Stocking Stuffer Trials, or On the Beauty of the Pilot

 

All Our Stockings In A Row

Christmas is around the corner, and like many people, each member of my family will get a stocking full of goodies from Santa.  As the one who procures the items for Santa to generously impart to each person in his or her stocking, the trick is to ascertain exactly how much “stuff” will fit into each stocking so that it is full, but not overflowing to the point where the integrity of the mantle hook is in jeopardy!

After buying a few things and hemming and hawing about whether it was enough or not, I had an epiphany (no pun intended):  Why not just fill the stockings with what I have and see how much space is left over?  Then I can decide how much more, if anything, I will need to procure for each person, and/or if I need to return anything.  Queue the audio: Duh-duh-DUUUUUUMMMMM!!!   It seems obvious:  Instead of imagining how things will fit, why don’t I just TRY IT? 

Parallel this concept to our professional lives.  Trial and error is one of the BEST ways to determine what works and what does not!  But we don’t want to try things on a large scale initially, because of the risk that they will not work.  If our new ideas fail, we want them to fail on a small scale, and most importantly – in a way that does not affect the customer.  Therein lies the beauty of The Pilot.

The Pilot is a trial period for a new idea, process, or methodology.  It is to be undertaken on a small scale and under increased scrutiny.  It is to be done for a pre-determined amount of time or quantity of trials, with the expectation that changes will be made based on the results.  Speaking of results, the desired results need to be hypothesized (what will success look like?), and actual results measured or compared to the desired result; driving modifications before full implementation.

Piloting a new idea, process, or methodology is not to be confused with continuous improvement, which encourages us to always find ways to make things better in small incremental steps.  Pilots, on the other hand, are typically used for new concepts and/or complete “re-engineering” (kaikaku) of an existing process.

One recent AJC client is a services company that collects information from their customers to begin their internal workflow.  Each information collector had his or her own methodology for what to collect, and how to collect it.  They generally asked for the same information eventually, but often requests were afterthoughts, and “custom” each time, even though 80+% of what they needed was standard for all of their clientele.

We designed a process whereby template letters introducing the required information were sent to clients at specific points in the collection process, inclusive of standardized checklists that could be expanded or contracted based on the specific situation.  The standard content of the templates and checklists were modeled on a few internal best practices, which helped provide credibility to others in the company. Though this methodology may sound simplistic, it was different than anything most people in the company had done before.

Instead of rolling out the templates and checklists to all the employees at the same time, however, the project team decided to instigate a Pilot.  We worked with 25% of the personnel and trained them on the new templates and lists, and asked them to Pilot them for a period of 6 weeks.  Over the course of that time, the project team checked in with the pilot personnel regularly.  We had a cloud-based “issues” list where people could input their real-time feedback or issues with the new materials, and improvements were evaluated and made immediately when possible.  We tracked completeness of checklists for required information at the point of submission to the next internal step, and rework if the recipient found errors and had to return the form throughout the Pilot, and setup internal visual cues to prompt completeness within the checklists themselves.

At the end, the data was reviewed and baseline metric established, and I met with each pilot team member personally to solicit feedback on the new templates and lists.  The overwhelming consensus was that the templates were helpful, but the lists were too cumbersome.  I received lots of practical and specific recommendations and requests for simplification, which were made and re-tested on a shorter timeline.  After the Pilot team felt comfortable with the new materials, we updated the training and rolled out the new process and materials to the entire company.

Piloting is definitely a sound, tried and true practice which allows companies to test new ideas, processes, or methodologies in a safe environment.  Often it is difficult to predict performance without actual experience, and in general, people feel more comfortable knowing that they can always “fall back” on the old way of doing things if the new way doesn’t work.  And by soliciting and incorporating feedback from the pilot group, the change agents instill trust and a sense of ownership resulting in “champions” of the new idea/process/methodology with the rest of the company.

Hopefully this testing idea will work as well for my stocking stuffing activities this December.