Do you need more 'MORE'?

  Do you need more 'MORE'? 
  Originally uploaded by Gaetan Lee

So we didn't get the response we expected when we asked for more resources to do this new 'stuff' which we are sure will change things for the better round here!
"I know we resolved to get more resource to do new things but it didn't work out".
Shoulders droop.. 2008 is going to be as boring as 2007.
"But hang on! Last weekend I found this book at a second-hand bookstall. It is called Competing for the Future by Gary Hamel,  C. K. Prahalad in 1996."
Chapter 7 talks of Strategy as Leverage. In particular it talks on page 175 of 5 ways of Resource Leverage:

 

"Resource leverage can be achieved in five fundamental ways: by more effectively concentrating resources on key strategic goals, by more efficiently accumulating resources, by complementing resources of one type with those of another to create higher-order value, by conserving resources wherever possible, and by rapidly recovering resources, minimising the time between expenditure and payback."

I once had the pleasure of leading a Design and Technology Group whose mission was to bridge the qulity divide between aesthetic intent in the Design House and the implementation in our Suppliers. We needed to do more with less so we resolved to tackle the resource leverage by proposing a strategic thrust as a hypothesis.

 

Hypothesis: We need to learn how to be masters at effectively concentrating our resources on key goals, more efficiently accumulating key resources, complementing our resource type with other types of resource to create greater value, conserving resources wherever possible, rapidly recovering resources by reducing time between expending resource and seeing payback.
We will achieve this by: Identifying our key internal and external 'customers' who we interface/interact with on project teams

Concentrating Resources
 

Converging: (preventing divergence from goals over time)

We will make sure our work-plans are aligned with the strategic thrusts of our key customers.

Watch out for customers who align their point of view in ways that poses the least threat to continued funding of their individual bits of the business.

Focusing: ( preventing dilution of resources at a particular point in time)

A rule of thumb is that no team member can attend to more than two improvement goals at a time.

Make sure each “initiative” carries on as a layer of advantage for the next one to build on.

Remember focus is not about exclusivity but predetermines the trade-offs we have to make that each member has to make when allocating their time and resources.

Accumulating Resources
 

Mining-extracting and sharing: We will sit down with participants after each project event and ask our them what they have learned from the situation and making sure that we share our learning too. We can then all learn from the experience. Also we can ask leading questions like “Honda and Apple both develop less new models and products than their competitors yet they improve much faster. How do we do this? How do we forget faster? So that we can make room for new ideas.

Borrowing: How can we use the resources of other groups (including those outside our organisation) to help us in getting things done? We can maximise our group learning by making sure we mine the activity whenever the opportunity arises. Raise their curiosity so that they want to participate. 

Complementing Resources
 

Blending: Practice the art of blending different skills to multiply the value of each (e.g. Rapid prototyping combined with the feasibility workshop is more powerful than each alone). Remember blending is powerful in cross functional opportunities.

 

Balancing: Make sure we acquire the art of taking ownership of resources that multiply the value of a team’s unique resources (ownership means being able to manage the resource effectively rather than at arms length).
(e.g. a discussion about deciding> discovering>describing> defining>demonstrating>deploying...  

 

How do we do a good (no great!) job at direction and discover without access to the right competences... Connecting it all together in a seamless way will be incredibly effective.

Conserving Resources
 

Recycling:

The more often we use a skill or competence is reused the greater the resource leverage ... As we increase the technology enablers how do we do this... Worth thinking it through in design phase.

Co-opting: Finding a common “enemy”, goal, threat that enables another group to work collectively to deliver something we both couldn’t have done as separate groups. This can lead to some unusual alliances!

Protecting:

Protecting is about not sacrificing resource on efforts that have odds stacked against us. We know we have considerably less resource than we can deploy on projects. The opportunity is to pick those that give the business the best opportunity to succeed and us the best opportunity to collaboratively learn. We need to only play where the Judo style of using the strength of others plus our neat techniques leads to maximum benefit for us. Another way is to look at this as
Targeting: 
The goal here is to focus on the things that give greatest value to our customer at least cost (expenditure of effort, etc.) to ourselves!

 

Recovering Resources
Speed is the key here. Can we iterate faster so that we can get more decisions made faster rather than go more slowly to suit other people's cycle times. We need to work on making ourselves more attractive to make this work!

It is amazing how much resource can be 'discovered'. In order to keep accessing it we need to maximise our value to the business!