Managing the Standard Work

I said in an earlier blog that you really need to find ways to minimise the routine Standard Work and focus on the non-routine Project Work as this is where the real value lies for you and your team.

Think of Standard Work as routine work that you know needs to be done regularly (either scheduled such as a weekly task or ad hoc such as a process triggered by an employee action).  You want to spend as little time on this type of work as possible but you must get it right.

Poor quality routine work gives you a poor reputation, decreases motivation of your team and possibly most importantly, creates more work in fixing the issue.  In my experience the size of the work will also have increased by the time you get it right as it will have led to further issues.  In effect, you have created more work for yourself.  Do you really want to spend your week fixing your own problems?

One effective way to manage this is through checklists.  They are often frowned upon by the 'educated' as something too simple and perhaps insulting to their intelligence.  Do pilots lack intelligence, doctors, astronauts?  They all use checklists every day, and frankly, I'm glad they do.  I'd hate for the quality of their work to not be good enough especially if I'm their customer that day.

Checklists have the advantage of ensuring two things:
1. You feel in control as you don't have to rely on your brain to remember all the steps (efficiency)
2. You don't forget a step whilst being distracted by the 20 other things on your mind or in the room (error proofing)

I recommend the book The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande that goes into this subject in convincing detail.

You need to accept that intelligence does not make you infallible, you are human after all.  So why not make things easier for you especially on the routine standard stuff.  Save your mental energy for the really tough challenging non-routine project work.