Best practice interventions: Short-term impact and long-term outcomes

Best practice interventions: Short-term impact and long-term outcomes

• successful short-term outcomes may be a major contribution to the visibility and acceptance of new practices in the long term
• Short-term benefits must be created but it is still mostly a long-term journey. How do companies handle this dilemma
• A BPI can be defined as an activity designed to introduce new practices through a series of short focused activities in the organization. These interventions are typically composed of two parts. The first part aims for dramatic improvements within a focused operational area in a very short time. The second part focuses on the introduction of new (often seen as either “best” or promising) practices or processes and on preparing the organization for the ‘journey’ required for widespread adoption of these practices by transferring and building skills through action learning and applying lessons learned in practice
• The desired performance outcomes of BPIs are in two areas ,Firstly, they can be expected to influence operational performance in areas such as cost quality, flexibility, lead times, inventory, transport, delivery time and delivery dependability in .the short term. These, in turn, can potentially lead to improved financial performance
• The second desired impact is concerned with the long-term embedding of the practices
• Only two out of the five organizations had persisted with their quality programs five to ten years later despite initial effort and short-term benefits
• It has been widely argued that this process of integrating immediate successes with long-term objectives requires longer programs of change to introduce new practices effectively
• Government and professional bodies that promote such programs of change also find it difficult to fund long-term support The result has been a tendency towards development and implementation of short programs or interventions designed both to make a quick impact and to develop the base from which new practices can be adopted throughout the organization in the long term
• Intervention context
• Clearly communicated strategy and objectives for change
• Clearly communicated strategy and objectives for change prior to the intervention will lead to short-term improvement and long-term sustained change
• Organizational readiness for change
• Without leadership ability and explicit efforts by company leaders to promote organizational readiness for change, only a few plants or divisions will attempt change
• Key performance indicators (KPIs) aligned to the program of change objectives
• Such performance cultures are based upon the implementation, capture and analysis of appropriate performance measures in order to drive behavior and commitment towards different assignments
• Reward and recognition of positive short-term results
• In Japanese companies, it has been reported that long-term commitment of stakeholders to improvement initiatives may be attained through reward and recognition mechanisms in the form of security through lifetime employment, gainsharing through the complex compensation systems and the joint commitment to team-oriented annual targets
• Of course, rewards and recognition can only be given to those involved after short-term results have been obtained
• Intervention design and implementation
• Tailoring the BPI format to the specific context
• there are strong arguments for the need to tailor the planning and preparation of the intervention to suit the company context
• (Brunet and New )argue in favor of a tailored approach in that transformational practices should be based on reinterpretation and reinvention in each new context
• Organization and provision of intervention resources
• BPIs typically compete with ongoing daily operations and other parallel projects for .stakeholder attention and limited resources This competition for limited resources is often not limited to financial resources but may also include, for example, a limited number of highly skilled personnel
• Unless the BPI is well organized and given sufficient priority over other activities, with adequate provision of resources, it is likely to suffer both in terms of short-term outcomes and long-term sustainability of improvement
• In order to increase chances of short- and long-term success, deliberate efforts may be taken to buffer BPIs and subsequent consolidation exercises from daily operations or other simultaneous improvement initiatives
• Intervention implementation
• Change which is delayed may not deliver“ ,benefits. Change which is rushed may not allow time to adapt, and create initiative fatigue ”encouraging decay
• in order to develop successful results, a well-managed BPI implementation will unfold in a coherent planned sequence with an appropriate duration and pace
• The individual events of such a well-managed intervention ,implementation are also linked together so that they appear as a coupled set of initiatives display continuity in discussions and actions and encourage gradual and appropriate involvement of different stakeholder groups step-by-step in the process
• Stakeholder management
• it is critical to get top management ,support the role of middle management cannot be neglected
• communication across the organization is an important part of the BPI process
• the role of middle management is often critical: “It is in the middle levels of management that real, unanticipated problems arise ”
• Developing internal facilitators and change “champions”
• an overall change process needs a kind of ”leadership which fosters change capacity at the grassroots’ level: “capacity-building leaders”
• The development and presence of one or more motivated internal stakeholders, or change
• champions’, that commit to an improvement initiative and lead by example can be seen as an important contributor to success
• Change-agent approach
• Change agent’s overall knowledge and competence
• The outcomes of BPIs depend much on the skills, competencies and behavior of consultants, facilitators or change agents leading them
• An ideal consultant would show self-confidence but also be modest and listen carefully to signals of his “client” organization
• the success of a BPI consultant may not only be related to specific practice-related knowledge but may also relate to the broader business of the organization
• BPI consultants/facilitators who are not only skilled in the relevant practices but who also have broader business skills from prior industry experience and/or similar projects are likely to increase the chances of short- and long-term success for BPIs
• Plan for ongoing activities and consultant support
• The adoption of specific (lean) improvement practices is often viewed as “a journey” requiring a “reliable map and frequent checks on .”progress along the way
• Post-event planning for ongoing activities with the BPI consultant can benefit from analysis of the short-term outcomes