ‘clump’ by targeting where they hang out together (usually online somewhere, apparently). The idea is that you can then get them to all come along together and work for your knowledge economy business. This gives you all the benefits of a ready-made socially cohesive group. Large scale recruitment of the right people, done in a flash. Sounds fantastic.

I did start wondering though, hasn’t this sort of group recruitment happened before? Is the idea of ‘clump recruitment’ just ‘old wine in new bottles’?‘To explain my quandary here are two examples; the Pals Battalions from World War One and the older practice that flourished in the industrial revolution, where whole families worked for a single organisation.

The Pals Battalions of World War One.

The Pals Battalions were created at the outbreak of war in 1914 when there was an urgent need to recruit into the army. The Generals moved away from the traditional methods, reasoning that young men would be more likely to enlist if they could be sure they would be with people they already knew; friends, workmates, neighbours (and possibly family).

The idea certainly worked and between August and September 1914, 500,000 men had volunteered and a further 500,000 by the end of the year. A successful recruitment campaign in anyone’s books.

However, what shouldn’t be forgotten here is the impact of warfare on people from a specific community. The Battle of The Somme effectively wiped out the Accrington Pals, with a devastating effect upon the community the young men came from.

There’s is an excellent article about the Pals Battalions by Bruce Robinson on the BBC website which is well worth reading.

Richard Arkwright and Cromford Mill.

Richard Arkwright is a major contributor to the development of the industrial revolution in the 1770′s and has been credited with developing the world’s first factory system. You can read about him here or view the Tony Robinson, walking through history TV series.

What struck me in the video clip was how whole families were employed by Arkwright at Cromford Mill. Women and children in the factory producing thread whist the men were involved in weaving cloth. The workforce planning setup favoured the recruitment of a ‘family unit’.

A policy of incentives, like workers accommodation, may well have helped with the recruitment and retention at Cromford Mill. However, it also makes it difficult for workers to buck the system. If the whole family work for the same organisation there is unlikely to be much industrial dispute.

Throughout the industrial revolution there are numerous examples of several members of the same family, if not whole families or generations working for the same organisation. I know from my own family history that having a relative working in Deep Navigation Colliery meant that other members of the family followed.

Old wine in new bottles.

Back to old wine in new bottles, I do wonder if the idea of ‘clump recruiting’ Generation Y people is a bit of history repeating itself. The idea of recruiting specific groups, sometimes in very large numbers, has been around for a very long time.

If you want some interesting perspectives on ‘old wine in new bottles’, have a look at The Custody Record blog. I particularly like:

  • “We are not returning to how we did things before. We are moving forward in a familiar way.”
  • “We are not retreating. We are advancing in a new direction.”
  • “Old wine in new bottles.” The practice of taking something old and dressing it up to look like something new.

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. Recruiting groups of people who are very similar or linked can have consequences such as a potential lack of diversity in your workforce (or much worse in the case of the Pals).
  2. “History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new”. Biblical quote, Ecclesiastes 1:9.
  3. It’s always worth checking that the new idea isn’t just ‘old wine in new bottles’.

Picture Source: Cover of the book about the Carmarthen Pals Battalion. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Carmarthen-Pals-Steven-John/dp/1848840772

Expatiation, Innovation, Adaptation, Continuous Improvement and Hyperbole. It’s dictionary time

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20130310-160803.jpgIf hear another person loudly proclaim that their incremental improvement to an existing activity, process or product is ‘INNOVATION!’ I will scream (quietly to myself…..). Small enhancements are not innovation.

To be fair the language is a bit confusing and I’m not alone. This article on the British Quality Foundation blog by Paul Sloan draws the comparison with politicians who trumpet every piece of routine spending as ‘significant new investment’. The hyperbole (exaggeration to create emphasis) has permeated the world of improvement, causing confusion which doesn’t do justice to the real innovation some people are achieving. So here are some explanations:

  • Continuous Improvement & Kaizen,
  • Adaptation,
  • Exaptation, and
  • Innovation.

Continuous Improvement. CI for short does what it says on the tin, an ongoing effort to improve services, products or processes. There is a strong emphasis on the incremental (little changes) in this approach, alongside the importance of feedback from the users of the product or service.

If you fancy jazzing things up (and impressing your colleagues) you could describe this approach as Kaizen, the Japanese for Good Change, (Kai = Change, Zen = Good). I very much like Kaizen. It recognises that the people who do the work are best placed to identify the required improvements and implement them. The emphasis here is that changes are small enough to be implemented by an individual worker or at team level, which has additional benefits linked to employee engagement. Remember that this is not radical innovation or change on a massive scale.

Adaptation. A term from biology which refers to how a living organism changes to become better suited to its environment. The example of how humans adapted to live and hunt in groups, because it was more efficient is often used to illustrate adaptation.

A service delivery example would be the process of paying bills. This has adapted from; face to face, to postal, to the current online processes. You could argue the difference between continuous improvement and adaptation is about scale of the change, but it is a bit subjective.

Exaptation. Another term from biology. This refers to the process of using something that has been developed for one purpose, to achieve something completely different. The classic example is feathers which were apparently developed as a temperature controlling feature that then turned out to be very useful for flying.

A more recent example Dave Snowden described is the car in a plastic bag, which apparently originated during the Bangkok floods. One enterprising individual drove their car into a large plastic bag that had been used to protect new furniture. Now lots of people in Bangkok have car size plastic bags; available for use in future floods.

The act of taking something that was developed for one purpose and using it in a completely different setting is where exaptation differs from continuous improvement and adaptation. A bit like lateral thinking.

Innovation. Looking at my 1970′s Pocket Oxford English Dictionary, ‘sixth edition’ (schoolboy stuff, but it’s what’s shaped me), innovation is ‘bringing in novelties’. Novelties are, ‘new things, strange, hitherto unknown’. The ‘new’ part of innovation is fundamental to what it’s all about, even down to the Latin origins of the word novus = new.

It seems fairly straightforward to me that incremental improvements to an existing activity is not innovation, I hope you agree (or maybe not and it’s just the pedantic schoolboy in me that has resurfaced). If you fancy some more on this topic, links at the end of the post.

Finally, back to the Paul Sloan article where he suggests introducing two new terms; ‘radivation’ for radical innovation and ‘incrovation’ for making improvements to existing products. I know my spell checker is struggling with the concept, I wonder if the rest of the world is ready for the change?

So what’s the PONT?

  1. There is a big difference between something completely new (innovation) and incremental change (continuous improvement).
  2. Understanding and using the most appropriate description helps with understanding.
  3. Hyperbole can creep into all sorts of conversation, beware.

Links: More detailed explanation of exaptation From Dave Snowden . http://cognitive-edge.com/blog/entry/5573/exaptation-managed-serendipity-part-i/

Links to other things I’ve written: Is best practice the enemy of innovation http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/is-best-practice-the-enemy-of-innovation/

Do some organisations kill off new ideas?http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/12/23/idea-antibodies-do-some-organisation-have-an-autonomic-immune-response-that-kills-ideas/

Encouraging innovation with Belbin Resource Investigators .http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/encouraging-innovation-use-some-naive-experts-belbin-resource-investigators-and-send-them-back-to-the-floor/

Photo source: Dog floatation device. For other flood inspired exaptations and adaptations have a look at this site. http://blog.dothegreenthing.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/tumblr_lugcvlDfUk1r6pia1o1_500.jpg

Photo source: Car in the plastic bag article from China Car Times. http://www.chinacartimes.com/2012/07/guandong-government-wraps-cars-plastic-bags-avoid-typhoon-damage/

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Good Enough is Good Enough, the law of diminishing returns.

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Before I start this is not a rallying call for mediocrity or dumbing down. There are many people with deeply held views on ‘good enough is not good enough’. I’d prefer not to offend them.

This a post prompted by frustration. Frustration at the ‘pursuit of perfection’, and how it slows down getting things done.

Just to illustrate, imagine this scenario. You need approval on a business case to start a low value pilot project. People up the chain keep returning the business case and asking for: more data, more detail on the return on investment, greater clarity on risks and absolute certainty on the outcomes and impact. All useful stuff but there has to be a cut-off point where good enough is good enough. The same applies if you a writing up a report. At what point does the effort you put in exceed the impact?  Here are a few thoughts about written communication (mainly reports) and what ‘good enough’ means.

Why do reports need to be good enough?

  1. People need to understand the message. This is the most basic reason for writing the report. If you don’t achieve this you might as well not bother.
  2. It needs to be accessible so that the reader will engage. By this I mean; layout on the page, use of data/graphics/images, font size/type, sentence length, grammar, spelling etc. There is nothing like densely packed monolithic blocks of badly written text to switch off lots of people.

There are many variations of what could be done. I’d argue that the shorter and more straightforward something is, the easier it is for people to understand and quicker to implement.

Why do people pursue perfection? (Apologies if this sounds a bit cynical)

  1. It’s a power game. Messing about with what someone else has written can be a massive ego trip for some people.
  2. It puts off decision making.  People are just covering up their inability to make a decision under the smoke screen of ‘seeking perfection’.

So what do you do about it?

  1. Massage egos. This is where ‘good enough is good enough’ really has benefits. You know things will be changed by someone, no matter how hard you work on it. Just accept the situation, produce good enough reports and shovel them up the line. At least that keeps things moving and the people making the changes think that they are doing something useful and making a difference.
  2. Draw a line in the sand. If someone is pursing perfection because they cannot make a decision just say, ‘no more amendments’. Easier said than done, but you might have to back this up with some numbers like how you have exceeded the cost benefit ratio through excessive administration costs (they like that sort of stuff). Better still say you will accept the blame for anything that goes wrong.

The world of IT Management describes this concept as The Principle of Good Enough (POGE). This article by Scott W. Ambler talks about the idea of Just Barely Good Enough in the context of agile project management. The graph he uses is a development of the Law of Diminishing Returns, something which is well worth reviewing if you’re stuck in a ‘pursuit of perfection loop’. The article does point out the there is no simple mechanical method of knowing when something is good enough. Good enough will be dependent upon; the situation, it will change with time and it is achieved sooner than you think. At the end of the day it’s a judgement call.

The important thing to remember is that ‘good enough’ does not represent low quality.

The graphic below is useful if you are locked into a ‘perfection loop’. Borrowed from an interesting read by Scott W. Ambler Associates http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/barelyGoodEnough.html

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So what’s the PONT?

  1. Pursuit of perfection can be a behaviour that creates delay by putting off having to make a decision.
  2. The good enough approach needs to reflect the situation and can change with time.
  3. Accept that some people like to change reports. Produce something that is ‘good enough’ and move it up the line to get closer to action.

Finally a quote from General George Patton: “A good solution applied with vigour now is better than a perfect solution applied ten minutes later”

“Every CEO should try to access the services their organisation delivers using a mobile phone, at least twice a month”

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20130221-115930.jpgI wish I’d thought of that.

It was actually said by Jon Beech (@_jonb) on twitter and sparked a conversation about how senior officials could test the ‘lived experience’ of service users by trying to access their organisation’s website using a mobile phone. It’s been rattling around inside my head for a while and found its way out in the surroundings of a WordPress Users Wales meeting this week on responsive design.

I knew this was an important point when I first read it, and this is how it makes sense to me after the meeting. A few factual statements first:

  • People use websites to find out what services are delivered by organisations;
  • For large parts of society the Internet is the primary route they use;
  • Many people are using mobile devices (mobile phones, tablets etc) to access the Internet;
  • The percentage of people using mobile devices to do this is continuing to increase;
  • Many websites have historically been designed to be viewed from a desktop or laptop computer; and
  • Viewing a website designed for a large desktop screen, on a much smaller mobile phone screen can be a real hassle (go and try it out for yourself).

This is was why I was listening to James Cryer talk about responsive design at the WordPress meeting. In essence, responsive web design is about how websites are ‘responsive’ to the device on which they are viewed. The way that content is displayed will change to ensure that the reader has the best possible viewing experience for the size of screen they are using. This isn’t just about getting smaller (desktop to mobile), James pointed out that getting bigger (desktop to large screen TV) also offers challenges.

Using responsive design is helpful if you want your service users to understand what your organisation does. The easier it is to find and read the content on your website, using whatever device people choose (increasingly likely to be a mobile phone), the better it is for everyone.

So, why should this matter to your average CEO?

In the busy life of a CEO it is going to be difficult to ‘go back to the floor”, visit every department or take part in a ‘mystery shopper’ exercise. However, trying to access one of your services using a mobile phone is something you could do in a spare 5 minutes waiting for a train, sitting in a taxi or quietly in a senior management team meeting. This straight forward exercise would put you directly in the shoes of service users, a sort of virtual mystery shopper exercise. If your website isn’t responsive, I wonder how it will feel? It is a relatively low effort and possibly high impact activity, why not have a go?

Back to the WordPress responsive design ‘live demo’ session. Someone suggested it would be interesting to see if there were any good examples of responsive public sector websites in Wales……….. errrr….right.

Anyway, have a look at one we found for the Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust. I’ve included a few screen shots of the site on a tablet and a phone. The point to note here is the location of clinics and other facilities is responsive and works brilliantly on the small screens. Just what you need if you are using a mobile phone and need to find the location of a facility. Interestingly the responsive elements of this site were developed involving someone who that was at the WordPress meeting and works in Wales, Craig Cartwright at precedent.co.uk. Nice one!

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. The move towards greater use of mobile devices means that websites need to be designed with this in mind.
  2. Responsive design is a way of changing web content to fit different devices and make it easier to read the content.
  3. Checking services using only a mobile phone would be a cheap and effective method for CEO’s to do some virtual mystery shopping, and see things from the perspective of a service user.

Thanks very much to James Cryer for an excellent presentation at the WordPress Users Wales meeting. You can pick up James’ presentation here. http://www.slideshare.net/jamescryer/rwd-wordpress

Picture Source: This looks interesting. North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust Mystery Shopper Programme. http://www.combined.nhs.uk/ourservices/Pages/shopper.aspx

Explanatory leaflet available here: http://www.combined.nhs.uk/dc/Documents/Mystery%20Shopper%20faqs.pdf

Central London Community Healthcare ‘locations’ viewed on a tablet, followed by the same information on a mobile phone, try it out yourself.

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Busman’s Holiday. The Jefferson Memorial, Wastewater Treatment and Root Cause Analysis.

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20130209-094238.jpgTo avoid any confusion with my friends I need to put something on the record:

  1. I did not take my wife on a visit to a wastewater treatment plant (sewage works) on our honeymoon.
  2. We had a lovely time camping in a second-hand tent at St Cast, Brittany, NW France.
  3. I did visit the Barbados Wastewater Treatment Plant – alone – whilst we were on holidays in the Caribbean a few years later (it was fantastic).
  4. I did visit several other wastewater treatment plants whilst overseas on holidays during the following years (they were also very interesting).
  5. Yes, this activity was associated with my job at the time so it could be labelled as a Busman’s Holiday, but my wife never came on any of the visits, she’s far too sensible (bet you are now thinking I’m a real catch……).

Fast forward almost 20 years…….. Washington DC Hotel, family holiday with the kids.

Me: “Come on kids, get ready, we are off to see the Jefferson Memorial”

Oldest Son: “Ah yes, Thomas Jefferson, Third President of the United States, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, born 1734,  etc etc etc…… ” (He’s still talking)

Wife: “Yes, it’s where Howland Blackiston from the Juran Institute filmed that classic video on root cause analysis, The 5 Whys.”

Me: “Yeah, I really want to go and see if there are any spider webs left”.

Younger kids: “Please can we stay here and watch Sponge Bob on TV?”

Two points to note here:

  1. The 5 Whys video is a great one to watch if you are interested in root cause analysis and the 5 Whys technique. I’m not going to explain it and spoil things; I suggest you watch the 60 second video. By the way I did see plenty of spider’s webs at the Jefferson Memorial.
  2. This was a sublime moment when my wife and I were completely in tune and thinking about the same thing (that wasn’t kids related). We had both been exposed to the 5 Whys video during separate work activities and were genuinely excited about going to see the real place (well I was). A joint busman’s holiday, lovely.

Fast forward to summer holidays 2013 (Back to the Future)

It turns out we are going on holiday somewhere that doesn’t excite me very much. I’m not really a posh hotel sort of person. I’m not one to complain either, which is probably why I enjoy the hardships of cycling with my friend Geof. But I am someone who sees opportunity in even the direst of situations.

Good news! The place we are going has some interesting industrial facilities nearby AND some wastewater treatment operations. Even better they are really good at continuous improvement and staff engagement. I know a few people in the country who may be able to arrange a visit for me (and eldest son, he can tell them all about Jefferson). I am truly excited about the prospect of this latest busman’s holiday; hopefully I can share my learning experiences in some future posts.

It really is a bit like back to the future. My wife plans to go swimming with dolphins while I’m off at the industrial complex. I thought she did that in the Caribbean?….. whatever, roll on summer!

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. There is opportunity for learning even in the most unlikely of circumstances.
  2. If you enjoy something it doesn’t feel like work, or a busman’s holiday.
  3. Having a few different interests to your partner isn’t such a bad thing.

Busman’s holiday: Definition from http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/busman%27s_holiday

Etymology:  First recorded in 1893 in the UK. The idea is that a bus driver going off on a holiday, would take an excursion by bus, thereby engaging in a similar activity to work.

Noun: busman’s holiday.  A holiday or vacation during which one does something similar to what one does as work

Interesting links:

5 Whys and Root Cause Analysis a the Jefferson Memorial http://www.oahhs.org/quality/lean-transformation/jefferson-memorial-root-cause-analysis.doc

Why you need to ask Why? http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2011/05/some_years_ago.shtml

Howland Blackiston Juran Institute video. The 5 Whys. http://youtu.be/IETtnK7gzlE

Picture Source: Lego Bus http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=lego+london+bus&hl=en&tbo=d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=4QsWUYmcFufY0QXnsYDQCw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=768&bih=929#biv=i%7C12;d%7C_0gRqkBD9u9ZTM:

Florence Nightingale; the mother of Infographics? (btw she was also a nurse……)

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20130127-152835.jpgThis week I’ve had a few interesting conversations following this exchange: Question, “What did Florence Nightingale do? ” Typical response, “She was a Nurse……(of course!)“.  But….. “did you know she was also a mathematician and in the 1850′s produced a remarkable graphic showing the causes of death of hospitalised soldiers during the Crimean war.  The graphic convinced Parliament to improve sanitary conditions, which lead to a huge decline in mortality in many areas. She was probably the mother of modern Infographics…..”

I got involved in a project to develop better ways of communicating numerical information several years ago which we called ‘graphical presentation of data’. I don’t think the word Infographic had been invented back then, so it’s nice to have something new and groovy to describe what we were up to. An associate at the time was very concerned about the potential for the manipulation of data and its misrepresentation using graphics to “tell the story you want“. We never really made much progress and I think that some of the concerns that troubled us are still evident. Some infographics I’ve seen are a biased, inaccurate, unethical or just badly put together.  If you want a useful (and entertaining) description of good and bad infographics have a look at halfblog.net and the campaign against crap infographics (more links at the end of the post).

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Back to Florence Nightingale. In the 1850′s she developed this graphic which was a circular histogram that she called a ‘Coxcomb’. The purpose was to illustrate the number and, more importantly, the different causes of deaths soldiers suffered during the Crimean War. The graphic illustrates difference between;

  • Red – deaths caused by wounds,
  • Black – deaths from other causes, and
  • Blue – deaths caused by diseases.

It’s clear from the Coxcomb graphic that far more soldiers died from preventable diseases than from their battle wounds.  The result was action to improve sanitary conditions which led to greatly reduced numbers of deaths.  This article by Understanding Uncertainty provides a detailed explanation and helpful animation of the graphic.

The significance for me is that Florence Nightingale was able to communicate a very important issue through the graphical presentation of hard evidence; the data. It has been suggested that this approach enabled Politicians and Civil Servants to understand the issue and take action. They would have apparently struggled to understand if the data had been presented in the format of tables or other statistical reports used at the time. Clear presentation which enabled understanding was the key to the success of Florence Nightingales’ Coxcomb. It is worth remembering that this was created over 160 years ago, and today the 1857 Coxcomb still sets a standard that many modern infographics could aspire to. Florence Nightingale could in my view claim to be the mother of modern infographics

One last observation. Writing this post was partly prompted by reading this blog post  from Ayrshire Health, and a very brief twitter conversation with Derek Barron (@dtbarron) about nursing research.  The gist was around how some research is presented in a very academic way that can obscure understanding. That got me thinking about Florence Nightingale again, thanks Derek.

I’m not aware of how much the mathematical research and data presentation capabilities of Florence Nightingale feature in modern nurse research and communication training. In my view you’ve got a very helpful role model.

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. The graphical presentation of data (aka infographics) has been around for long time.
  2. It is an effective and quick method of clearly communicating complicated information, and can have a huge impact.
  3. Like any method of communicating there are good, bad and terrible examples of infographics and how to use them. Be careful how you use a powerful tool.

Photo Sources: Florence Nightingale picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Florence_Nightingale_CDV_by_H_Lenthall.jpg

Coxcomb Graphic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nightingale-mortality.jpg

Useful Links: mostly from halfbog.net

Good Examples. http://halfblog.net/2013/01/22/infographics-of-xkcd/

Not so good. http://halfblog.net/tag/crap-infographics/

I had to end this with a link to an Infographic. Here is the latest from Mashable showing the rise in Infographics: http://mashable.com/2013/01/26/infographics-marketing/