“Inspiration can come from the most unexpected places.” One needs only
to google this truism to be barraged with overwhelming evidence, but I will add
an example by relating my personal story below.
My particular “Eureka” moment
happened on a lazy Sunday afternoon while my son Christopher was attempting to
teach me and my wife the game of Pokémon.
For those who may be unacquainted with this franchise, Pokémon (a contraction
of “Pocket Monster”) is a very popular trading-card game that is based on the 1996
Pokémon GameBoy video game created by Satoshi Tajiri. As my son laboriously
explained the general rules and subtle nuances of the card game, and I equally
laboriously tried to understand said instructions, I suddenly recognized a
similarity between elements of this game and project-related staffing
challenges frequently faced at work.
For example:
·
In Pokémon, you are limited to the cards that
are in your deck. At Alpha, we are limited to the staff comprising our development
team.
·
Prior to actual gameplay, players first need to
construct their deck of cards, deciding which victory condition the deck will
focus on to win the game, and how it will best achieve this success. At Alpha,
we structure and staff our departments to support the planned development
activities and overall long-term strategies of the business.
·
Individual cards contain relevant data for the
specific Pokémon, such as types, strengths, weaknesses, energy, skill levels
and compatibility with other types, just as individual development staff
members have their own disciplines, strengths, weaknesses, special skills,
experience and compatibilities.
·
When building a deck in Pokémon, players try to
make the card types complement each other if possible; balancing their cards
using synergies between the cards that will help each other – for example,
Water and Electricity are good companions, as are Fire and Grass. At Alpha, we
attempt to pair up team members that have demonstrated success when working
together, as well as try to separate those who may not be so well-matched.
·
Pokémon players attempt to build a deck that
will minimize weaknesses and maximize strengths. At Alpha, we try to assign
team members to the types of projects they are best at, and strive to staff the
project teams with an optimal mix of experience and skills.
·
And finally, in Pokémon, once you’ve played all
the cards in your deck, the game is over – there are no more cards to play. At
Alpha, once all the team members are assigned to their allotment of projects,
there are no more resources available to take on new projects, at least in theory.
Although all of the above
comparisons were interesting and hinted at potentially fun possibilities, it was
that last bullet that excited me the most – the
physical absoluteness of being out of cards – which I felt could really be exploited
to the benefit of the organization. You see, like most corporations, Alpha was
challenged by having more projects to work on than available resources to do
the work. Also, like most corporations, it was very difficult to say “no” to a
customer, and thus equally difficult for the development team to say “no” to a
project without an impactful and unambiguous indicator of over capacity. I have
always been a little jealous of the manufacturing side of the business, as they
have a plethora of lean tools to implement in order to plan, pace, control and
communicate. Manufacturing has the regular heartbeat established by Takt; the smoothing
of production via the Heijunka box and Kanban cards; the stoppage of the line
and signal of a problem triggered by the Andon cord. Where were all of the neat
tools for the product development half of the business? Where were our Takt,
Kanban, and Andon cords? We were being constantly pushed, where we would much prefer
to pull.
Now, I suddenly found myself
literally holding the answer in my hands with the Pokémon cards. If only these
cards represented the various engineers, designers, program and product
managers, testers, technicians, manufacturing and quality engineers, and other
personnel that made up core project teams. I imagined dealing out project teams
until all the cards were spent and my hands were empty – how much clearer and
absolute of a signal could there be than that! I pictured the raw power of the
senior management team having to physically pluck cards out of competing
projects if they wanted to insert a new project, with the obvious impacts and
implications immediately visible on-the-spot! My imagination was getting the
best of me as I started to think of the possibilities. Could I incorporate individual
career development onto the cards – training, skills assessment, experience
level? Would an analog to purchasing a “booster deck” of Pokémon trading cards
be the utilization of contractors, term employees and/or outsourcing? Would it
be better to use actual photographs or more fun to come up with artistic
renditions of team members? It was evident by this time that my mind was
elsewhere and I wasn’t going to be a very fun Pokémon opponent, so I bribed my
son with some PlayStation time and escaped to Staples and Canadian Tire for
supplies.
The next day I shared the idea
with the Leader of Continuous Improvement and Director of Program Management at
Alpha. Both immediately saw the potential, so we started working on a
conceptual prototype. Gradually, the initial card-based idea evolved and grew into
a total visual resource management system including:
·
large whiteboard “spreadsheets;”
·
magnetic default project trays color-coded by
product family and project complexity;
·
product family based decks of cards individually
colour-coded by discipline;
·
transparent card-overlays for identifying lead
engineers, unrequired team slots and understaffed conditions;
·
a quarterly calendar section;
·
and additional magnetic pieces for indicating
important dates, project status and performance-bonus targets.
Since implementing the
Engineering Pokémon board, we have witnessed a substantial decrease in the
problems faced prior to implementation, including less shuffling of resources
and priorities, fewer incidents of overloading or over-multitasking, and a near
elimination of “under-the-table” or “back-door” projects. Additionally, the Engineering
Pokémon board has become a show-piece for factory tours, as well as acting as
the new “water cooler” in that small groups tend to coalesce around the board
and discuss project-related issues. As my cubicle is just adjacent to the
board, this has provided to me the added benefit of keeping a pulse on various
programs and an early-warning-indicator of potential troubles brewing.
Insightful words from guest blogger, Steve. Read his bio below:
When Steven Pratt is not busy by being inspired by one of his six children, he spends his time as the Director of Engineering, Power Systems for Alpha Technologies Ltd (Alpha). Steve obtained a Bachelors and Masters of Mechanical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, and holds over 40 issued patents. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Florida, Motorola and ASQ certified Six Sigma Black Belt and has participated in numerous Lean Sensei facilitated in-house Lean training programs at Alpha. Steve has led and is heavily involved in internal kaizen projects. He has successfully applied Six Sigma and Lean tools and principals to enact positive change throughout his career.
Insightful words from guest blogger, Steve. Read his bio below:
When Steven Pratt is not busy by being inspired by one of his six children, he spends his time as the Director of Engineering, Power Systems for Alpha Technologies Ltd (Alpha). Steve obtained a Bachelors and Masters of Mechanical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, and holds over 40 issued patents. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Florida, Motorola and ASQ certified Six Sigma Black Belt and has participated in numerous Lean Sensei facilitated in-house Lean training programs at Alpha. Steve has led and is heavily involved in internal kaizen projects. He has successfully applied Six Sigma and Lean tools and principals to enact positive change throughout his career.
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