What we need is a Flowmaster

Who manages the flow of work through your organisation?

Organisations tend to be manged as hierarchies, but work flows through them horizontally often crossing many branches of the organisation.  Who manages the flows?

The following is a disguised example of the process that I have gone through to get system access for a new-start who I have renamed Rupert.  The example isn’t quite real, but it’s damned close. In reality there was lots more swearing ..

1. I interview (made up name) Rupert, decide to employ him and so tell HR.  HR do their paper work and tell the agency.  
   Rupert is able to start the next day which is good for us because we've got tons of work.
   
   
2. HR adds Rupert to the the system almost immediately.
   
3. I ring the IT help desk asking if I can get a new user id created.  They tell me that they can't process a request until Rupert is on the intranet directory.  This is understandable from their point of view, otherwise I could be asking for fake user id's.  I find out then though, that the intranet-directory is updated overnight.
   
4. Later that night the intranet directory is updated
   
5. The next day, I check the intranet-directory and find that Rupert's name is slightly mis-spelt.  Not a major problem, so I ring HR, but the HR person is away for 2 days and can't update it.   So I ask Rupert (who has actually started) to choose: would he rather start working sooner and have a slightly wrong user id, or would he rather wait for the HR person to correct his name when she returns in 2 days and then for the intranet directory to update overnight, just to have his user id correct?  He opt's to have the wrong user id because (on his first day) he is all fired up and enthusiastic. We figure that we can get the HR system fixed up later.
   
6. I ring the IT helpdesk and put in the request.  They ask me to email it in.  Some time later, I get a response back saying that the project leader needs to send it in, so I forward the request to George (made up name) who is in a meeting.  When he returns some hours later he forwards on the email to the IT help desk.
   
   
   
7. Quite a few hours later George gets a note from the helpdesk, who say that they need more information: what applications does the person need, what drive mappings etc?  George is in a meeting at the time, but when he gets back he passes the note onto me, I ring the help desk and they update the request.  Then they approve it and pass it to the person who does the user ids.
   
8. Time passes.
   
9. We get a note back to say that the user id has been setup.
   
10. Rupert logs in but finds all sorts of problems - he doesn't have external email or internet access, both of which are vital for his job.  We ring the help desk and they check the request we put in and we didn't ask for these (we didn't think we'd have to, and no one asked us eithor way).  Time passes as they help ticket waits in a queue to be processed.  Someone calls us back, tries to fix the problem but can't.  They call someone else, who says I need to get George’s approval.  George is (luckily) in the room and gives them verbal approval for the changes.  Following a reboot the system seems to be setup correctly.
    
11. But, we don't yet have access to System X they Rupert needs to use to do their work (i.e. that work which we employed them for).
    
12. We ring the help desk and someone else needs to setup a System X user id and password.  They arrange this.
    
13. Time passes.  We get a System X user id and password. 
    
14. Rupert logs in to System X and starts working.
    
15. But, since Rupert hasn't yet done the induction course and had System X training, he only has read-access.
    
    
    
16. I ring the training department.  There’s no one home.
    
17. Two days later I get hold of them.  I beg and they agree to do a quick 1 hour session and give Rupert write access.  They promise to get back to me.
    
18. Two days later I ring them.  They’d forgotten me and in the mean time changed their system – since there are so many new starts, they’ve decided it is more efficient (for them) to do the training sessions on a department by department basis.  This means that the nearest free training date for my deparment is 12 working days away. 
    
19. …

Keep in mind 2 things:

1. Note that everyone in the system is doing a good job and is polite and helpful.  That is, it's a problem with the system, not with the people.  That is, where the staff appear to be making mistakes or being overly beaurocratic, it's the nature of the system that forces them to do this.


2. This kind of example could be just about any organisatioin that I’ve worked for.  Except for one … where I had a user id ready for me on day 1, but they didn’t have any work for to do for 6 weeks.

Problem: no one was managing the flow.

Solution: start managing the flow. 

You could cut this example down to less than a day very easily and down to less than two hours with a bit of thought.

Comments

[Darrell]

Or, reorganize the corporation around business processes instead of functional areas.

[David Anderson]

In Great Boss, Dead Boss, Immelman suggests a new C level - Chief Flow Officer - that's a whole new take on CFO. He actually suggests splitting the accounting function altogether i.e. there would be no CFO (Chief Financial Officer) any more. The accounting gets split between Chief Flow Officer and Chief Resource Officer. The latter having a finance director that is responsible for working capital etc. whilst the former has a finance director responsible for cash flow, receipts, expenditure etc. Interesting idea when you consider that accounts are already split into a P&L and a Balance Sheet. Immelman is basically hinting that he thinks these two accounting reports should belong to different parts of the organization. [Note to self: I must blog about this.]