UIR3
Abstracts sometimes do not make sense
It is important to make sure that when talking to people that you are speaking their language.
Scenarios allow you to take a top-down approach working through the overall process and then repeatedly running through in more and more detail.
Scenarios allow you to keep track of every transformation of information or items avoiding the opportunity for omissions to be made when trying to explore an abstracted version of a process.
As a business grows, it is likely to develop processes which fit the situation.
Place ice cream in cone and serve
Over time, the situation may change, that activity may no longer be appropriate.
Throw out excess stock at the end of the day
When analysing businesses it is worth thinking how processes and teams fit together.
Bulk buy non perishable supplies to save money
When a process is reviewed on its own it is likely to make perfect sense, operating efficiently and completing the task reliably every time.
It is important to understand exactly how the tasks that form a process work together and understand exactly where every asset and piece of information is created, used and lost and whether they are needed.
It is only through understanding and mapping the whole process that an understanding of waste and inefficiency can be gathered.
With irregularly repeated activities it is difficult to identify how long they take to complete. When analysing an operation, it is important to understand what is really going and how long those tasks and activities take.
Someone who is completing these tasks in amongst numerous other activities is unlikely to be able to provide a clear idea of time to complete.
A way to start accurately recording how long a task is going to take is a sampling. This is the process of recording what the person is doing at set intervals of usually 15 minutes. This can then be analysed and provide quantitative data. This can be viewed as a highly invasive practice making staff feel as if they are under investigation and with short tasks it may be impractical to make regular enough visits to capture timings.
An alternative approach would be to record what is being done without recording who is doing it.
The results of either method can be analysed to get an idea of how long and the difficulties of completing the tasks are.
If you are planning to employ either of the approaches is important that the person being studied is aware of what is being done, why it is being done and how the results will be used.