Making Work Flow
“Remember that we define Optimal Performance as delivering value in a way in which the organization incurs no unnecessary expense; the work flows without delays; the organization is 100 percent compliant with all local, state, and federal laws; the organization meets all customer-defined requirements; and employees are safe and treated with respect.
In other words, the work should be defined to eliminate delays, improve quality, and reduce unnecessary cost, labor effort, and frustration.”
There are many types of work that people in an organisation will end up doing.
Some add direct value to customers, while others may enable it.
Some that are coordination effort, while others are simply unintentional waste.
Thus it becomes important to define work types.
It help us prioritise work and eliminate waste.
It enables us to manage work, and not people.
In a top down organisation, you end up managing by:
chasing updates
reacting to issues
relying on given information
It works. But it’s hard to stay in control.
But when work is defined well, made visible while it runs through a pipeline, then managing work becomes a team effort, transferring ownership.
Ownership brings with it pride and intrinsic motivation as well as the courage and fortitude to bring up work imediments they see and feel.
Your role then turns more into a servant leader, where you are supporting and enabling their success and growth.
Making work flow requires defining work well, so it could flow all the way to delivered value.
It can then flow through a pipeline – a sequence of states reflecting queues and activities – a value stream that delivers value.
This approach has many benefits:
it shows queues forming, showing capacity constraints
it shows work stopped or slow, due to unexpected complexity
surfaces bottlenecks and impediments
helps us structure teams aligned to the value stream
separates systems that deliver value and those that enable them
focuses teams, eliminates waste
makee purpose visible, fostering a culture of ownership and pride
We look at how work moves through your business, end to end.
Where it comes from.
How it is understood.
How decisions are made.
How work is defined.
What actually gets delivered.
This is where we start.
Sense
What is the system noticing?
Signals from customers, delivery, operations, and the wider environment.
What is visible. What is ignored. What is delayed.
Signals
An organisation is surrounded by signals.
Customer feedback.
Leads and requests.
Operational issues.
Work in progress.
What gets stuck.
What gets missed.
Also internal signals — pressure, capacity, frustration, workarounds.
These signals always exist.
The question is whether they are seen, and how they are understood.
What is going on?
In many businesses, signals are present but fragmented.
They sit in inboxes.
In people’s heads.
In side conversations.
In systems that don’t reflect reality.
So decisions are made without a clear view of what is actually happening.
This is where we start.
We work with you to understand how your business currently senses what is going on.
Where signals come from.
Where they go.
What is visible.
What is missed.
Not to fix it yet.
But to see it clearly.
What you walk away with
A grounded understanding of your business as it actually operates today.
Not assumptions.
Not reports.
A clear diagnosis you can act on.
Study
What is the system noticing?
Signals from customers, delivery, operations, and the wider environment.
What is visible. What is ignored. What is delayed.
Understanding
Signals on their own don’t create clarity.
They are fragments.
Customer feedback here.
Operational issues there.
Reports, dashboards, conversations.
Taken separately, they don’t tell you much.
Meaning
What matters is how they come together.
What patterns are forming.
What keeps showing up.
What is connected.
What fades into the background.
This is the next step.
We work with you to understand how your business currently makes sense of what it sees.
How signals are brought together.
What draws attention.
What is set aside.
What becomes accepted as fact.
Not to change it yet.
But to make it clear.
What you walk away with
A shared understanding of what is actually going on.
Where patterns are clear.
Where different views exist.
What is shaping decisions today.
Study
How is the system making sense of those signals?
Patterns, assumptions, interpretation.
Where meaning is formed, or lost.
Strategise
What choices are being made?
Where to focus. Where to invest. What to prioritise.
Whether decisions are deliberate, or reactive.
Specify
How are decisions translated into work?
Clarity of intent. Definition of outcomes.
How work becomes something that can move.
Ship
What actually gets done?
Delivery, execution, feedback.
What reaches the real world, and what doesn’t.