Management idea

In one of the meetings we facilitated, the Operations Manager was bragging how 100% of orders were filled within two days.  "You're lying!", yelled the Sales Manager. "Just last week Acme didn't get their order for six days." After discussion it became clear that both were telling the truth - based on his and her definition of two days.

It seems that the faxed order was sitting in the rep's in-basket Friday morning when she came into work.  The sales rep dropped it off at the operations desk on her way home that evening.  Unbeknownst to her, Operations established a 4PM cut off for accepting orders each day.  The order arrived at Operations' door at 5PM Friday so it was considered to be a Monday order to be shipped Wednesday evening - i.e. six days after arrival.

The devil is indeed in the details. When you're told the project needs to be finished by April do they expect it April 1st or 30th?  Does finished mean the prototype can be demonstrated or are they expecting it to be fully tested, installed, and operator trained? Without a clear definition, a committed date becomes a time bomb waiting to go off.  

Every week the strategic planning facilitators of Myrna Associates interact with the executive teams of the best managed mid-sized companies in America. 

Previous newsletter