Push vs Pull

The ‘Supermarket shelf’ analogy

giantknave Brain Farts , , , , , ,

I’ve had many constructive conversations with people about a ‘way of thinking’ regarding the relationship between those helping people (value creating) and those enabling this to happen (value enabling).

I wrote this up in a two-part post, which is linked here:

In addition to these two posts, I often use an analogy1 of a supermarket shelf to assist me in explaining the desirable inter-connectedness between those helping clients, and those (tasked with) enabling this.

Now, whilst every analogy is limited2, humanity has derived great value in using them. So this post is my attempt at writing down my ‘supermarket shelf’ analogy for others to ponder and play with.

Here goes…

So, how does a physical supermarket shelf work?

A simple diagram to assist:

In pulling according to their needs, the customer determines:

  • whether what’s available is suitable for their needs (ref. autonomy);
  • whether to try a product;
  • what they think about the product once they’ve used it; and
  • what’s missing from the selection (ref. not engaging/ going elsewhere)

In observing the customer, the supplier uses this as feedback to determine:

  • which products are being selected, and therefore need restocking (ref. capacity);
  • what new products to develop and test (ref. experimentation); and
  • which products to improve or discontinue (ref. learning)

Note that the customer decides what combination of products goes in their basket (i.e. what selections work for their needs) …no matter how unexpected these may appear to the supplier.

The supplier’s role is to (safely) enable the selection, whilst providing knowledge to the customer as to what they are selecting and how to get the best out of it.

…and what doesn’t happen?!

The supplier DOES NOT decide what products to put into the customer’s basket.

The supplier DOES NOT decide whether the product worked out for the customer.

In short, the supplier DOES NOT control the customer. Rather, they aim to understand and enable them.

 The analogy with People-centred services

If a social system wants to truly help people (its clients) then it will achieve this through autonomy support (rather than attempts at control).

The following diagram applies the supermarket analogy to a social system by using the roles defined within Part 1: Autonomy – Autonomy Support – Autonomy Enabling:

THE big point within this analogy is that ‘the centre’ (i.e. those removed from the client relationship) DOES NOT determine what services a given ‘client – helper working alliance’ is provided with/ can access.

Rather, their role is one of enablement: to ‘stock the shelves’ with a full range of useful tools that will assist, to ensure that it is clear and easy as to how to get the best out of these tools, and to constantly monitor and improve what’s available.

The ‘client – helper working alliance’ decides what combinations to pull and when to pull them as they progress on their relational journey to a better client life.

As set out within an earlier post on Vector Measurement, each client is unique, and their situation complex…so the journey will be about iteratively working alongside them according to what emerges.

This would be the opposite of putting people into a tiered model of services…and moving them up these tiers as things deteriorate (see below on this).

Clarification as to why the shelf is required

You might think “Yes! I agree…we need to get the (attempted) centralised control out of the equation!!” As such, you might be wondering why the helper (the ‘front line’ worker) even needs the centre.

Well, they do…but in a different way than has become the norm.

The helper needs to focus on the client – who they are, what’s going on for them, why this is so, what they need to move forwards.

The helper doesn’t have the time, capability, and resources to develop the host of necessary tools to help. Instead, they need to rely on others to enable them. NOT to dictate to them or refer onwards to…but to focus expertise where it is required.

Example: a client might want/need help in getting an appropriate job. Their helper would really like to be able to pull useful tools like:

      • careers advice with respect to a client’s strengths and experiences
      • knowledge as to what’s available to help develop a client in desirable directions (e.g. education courses, work experience opportunities…)
      • knowledge of the local recruitment agencies, their specialisations, and who/ how to contact
      • guidance on how to write a good CV, and some templates to get the client going
      • interview coaching/advice
      • financial assistance with logistics (e.g. transport, clothing…)
      • …

All of these things would be very useful for the client & helper to have available to them, to pick and choose. It would be mad for each helper to have to design their own.

Conversely, none of this is the ‘centre’ dictating specific responses when a client’s attributes fit certain criteria, such as ‘you need to attend this work seminar, take part in this course/ programme, apply for these available roles, reapply for this benefit, …move from service tier x to service tier y’.

We could find lots of other examples (e.g. in health, education, corrections…), and the point would be the same. The client and their helper are on a journey. The service design needs to enable them, not attempt to categorise and control them.

What has become the conventional norm?

i.e. why is it necessary for me to have to write this post?

The current norm in many large service organisations is to adopt a centrally designed tiered model of services. Such a design involves multiple tiers of escalating service support.

A customer typically starts at ‘tier 0’, where the aim (from the organisation’s point of view) is for the customer to self-solve their needs (#digital).

‘Tier 1’ usually involves the need to ‘talk to a person’ but these ‘generalist’ processors are only allowed and/or equipped to answer the very basic needs.

‘Tier 2’ involves escalation to ‘specialists’ (people who may be able to help absorb some aspects of a client’s instance of variety)

…and we may go up to ‘tier n’ according to how specialised we choose to design.

The thinking is that such a model is cost-efficient (ref. front office – back office).

What’s not seen, let alone appreciated, is that such a design causes huge waste (and therefore cost) and significant client distress:

  • of people steadily progressing up the tiers because the one before couldn’t meet their needs:
    • particularly between tiers 0 and 1 (“I tried online but…)
    • and again, between tiers 1 and 2 (“sorry, I can’t help with that. I’ll refer you onwards to…)
  • of the wasted time and effort involved in managing this transferring of people between tiers (including the recording, and then deciphering of the notes in the system)
  • of people not being able to access obvious and immediate help that could avert things getting worse (“sorry, your situation isn’t bad enough yet to access ‘tier 2’. Go away until you can show that ‘the wheels have really fallen off’ ”)
  • of people getting ‘stuck in the system’ (“I can’t help with your actual underlying needs…but I can put this ‘sticky plaster’ over it”)
  • of things getting worse for people as these transfers occur (“My initial problem was x…but now it’s morphed into 3x, y and z!”)
  • of the confusion between those working within the various tiers (e.g. tier 2 getting frustrated with tier 1: “why did you do that for/to them? They’re my client!”)
  • of the disengaged workforce who, confined to their allocated service tier, aren’t allowed to develop and use their capability to actually help the clients before them. They aren’t ‘helpers’ (as per the supermarket analogy). They are merely ‘processors’ (according to a centralised design).

If you operate such a system design, you could go and look (#studyyoursystem) …and see all of this. You probably won’t believe it until you do.

In summary

There’s a paradigm shift between attempting to efficiently handle volumes of events (transactional mindset), and effectively helping people move forwards (relational mindset).

The ‘tiered services’ model is focused on events and efficiency…causing yet more events to occur.

The ‘autonomy – autonomy support – autonomy enabling’ model is focused on journeys and effectiveness… leading to stability and independence.

The source of the analogy

I like to make clear how I got to my (current) thinking. Three stimuli for this post:

  • In the 1950s Taiichi Ohno (Toyota production system) saw photos of American self-service supermarkets showing products arranged on shelves, available to be selected by customers as and when they required them.

He marvelled at how customers chose exactly what they wanted and how much of it, and then at how the products were replenished (Japan didn’t have self-service supermarkets at that time).

This led to Ohno and his colleagues devising the pull system of production (the opposite of the conventional push), and tools such as Kanban cards to convey the necessary information.

  •  In the 1970s Jan Wallander (Handelsbanken) set out a system whereby the bank’s central services worked to define useful banking products (to put on the shelf), and local branches decided (with their customers) which of these products to use (pull from the shelf), and in what combinations.

Wallander removed the ability of the centre to dictate the usage of their products. He turned them into suppliers to the branch. The branch ‘owned’ the customer relationship and determined if/how the available products helped.

Note that Buurtzorg, and its ‘onion model’ of care, is a modern example.

  • Over the last few decades John Seddon and his colleagues have repeatedly demonstrated the effectiveness of pulling interventions according to customer need in people-centred services (rather than pushing according to centralised, standardised, specialised design). He’s written several books that clearly set this work out.

A valid criticism of this post

I expect that John Seddon would quite rightly ask of me “why are you writing this down for others to rationally read and then merely apply to their current thinking?”…and thus achieve very little change.

I would like to prompt a level of curiosity: to open ‘managements’ eyes4 to the simple fact that the conventional ‘tiered model of services’ isn’t the only way (or even a good way!) …

…and I would then want them to (meaningfully) go to the Gemba, to see the evidence of the dysfunctional performance caused by the current system design, looking at this from the customer/ client’s point of view. #Normative

“The starting point for designing a better system is understanding what’s wrong with the current system.” (Seddon)

The most important part of doing such a thing would be to critically reflect on why things are as they are (which, if we ‘dig deep’ we will find to be ‘thinking things’).

If we don’t uncover this then we will likely just ‘rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic.’ i.e. the same, but different.

Footnotes

1. “Analogy: a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation and clarification” (Oxford Dictionary)

2. Limitations of the analogy: All analogies are limited and, if you have the desire to do so, you could choose to kick giant-sized holes in this one. A few example holes that I see:

a) Psychology: those of you aware of the world of consumer products marketing may push back at me with something like “but the supplier IS controlling the customer with the psychology around placement of products on the shelves, packaging, advertising….”

The usage of this analogy is about the customer choosing whether to select, what to select and whether it works for them (ref. autonomy). I ‘get’ that the supplier will use whatever it can to influence the client.

This also applies in people-centred services. A supplier of help (enabler) may want people to, say, stop smoking. As such, it is reasonable for them to understand what interventions work and to use psychology to ‘nudge’ the customer in desirable directions. However, attempts at control will likely backfire (ref. disengagement, defiance)

b) The language of ‘products and services’: A big part of the problem within many service organisations is a ‘product/service’ focus rather than a ‘client need’ focus.

I’d note that service organisations will likely need to create services to help clients, but the analogy is suggesting that these services should be the slave to the client’s needs, not the master. Further, it is making clear that any services need to be able to flex to absorb the variety of the clients before them.

c) Instantly: In a physical supermarket we usually get our need met ‘there and then’. In a people-centred world, it can take time and perseverance for help to ‘take effect’. I’m not wishing to trivialise this.

If I butcher George Box’s ‘model’ quote then “All analogies are wrong, but some analogies are useful”. The question I would wish the reader to ask: ‘is this analogy of some use [to them and others around them]?’

4. Autonomy support: This analogy requires the ‘client – helper working alliance’ to be seen as the customer ‘at the shelf’. It’s not saying that a client can do whatever they want. The autonomy support aspect (the helper role) is critical.

5. On opening eyes: Some will be curious. Some need to be re-awakened from their ‘conventional’ slumber. Others require (what I refer to as) ‘professional provocation’.

Pulling Power

giantknave Brain Farts , , , ,

Beer pumpThere are two very different productivity ideas:

  1. Make as much as you can! …meaning that:
  • you are always busy (it is a ‘corporate crime’ to be idle!);
  • it is irrelevant whether the next activity down the track is already snowed-under with work or even if it is available….you just keep pumping it out! They aren’t your problem;
  • the ‘performance police’ are likely measuring the cost of the activity being performed, and judging you accordingly.

…this reflects a Push system, which fits with an ‘economies of scale’ efficiency mindset (“how many did you make!”).

  1. Make only what is needed when it is needed…meaning that:
  • each person is highly connected to the next activity down the track (because they need visibility of how the next step is going);
  • it becomes immediately obvious if there is a blockage and where it is;
  • the process performers can:
    • collaborate on making improvements at the (now visible) bottlenecks; and
    • see and measure the overall flow, from customer demand through to its satisfaction.

…this reflects a Pull system, which fits with a ‘flow’ effectiveness mindset (“how did we all do together for the customer?”)

Now, you might think that push will cost a lot less than pull because everyone is always working flat out, not waiting to do something….but you’d probably be wrong, and by a profound margin.

What’s so good about pull?

Here’s a simple ‘push’ diagram from the Lean Enterprise Institute to assist:

overproduction-e1351860597383

Stick man ‘A’ is happily making stuff, much to the despair of ‘B’ and, given that a real life process will have far more steps than A and B, you can imagine what this looks and feels like on a bigger scale – organised(?) chaos:

  • work will pile up throughout the process, meaning that there will be loads of ‘work in process’;
  • process steps might be working flat out, but it takes a really long (and usually increasing) time for a unit of work to get from start to (proper) completion. It spends a massive amount of its overall cycle time simply waiting;
  • defects are hidden within this mess, so it takes a long time for them to surface….with the time and cost to rectify the defect rising alarmingly as more work is performed on the defective unit of work;
  • changes in specifications or customer needs whilst units are (a long time) in process mean a huge amount of rework, and even scrapping of work done to date (Customer: “In the time you’ve taken, things have changed….I don’t want that anymore!”);
  • the long cycle times will create a huge amount of failure demand (blue marbles) from customers asking where their unit of value demand has got to and how long it will be.

Is this relevant to Service?

Absolutely! But, like most things, it can be a bit different to manufacturing.

THE big difference in service is that the trigger to start work is pull by default i.e. you can’t make a service in advance ‘and put it into stock’…you need to wait for demand to trigger the work. But, just because we have a customer pulling the demand lever doesn’t mean we should then be pushing their unit along a value stream before the downstream activities are ready for them.

For a really obvious example, let’s take a natural catastrophe (flood, earthquake, etc.), which results in an insurer getting a huge spike of claims demand. The insurer wants to help everyone as soon as they can but they a) are still getting the necessary processes defined ‘on the ground’ and b) have limited resources to do the work.

Now, this is a challenge: Insurers want to be seen to be pro-active and ‘getting on with it’ for their customers. But beware of creating a seemingly good short-term impression at the expense of a huge longer-term mess.

If you push claims through a process that isn’t yet defined and resourced then you can expect to:

  • only partially perform the necessary work, but not realise this;
  • set expectations that turn out to be incorrect (e.g. what you thought looked clearly a house rebuild turns out later to only be a repair…and vice versa);
  • go back and perform a great deal of re-work (ending up in multiple site visits, ‘reconciliations’ with previous findings, defensive explanations and compensatory actions);
  • throw away old work and virtually start again to cope with changing customer circumstances (“I was okay with you doing that 6 months ago…but not anymore”); and
  • lose the trust of the customer (your unintended mistakes are seen by them as malice and trickery)…which creates much failure demand, to be cautiously tip-toed through.

If you hear management say “right, let’s get all the claims through ‘assessment’ by [date x] and then we’ll focus on the next stage”, you know you’ve got push and all its associated problems.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t do all you can to make sure your customer is okay whilst you work things out (e.g. temporary repairs, emergency accommodation) and explain to them what is happening (including what you haven’t got in place yet)…but it is saying pull work through your flow when, and only when, you (& they) are ready for it.

This means that you focus your attention on defining and refining the flow, rather than wasting it firefighting each and every ‘undoing what’s already been done’ disaster.

A specific example for the catastrophe claims scenario: If a builder has a number of house builds on the go, don’t push any more on them (they may very well tell you they can take them!). Instead, allow them to pull the next one only as and when each build is satisfactorily complete. This will mean that the builder is focused on making their build processes effective, rather than trying to stockpile work for the next few years.

Moving on to ‘workflow management’:

Okay, so thankfully catastrophe management doesn’t happen all the time…so what about ‘day to day’ pull in service?

Who works in an area that has a ‘workflow management’ role (or even team) that sorts out work as it comes in the door by briefly looking at what it is, categorising it and then assigning it to people as fairly as they can? This is pushing.

What does this cause?

  • Incorrect classification: As explained in ‘The Spice of Life’, there is huge variation in service demand. It is impossible to properly appreciate the necessary work content until you do the work; which means that…
  • Feelings of unfairness: …it is impossible to fairly divide up the work. This wouldn’t be such a problem if judgement and rewards weren’t hanging on it…but they usually are! This creates a constant tension between the work assigner and the workers; leading to…
  • Dysfunctional behaviour: …people will do what they can to protect themselves. You can read ‘The trouble with targets’ to see the general techniques that people understandably use to survive;
  • Re-working the workflow: So the work has been carefully assigned for the week ahead but Jack’s work is turning out to be slower than expected (Bob’s is easier than expected but he isn’t going to tell you!), and Jill is off sick…this only comes to light mid-way through the week so customers in Jack and Jill’s trays have been waiting in vain. Push requires a constant need to review and re-sort allocations between queues as circumstances (always) change…which is pure waste.

What’s wrong with people pulling work from a central and highly visible ‘pile’?

‘Command & Control’ Manager: “Well, people can’t be trusted to do this can they!”

Counsel: “Eh? Why ever not?!”

Manager: “Well, they will slow down and look for the easy ones.”

Counsel: “and why would they do that?

Manager: “Erm, because of their personal metrics…needed because their performance is being judged…which will affect their linked rewards/awards.”

I hope you can see that this is a classic case of looking past a logical tool/technique (in this case ‘pulling work’) and seeing the root causes within the ‘command and control’ management thinking.

If the team:

  • had a capability measure as to how they are all doing (so that they could see the system, rather than being blinded by personal targets);
  • were being coached, not judged (so that they wanted to improve, not protect, themselves;) and
  • were sharing in their success (so that they wanted to collaborate, not compete)

…then a) designing an initial* pull system could deliver great results and b) the workers would likely look for, and make, continual improvements to it…so that it worked better and better and better.

* don’t try to implement the perfect pull system: let the workers move towards pull through experimentation….but management must remove the constraints that are in their way.

Examples of service moving from push to pull:

In fact we have all felt moves from push to pull. One obvious area has been customers (that’s us) being able to book appointments (pull) rather than being assigned a slot (push). This has happened from medical appointments, through school parent evenings, to home deliveries.

Note that ‘pull’ is actually an ideal, not a tool. You need to think widely (and differently) about achieving it. It isn’t an easy journey…but it’s well worth the effort.

How about this one from John Seddon: When a contact centre agent gets a customer demand that they are unfamiliar with, they should ‘pull’ in the necessary expertise to handle it, instead of ‘pushing it’ to the expert to perform. In this way, the agent is developing on the job and the customer feels that one person is caring for/ owning their need…developing great trust: a win/win.

Pulling is linked with continuous improvement, like an umbilical cord.

Notes:

  • Pull is a key part of the Toyota Production System (TPS), and is the 4th of the 5 ‘Lean Thinking’ principles;  
  • Kanban is a Japanese word and refers to a visual signal (often a card) used to trigger an action. The downstream process provides the kanban (signal) to the upstream process (i.e. it pulls the work along the value stream).
  • You can substitute the catastrophe example used above with any service process where a) the process isn’t yet properly defined and/ or b) a spike in demand has to be handled (i.e. exceeds capacity)

It’s NOT about the nail!

giantknave Brain Farts , , , , , , ,

It not about the nailSo there’s a fabulous (yet very short) YouTube skit called ‘It’s NOT about the nail’.

Many of you will have watched it…and if you haven’t then please watch it now before reading on – you won’t get this post if you don’t.

And I bet that those of you who have seen it before will want to watch it again (and again).

(though please see my ‘PC police’ note at the bottom 🙂 )

So, why am I using this clip? What’s the link?

Well it struck me that this is a brilliant systems analogy!

Let me explain:

Let’s assume that the woman is an organisation and the man is outside it, looking in.

The script might go something like this…

The organisation: “It’s just, there’s all this pressure you know. And sometimes it feels like it’s right up on me…and I can just feel it, like literally feel it, in my head and it’s relentless…and I don’t know if it’s going to stop, I mean that’s the thing that scares me the most…is that I don’t know if its ever going to stop!”

[Turns to show the outside world the reality of the situation]

Outside:     “…yeah…well…you do have…a ‘command and control’ management system.”

The organisation:     “It’s not about the management system!”

Outside:     “Are you sure? Because, I mean, I’ll bet that if we got that out of there…”

The organisation:     “Stop trying to fix it!”

Outside:     “No, I’m not trying to ‘fix it’…I’m just pointing out that maybe the management system is causing….”

The organisation:     “You always do this! You always try to fix things when all I really need is for you to listen!”

Outside:     “yeah…see…I don’t think that is what you need. I think what you need is to get the ‘command and control’ out…

The organisation: “See! You’re not even listening now!”

Outside:     “Okay, fine! I will listen. Fine.”

[Pause]

The organisation:     “…it’s just, sometimes it’s like…there’s this achy…I don’t know what it is. I’m not sleeping very well at all…and all my workers are disempowered and disengaged. I mean all of them.”

[Pause. Searching looks between the two]

Outside:     “That sounds…erm…really…hard.”

The organisation:     “It is! Thank you 🙂 “

[Pause. Reach forward to reconcile….]

The organisation:     “Owch!”

Outside:     “Oh come on! If you would just…”

The organisation:    “DON’T!!!…”

[(usually) The end, unfortunately]

But let’s not stop there and just cope with the nail….

…to the point:

To successfully and meaningfully change a system towards its purpose, you need to look from the outside-in. You cannot achieve this looking from the inside-out.

Deming was very clear on this point: “The prevailing style of management must undergo transformation. A system cannot understand itself. The transformation requires a view from outside.”

Seddon wrote “When managers learn to take a systems view, starting outside-in (that is, from the customer’s rather than the organisation’s point of view), they can see the waste caused by the current organisation design, the opportunities for improvement and the means to realise them. Taking a systems view always provides a compelling case for change and it leads managers to see the value of designing and managing work in a different way…

…but this better way represents a challenge to current management conventions. Measures and roles need to change to make the systems solution work. You have to be prepared to change the system…”

In a similar vein Einstein is credited with the saying “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

A catch:

Gosh, it sounds so simple….let’s just look from the outside-in shall we? But, unfortunately, it isn’t that simple.

Here’s Stafford Beer with why not:

“…a new idea is not only beyond the comprehension of the existing system, the existing system finds it threatening to its own status quo…the existing system does not know what will happen if the new idea is embraced.

The innovator fails to work through the systematic consequences of the new idea. The establishment cannot…and has no motivation to do so…it was not its own idea…the onus is on the innovator…[but] the establishment controls the resources that the adventurous idea needs…”

Blimey, that’s a bit depressing isn’t it!…which is an opportune moment to remind you of my earlier ‘Germ theory of management’ post.

You/I/we won’t succeed by trying to push the idea onto the system. We need to make ‘it’ curious and want to pull the idea at the rate that understanding, acceptance and desire emerges.

So it IS about the nail! …Oh never mind.

(if you watch the YouTube clip again, I expect you will find it hard not to mentally overlay the above script onto it now! I know I do.)

Comment for the ‘Political-Correctness’ police: I ‘get’ that the clip is stereotypical about the differences between men and women…I ‘get’ that men will likely find it funnier than women…but, come on, it is very funny.

Okay, okay…I am more than happy to post an equally funny clip (to address the gender balance) that sends up men…here’s a good one: ‘Man flu’