- Hi, and thanks for joining us for another Q&A Friday,
a regular series where we chat
about issues facing manufacturing companies
in the new world of Industry 4.0.
I'm Jessica Vodden, a team member here at Mountain Point,
and I'm joined by Andrew Rieser,
our president and co-founder.
Hi, Andrew.
- Hey, good afternoon, Jess.
- So, we're continuing the conversation we've been having
for the last couple of weeks
on how to really dig in
and manage digital transformation projects.
So, for those of you who follow our blog,
we have a 10-step guide to managing digital transformation,
10-best practices,
and we're taking a look at each of those practices
one by one
and addressing the issues surrounding them
and taking a look
at what they really look like on the ground.
And so, today, Andrew, what I'd like to talk about is
how you can establish accountability
and set expectations for change.
I know in the past we've talked a lot
about how important it is to get your team on board,
to get your leadership on board,
and also how scary change can be for people.
So, how do you make sure
that you're addressing the people side of that
and making sure
that everybody's moving in the same direction?
- I think that managing people
is a challenge in and of itself,
but being able to articulate and set expectations
and lead that change
and have everybody motivated to be a part of that change,
that's what we see as the deciding factor, if you will,
in the successful digital transformations
versus the ones that fail to get off the ground.
So I think this is a very important topic
and change management and leadership
and more importantly setting those expectations and metrics
for how individuals that are contributing to this change
and that are change agents,
how they're gonna be measured
and how the overarching organization is gonna be measured
to ensure success.
- Yeah.
So, what are some practical strategies,
some examples of things that companies can do
to communicate where they're trying to go
and how to get there?
- Yeah, I think a reoccurring theme
that you'll hear as a part of this series is
the amount of focus and the amount of time
that's required in these things.
So, similar to executive leadership,
setting the vision and putting the time and energy
that is warranted for these types of transformations,
I think that individuals and individual contributors
need to also have that same level of focus
and make this a priority.
What we've seen,
whether it's a digital transformation initiative
or just leadership and management,
the best practice is having one-on-one meetings.
And so one-on-one meetings allows
for a more frequent, agile kind of cadence
around what's going on,
so it allows that transparency to happen,
it allows the goals to be articulated
and the processes to be measured,
but it also allows that kind of continuous feedback loop
of what's working and what's not working
so that you can continuously improve
and identify areas where you're being deficient
as well as areas that are making an impact
so that that agile approach can continue to help
with the organizational change.
- Yeah.
Tell me a little bit,
and I heard you used the word measurement a few times there,
tell me a bit about how our conversation from last time
on setting KPIs and setting directions
fits into this concept of establishing accountability.
- Yeah, I think that's a great question.
And in the famous words of Peter Drucker,
has the statement of,
"If you can't measure it, you can't improve it."
So I think in any of these initiatives
it's not only important to establish the baseline
of where you currently are
and set the goal of where you wanna be,
but also creating those processes
of how you wanna measure that and how you're gonna know
whether what you're doing
and the improvements that you're making
are making a change or not.
- Absolutely.
One of my favorite things that I've seen
clients and customers do is
structure their weekly meetings or their daily meetings
or their staff meetings around a dashboard.
Everybody's looking at the same metrics,
everybody's looking at the same goal
and seeing how far they've come from last week,
and I think that really helps establish that accountability
because you can see if the needle's not moving,
it also helps structure the conversation
so that everybody's focused on the same thing,
and I think that's one very specific way
that this can be incorporated
but also a really effective one.
- Yeah, I agree.
I think you hit on two things there.
One is the consistency.
So having a consistent cadence
around the data that the organization and the individuals
know is important being measured.
It fosters better collaboration and communication
around those items.
And then the next piece that we just alluded to
is also the data.
So being able to actually look at that data
and see what is being measured,
it allows you to have that gage of where things are
and where you need to be either investing more time
or putting more energy and focus into,
or areas that are improving
the way that you would want to improve them
so that you can start tackling the next level items
that are on your priority list.
So I think those are two important factors
of where dashboards and reports and leveraging your data
can create that consistency
and get everybody on the same page
talking about the same things.
(soft music) - Yep, absolutely.
Well, we'll continue this conversation next week
and in weeks to come.
Thank you so much for your time, Andrew.
And for those of you out there listening,
if you have a question you'd like us to answer
or an issue you'd want us to tackle,
please let us know.
You can hit us up online on our social medial channels,
via email or chatbot.
We're everywhere and we'd love to hear from you, so.
Thanks again, Andrew, and have a great rest of your day!
- You too, thank you, Jess.