What's Your Company's Speed?
It is always the goal of a business to get there as fast and efficiently as possible. Get there to lower the cost of getting there and especially getting there before the competition. But what would happen if you’re not ready for that type of speed? What would happen if you hit the gas pedal and your infrastructure isn’t ready?
The risks can be very high if you move forward and your business is not built to handle it. I kept finding myself in situations where the pressure for speed was turned up way before the proper preparations were in place. This is easy to imagine what the outcome would turn into. Ultimately, if you’re lucky, you would make a couple mistakes and fall a little behind, but it can get a whole lot worse. As you fall behind, your efforts to catch up to the new speed ultimately create more problems. This turns the environment into career-eating quicksand. This is a great time to hit the Like button and Share if you’ve found yourself in this challenging situation.
So, what do we do about it? I understand that Absolute is a dangerously mythical word and there is no one solution that works for every situation continuously. What we can do is prepare. Take into consideration the volume increase in specific activities and materials. Take this increase, including cost, working hours, needed space, etc., and total it while following the process throughout your departments. Yes - departments. Understand the impact in a greater scale. This consideration cannot only focus on your department. Once this is captured, take a step back and see what is needed to compensate for these increases.
With your estimated numbers, you are better prepared to deliver the resource requests to upper management. Now, a day doesn’t go by that this isn't a consideration in my scheduling. It's vital to keep at your forethought as demands are always changing. Without the proper resources and planning in place, be prepared for the quicksand.
After you calculate your expected increases throughout your entire process and fill in your resource gaps, don't forget to start off slow and build up to the desired speed. Even with planned calculations, this must be taken in gradual increases. If you jump too fast, then you’ll create variables faster than you can adapt to. As a result, you could undermine all of your original planning.
So, what's your company’s speed? Is the plan to go faster or produce more, and can your infrastructure handle it? Share below in the comments section to benefit you as well as the Sigmasmith community. There’re always new ways to creatively solve these challenges and turn them into opportunities!
Thanks for reading.
Rick V.
Sigmasmith