• you get less than you expected at the planned cost,
• or you get what you want but at a higher cost,
• or you get less than you expected at a higher cost,
• or the project fails completely, and everything is shut down and the money spent up front is thrown away.

So there is a huge amount of money going into projects that fail. So the upside of having better control in your projects is huge.

The benefits of running projects right are huge

With a little calculation based on the benefit-value analyses that I myself have been involved in over the years, we can calculate that the projects that fail are on average 20% more expensive. This is a rather conservative calculation, but I thought that the precautionary principle should apply here. Let’s imagine that your organization is involved in projects worth 500 million per year.

So what does it mean for your business if we adopt the above figures?

1. Of your projects, 35% achieve their objectives, which in monetary terms means that SEK 175 million reaches its target, i.e. the money does the good that the project owner intended.
2. The remaining SEK 325 million will not reach the target, but with a 20% increase in costs, they need to be increased by SEK 65 million to get what you intended. So your budget is half a billion and you need to add 65 million SEK to reach your goals.
3. Or you can turn the calculation around and say that you get SEK 65 million less value if you choose to keep the budget and instead you completely or partially delete some functionality along the way. In other words, you don’t get what you intended and were prepared to pay for.

And the above calculation is per year. This cannot continue, something needs to be done about it. One way to do something is to ensure that you have a well-functioning project model and that you make sure to train staff in how to use the project model.

Project model? Ugh…

Some organizations have a project model, but they don’t really care about it. It is more voluntary whether you have to follow it or not. The people who care most about the model are the project managers, and that is not enough. Other organizations have a project model and say that it must be followed, but due to a lack of understanding of what the model actually means, it is usually mainly the professional project managers who follow the model. Then they have to chase the other role holders to get them to act as expected. It is not at all unusual for these project managers to end up being the ones who run all the roles themselves. “You are so good, can’t you write the project directive for me,” says the person who should act in the role of project owner, “you know what we should do?”.

For some, everything is a project

Still other organizations misuse the word project and use it for just about anything, where something is to be done that is a little outside the usual work. But they don’t meet the definition of a project, and they don’t give the person they call project manager the right conditions to succeed. Still others have allowed the finance department to get hold of the word “project”, where it exists in the financial system more as a cost center. Costs are entered there, even for things that have nothing to do with actual projects.

To stop this major leak, you need to do something! Project modeling is one thing. Training in the model is another. Monitoring its use and providing ongoing support to those working in projects is a third. You need to make sure that all three work. When it comes to training, don’t forget about staff turnover. It is not enough to hold the training once and then hope it works. You need to make sure you hold training on a regular basis. Both as a refresher for those who have already been trained and work according to your project model. And don’t forget the new employees in your organization.

• Do you not have a project model? Clean Stream can help you develop a well-functioning model for your business. We start from a well-functioning basic model and adapt it to your needs.
• Do you have a project model, but it is not working well? Clean Stream can help you improve your project model, seeing what works and what can be improved.
• Are you missing training on how to work according to your project model, how to manage projects, how to lead projects or how to plan projects? Clean Stream has the knowledge and training you need, both online and in person.

Contact me and I can tell you more. But above all, do something about your projects so you don’t have leaks in your business. If the above example applies to you, imagine what you could do with 65 million a year. I am convinced that it would be transformative for you to have this money for other things.

The post A project model that is followed saves you money appeared first on Clean Stream.

We need to improve quickly

That is the first lesson; the need to improve very quickly. I dare say, without knowing exactly where you work, that you and you in your organization have the same need and challenge. I see it over and over again; that there is a great need for improvement, but that we generally deal with the issue as if we have oceans of time to work on it. You don’t. As I always say, the only people who benefit from you dragging out your improvement work are those who do not want anything to change. They do not want it because:

• They themselves don’t want to change, because it’s hard. The law of least resistance makes us do as little as possible.
• They don’t want to go outside their comfort zone, because it’s uncomfortable and also hard.
• They are stuck in the whining corner, where it is quite convenient to be constantly energized by complaining about how badly things work. In the whining corner, there is no need to take responsibility.
• They are more concerned with what they might lose than what you as a whole might gain. There is always the risk of losing a mandate, a position, or perhaps something as simple as your office.

What I now hear from the highest representatives of the Armed Forces and compare with my own experiences, is that there is a will at the top for change. To some extent, the insight can also be found in the individual employee, because they see that things are not working in the organization. They themselves suffer from the problems. The big problem is the layer between the highest and lowest levels. It is like a fog where it is difficult to identify why things are not going as planned from the highest level. The problem can be compared to the captain of the ship standing on the bridge and steering. She turns to port or starboard, but the ship does not change course as quickly as the captain wants. It is as if the wire between the steering wheel and the rudder is not connected properly. Someone has created a slack that causes a large gap. There is a sluggishness in the system, which effectively puts an end to fast and effective change management. What I heard from several heads of the Armed Forces was exactly the same: There must be an end to “nonsense” and harmful bureaucracy, because we don’t have time for that. For the Swedish Armed Forces, there is a great need to quickly create the value that is the purpose of the business; to have military capabilities that deter our enemy from attacking us.

How do we stop the nonsense?

How then do we deal with this, to remove this harmful bureaucracy and stop the nonsense? Here comes the second lesson. If you’ve followed my communications in different places for a long time, you know that I’m looking for a better way to run businesses. A better way than the traditional hierarchical one. But if you still have a hierarchical structure, which is highly likely, then you need to use that structure. Here, you need to short-circuit it to a certain extent by directly contacting the employees at the bottom of the organization as a senior manager. That’s where you can find out what’s going on and what’s needed. Not a filtered and sanitized version of the situation. Because the middle layer between the “ordinary” employee and you is always more or less adjusted, so that no one in the middle layer appears in a worse light. At the same time, it is important that you, in contact with the employees, give your clear picture that the nonsense that is going on is over and that you really want to improve the way you work. This will immediately send a message about the importance of the improvement work and that you are leading the way. Now you may be thinking that you are not a CEO, municipal director, regional director or director general, so what should you do? Well, in your role as the person responsible for your organization, you have the opportunity to do the same. It may not be for the whole agency or company, but for you. Instead of six levels between the highest level and the lowest, it might be ‘only’ two or three. It matters less. Because if you go out and point out the importance of the improvement work, it gives the employees a real push forward. Then you show both your support and your expectations have been clarified. If you are a business developer, you should ally yourself with your immediate manager and together do your best to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy. Do you want help in brainstorming on how to get the best results in your improvement work? Contact me in the easiest way by clicking on the link, and we will take an online meeting to meet. No cost to you or obligation on your part. So let’s book a time that suits you.

The post Who is responsible for all the bureaucracy? appeared first on Clean Stream.

1. An arena is what I know about myself and what others know about me. There is what you know about yourself and you also show it outwardly. Others know and see what you are also aware of.
2. Another arena is that which is unknown to you but which others know about you. There are things that you show outwardly, but you are unaware of it.
3. The third arena is what you know about yourself, but others do not. You have a ‘secret’, which you choose not to share.
4. And the fourth arena is what neither others nor you know about you. These are things that are hidden.

What I find interesting, unlike many typical four-bar windows, is that you can measure this and get different sizes of the parts in the window. The bars in the window end up in different places depending on who you are. Some have larger open fields, while others have larger hidden fields. Some know more about themselves, others less.

What is it like in our businesses?

Then I shift the focus from us as people to our businesses. Because this can be translated to our organizations. As I mention in my trainings, in a business we need to focus on the individual, the group and the whole organization. The organization is made up of groups, which are made up of individuals. That is, an organization is built as a sum of all its constituent individuals. This means making 2+2 more than 4, because then we have created something more in the synergies between people. An organization also needs to create an internal image of who it is before it can be seen outwardly in the way it wants to be perceived. If you want to be an honest and fair business, with a real focus on customers, then you first need to agree internally that this is how you really are. I think you can probably immediately think of businesses that outwardly say they are customer-centric or “have the customer in focus”, but then they deliver quite a poor customer experience.

Is the patient in focus?

“The patient in focus” is quite common in healthcare, but then the care queues and reports to IVO grow, and patients are sent here and there. This is because they do not internally have the common view that it is actually the patient who is in focus, but they are more based on their own organizational affiliation. At the same time, there are so many other things that they have to deal with, which has not supported the patients. It’s similar in many organizations, so I’m not just going to highlight healthcare as the only problem area. Far from it, however, it is extra important that it works with “customers” who in this case are in great need of getting the help they need and are weak in their role as “customer“. There is an extra responsibility on such a “provider” to live up to a good business. I come across many organizations that say they struggle to retain staff and have difficulty recruiting new ones. Those who leave because things are not working well in the organization naturally pass this on, which in turn means that those who might previously have considered applying for a position in that organization refrain. Of course, such an organization does not really want to be a negative place, but they have not managed to do anything about it internally.

Tip of the week!

So this week’s tip is for you to work together in your organization on the following:

1. Decide that the points below are important. If they are not, don’t do them. It will only take a lot of time and hurt your improvement efforts if you do things you are not serious about. If you are serious, then read on…
2. Describe how you want your customers and others to see you as a business. What are the epithets you want to be known for? Be precise in your description, because fluffy descriptions make it harder to live up to them.
3. Find out how your external stakeholders, mainly your customers, see you in terms of who you want to be. Ask them. This will create a baseline against which you can measure in step 5.
4. Then describe what these external epithets require of you on the inside. How do you need to think and behave to confidently become who you want to be and who your customers should see?
5. Create a plan of activities to ensure that what you came up with in point three will also be able to come true. This plan has three perspectives: short, medium and long term.

• The short-term perspective needs to include very concrete things to do in the next three months. No longer, because then there is a good chance it will run out of steam. It wants to lift you up quickly, change course, completely change, or whatever expression resonates best with you.
• The medium-term perspective should include ways to measure and follow up that there is the desired change internally. Ask yourselves if you think you have come closer to your own desired self-image. If not, take corrective action to continue developing.
• The long term perspective includes measuring and monitoring how external stakeholders now view you. Use the same survey that you used in three above. Now you will be able to see if there is a development in the right direction. If it is not, you will have to implement corrective actions again to ensure progress.

Then perhaps I need to be very clear that there are no sacred cows when it comes to creating the business you want to be known for. No “it’s not possible because…”, because then you have already given up on becoming who you want to be. It’s probably going to sting in places, because it makes improvement work. It costs to get better, but it will also be much better and easier up front, when you have become who you want to be.

Why not think about the above now in the coming months? Make a little plan for yourself and you can start next month. If the above triggered thoughts that you want to discuss with me, please reply to this email and I can give you some advice tailored to your business. We can do an online consultation. No cost or obligation on your part.

Contact me.

The post Does your inside match your outside appeared first on Clean Stream.

We were similar, but no longer

Yes, we are transferring it to two businesses that many years ago were in the same place in terms of working environment, quality, customer satisfaction and finances. They were very similar between the operations. But then we can say that one business has focused and structured its development, while the other business has not. Let’s call the first business Positive and the second one Neutral. After a few years, Positive has gradually developed and improved. It has happened at such a slow pace that it is almost hard to see, both from the inside and the outside. The employees of Positiv have felt a, as their name reveals, positive development. It feels “in the air” that something positive is happening. This has made it easier for Positiv to find the right staff. And it has also meant that they are getting more positive feedback from their customers, whatever they may be called. To concretely see that Positiv is on the right track, you need to see the development over time, and then it is clear what has happened. Those who work in Neutral do not have the same feeling. They have also developed over the years, but not at all at the same rate as Positive. Their development has been more about the general development in society. For example, they don’t write by hand now, but use computers. An improvement, sure, but who hasn’t taken that step? Neutral doesn’t have nearly the same ability to get the right staff. They have short-term contracts and high rates of sick leave.
Their customers are not nearly as satisfied as those dealing with Positiv. Their finances are not as strong as they would like, as they constantly have high quality shortage costs. These include costs for temporary staff and having to redo things that were not done correctly in the first place. While Positiv is sailing on a wave of success, which they themselves created, Neutral is struggling in a headwind, a headwind that they also created themselves. The Neutral team takes their condition for granted:

• It thinks that this is how it is to work here, not much to do about it.
• It’s a bit tough, but who isn’t?
• Finances are a bit difficult, but times are tough now.
• We’re not doing so well, but who can do that in the general world situation?

It is also the case that the people at Neutral do not feel that they are generally doing badly. They are not doing great, but still pretty good. Sure, it’s hard, but it’s not a total loss. And hard, it’s something you’ve told yourself it should be. It is a normal state. This perception means that people don’t take on the task of actually working on improvements.

It’s easy to get carried away

I think the lesson is that it’s so easy to plod along at your own pace. Then the years have passed and you have stood quite still in development, or perhaps even gone backwards. You don’t see that it’s your own lack of focused and organized improvement work that has put you in this situation. They blame someone else: the market, customers, politicians, the boss, the EU, the economy, and so on. However, it is not the fault of all of them, it is Neutral’s own fault. Now, if you recognize yourself working in a business like Neutral, it might not actually be your fault. Because you may be new to your organization and cannot be blamed for past events in the organization. But if you stay there for a while and there is no development, then it will be your fault. Because you did not take hold of the development. You slacked off too. And you waited for someone to do something. You think that the manager above you just has to go first… Those in IT just have to go first… And so on.

The call this week is to;

• You need to work in a focused and organized way to improve in a targeted manner.
• You need to question yourself and what you are doing, where you are also keen to challenge the constants that exist in the business. There are things that are just there, but no one thinks it can be done about. It is possible, as long as someone starts.
• You need to be open to seeing alternatives to how you do things. Put aside counter-arguments like “it doesn’t work for us”, “it sounds good but…”, “it might work for them, but we have…that makes it impossible”, or similar.
• You need to be the one to take charge of improvement. If not you, then who? If not now, then when?

Keep in mind that there are only two options: either you evolve, or you dismantle. The latter may take time, but if you do not develop, the day will surely come when you are no longer needed. If you want to discuss your situation in your business and talk about the options, opportunities and get some pep, then I think you should email me again on this email and let me know. Then we can fix an online meeting where we talk. No cost, no obligation on your part. Email me directly via matts.rehnstrom@cleanstream.se.

The post We live in two different realities appeared first on Clean Stream.

You need to go out into the business

As a leader, you need to go out into the business to find out for yourself what the reality is. Talk to employees out there. See what customers experience. Meet reality as most people in the business see it. Because only then can decisions be correct and grounded in reality. Within LEAN and the twelfth management principle, there is a concept called genchi genbutsi, which translated means go out and see for yourself. In an organization that successfully works according to LEAN or similar principles, visible leaders in the organization constantly go out in the business. They visit the “floor”, i.e. where the value-creating work takes place. Example:

• Go through the production and talk to the employees.
• Accompany the home care workers to the users to see what their reality is like.
• Ride in the garbage truck to pick up waste and then drop it off for proper handling. Employees are asked about their experiences.
• Go with the salesperson on customer visits, not to take over the meeting, but to learn and see what customers are talking about.
• Join a night shift on a Saturday in the emergency room, not because you might be able to contribute, but to learn.
• And so forth.

Note that I am not talking about the kind of visits we sometimes see from politicians who put on a helmet, whether required or not on the spot, and have the media with them to document. This behavior is more for show, not for learning. As leaders who have to make decisions about things that are important to the business, they don’t need to be seen, it is the wise decision that is more important. It is doing the right thing for the business. If you do the right thing for the business and are in the right business, then those decisions will stand for themselves and you will naturally be seen as a wise leader.

To think about…

So, if you are now a manager and leader in your business, think about two things: How can you be more constant in reality to get a natural flow of information that is important for the business in your decision making? How will you use go and see for yourself the next time you are faced with a particularly important decision? Write down your thoughts, so you have them for review going forward. So what happened to the fog? Well, when I got out into the real world I saw that the fog was lifting. You could easily see a kilometer or so, which can no longer even be called fog. So it was a nice trip home, where the sun broke through and turned the dark water into light blue again.

The post Get out in the field appeared first on Clean Stream.

What should you procure?

How do you know what to ask for in the next tender, if you are not informed about new opportunities for your business? If you keep doing the same thing, you will keep getting the same results. This is true personally, as well as in businesses. Another truth is that you cannot solve a problem with the same thoughts that created the problem in the first place. I know that the man I spoke to has great needs for improvement in his business. I know this from the industry his business is in and also from reading up on his business before the conversation. And I know that we at Clean Stream could help him and his business. It’s not at all uncommon for people in different businesses to have a clear idea of what they need and then to procure it. They think they have the best solution straight away. Often without having taken the time to talk to others. This happens in business development, questions about training, system support or other. It’s just that when I, and other suppliers, read the request for proposal, we are surprised. Because there we see many suggestions for improvement. If the procurement is within LOU or LUFF, well then there is not much to do. If you want to participate and bid, then all the questions need to be answered, whether they are the smartest questions or not. So, the conclusion is that it is impossible for you to know what you do not know. You don’t even know what to procure. To gain further knowledge, you need to talk to different suppliers. This will give you a better understanding of alternative ways of thinking. Now, the above probably doesn’t apply directly to you as a person, because you read my weekly newsletters and probably attend the occasional webinar that we at Clean Stream hold. But it might apply to your colleagues who are currently pushing for a procurement. They want a new system, a machine, a model, or whatever it might be. Help them to get it right. Take it upon yourself to inform them that maybe you should first “look around” a bit more and learn more, before you procure. And if they say that it is so urgent, remind them that it is far more expensive and takes longer overall, that you are choosing the wrong solution, just because you did not see the alternatives. It’s just a matter of course, I think.

What do you think?

The post Before you go to tender appeared first on Clean Stream.