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I wonder how to conduct such why meetings without demoralizing people? I can imagine people being more worried about being mentioned in those meetings than they

by geeko 17y ago

I wonder how to conduct such why meetings without demoralizing people? I can imagine people being more worried about being mentioned in those meetings than they worry about customer satisfaction. Of course one could always hide the problem beneath 'you have to build the right corporate culture'. Also, what size does a problem need to have to result in such a meeting? Every argument with your colleagues? Every customer related problem? Every technical problem? "In fact, at IMVU, we did exactly that. We started with a simple wiki page with a few bullet points of things that new engineers had tripped over recently." This happens in our corporation as well, although in a much more informal way. It goes more like this: There's an annoyance, let's solve it. As the article says, the investments are gradual and there's not much time required to fix the little problems. One at a time.

jmathes 17y ago
"Also, what size does a problem need to have to result in such a meeting? Every argument with your colleagues? Every customer related problem? Every technical problem?" Disclaimer: I work at IMVU, but I am not the article's author This is a problem you have to solve for your own context. I suggest starting with only the biggest problems, and seeing how the process works for you. You'll see the people who are in those meetings getting accolades for their follow-up work, and you'll find that as the root cause analysis gets up to why #3, the participants are solving problems they didn't cause. Both of these will help to build the right corporate culture, as you mention. Then, if it seems appropriate, it will be easier to apply 5Ys to less serious problems, because their value will be well-known to the team. Being mentioned in a 5Y here never bothered anyone. Because you know you have to come up with a fix for all five levels, everyone too preoccupied thinking up solutions to begrudge anyone.
sokoloff 17y ago
It is worrisome the first time you're implicated in a highly visible or expensive problem. We address this partially in on-boarding where we are very clear that our version of this process exists, that we take it very seriously, that we post-mortem every significant issue, but that throughout the process, we are only interested in solving, minimizing, or preventing future problems, not in hand-wringing or otherwise crying over milk already spilt. Then after that introduction, the chances are great that before it's your turn to be the cause of a big issue, that you've seen the process work several times, seen that experienced, well-regarded senior staffers also make mistakes and they just face up to the process with transparency and without fear and that nothing bad comes of it for them, and that the company gets better by developing a sort of immune response to chronic or substantial issues. Is that another way of saying "you have to build the right corporate culture"? Perhaps, but it at least gives some of the recipe we followed in this specific case.

by geeko 17y ago

jmathes 17y ago

"Also, what size does a problem need to have to result in such a meeting? Every argument with your colleagues? Every customer related problem? Every technical problem?" Disclaimer: I work at IMVU, but I am not the article's author This is a problem you have to solve for your own context. I suggest starting with only the biggest problems, and seeing how the process works for you. You'll see the people who are in those meetings getting accolades for their follow-up work, and you'll find that as the root cause analysis gets up to why #3, the participants are solving problems they didn't cause. Both of these will help to build the right corporate culture, as you mention. Then, if it seems appropriate, it will be easier to apply 5Ys to less serious problems, because their value will be well-known to the team. Being mentioned in a 5Y here never bothered anyone. Because you know you have to come up with a fix for all five levels, everyone too preoccupied thinking up solutions to begrudge anyone.

sokoloff 17y ago

It is worrisome the first time you're implicated in a highly visible or expensive problem. We address this partially in on-boarding where we are very clear that our version of this process exists, that we take it very seriously, that we post-mortem every significant issue, but that throughout the process, we are only interested in solving, minimizing, or preventing future problems, not in hand-wringing or otherwise crying over milk already spilt. Then after that introduction, the chances are great that before it's your turn to be the cause of a big issue, that you've seen the process work several times, seen that experienced, well-regarded senior staffers also make mistakes and they just face up to the process with transparency and without fear and that nothing bad comes of it for them, and that the company gets better by developing a sort of immune response to chronic or substantial issues. Is that another way of saying "you have to build the right corporate culture"? Perhaps, but it at least gives some of the recipe we followed in this specific case.