Sometimes it’s really hard to get your head around what is wrong. On the face of it everyone is working flat out yet everything is not functioning as well as it could. That’s where I have got to with one of my clients and I am left wondering what needs to happen to make change possible.
I am reminded of a story about Porsche. So many work stories relate to car manufacturers and I am never sure whether they are true or not, It doesn’t really matter as they are just a vehicle to get a point across. No pun intended.
Anyway, the story goes that they worked out that for every problem that cost the firm a euro before it got onto the production line would cost them ten euro by the time it had, one hundred euro by the time it had got to the car dealership and one thousand euro by the time it got to the customer. You see, it doesn’t really matter where this story comes from as the moral holds true. The earlier you capture a problem the less expensive it is going to be.
How has this helped me with the client then? They are concentrating on fixing too many thousand euro problems and don’t have any headroom to do anything else. Though hard to do, the answer to their problems lies in solving them at the one euro end of the flow and this will save them a fortune in both time and money.
Of course the issue is how do they identify what is causing the problem in the first place and this is the kicker. It is going to take an effort to to this and solve the thousand euro problems at the same time. What is needed is some analysis of what regular problems are happening and what is their route cause. From here they can put measures in place to prevent them occurring, starting with the most common or most costly.
Perhaps I may be of assistance. I’m cheaper than a new Porsche.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 