Three Idiots crossing the valley

The following is the depiction of three people crossing a valley.

                                                     /\/\/\                                                                                   

                                                      /\/\/\                                                                                  

                                                       /\/\/\                                                                                 

                                                        /\/\/\                                                                                

                                                         /\/\/\                                                                               

                                                          /\/\/\                                                                              

                                                           /\/\/\                                                                             

                                                            /\/\/\                                                                            

                                                              /\/\/\                                                                          

Thus, we see that in the above case three situations arrive, 

                                         one where the person is fully safe denoted by --. 

                                          one where the person is half safe denoted by ---

         and one where the person is taking a dangerous step, denoted by      

Important takings from this exercise are:

Safe Steps	18
Half Safe Steps	6
Dangerous Steps	3
Total Number of steps	27

Observations:

                What seems at first glance as an engineering problem has some important management lessons embedded in it.

·         A careful analysis shows that the task of crossing the valley cannot be accomplished by either one or two people. The most efficient way of crossing the valley is with the help of three persons.

·         The three people chosen for the job are not relevant but how they act is important. For this purpose, proper instructions/ guidelines need to be laid. The importance of organization structure is clearly evident from this.

·         The instructions that need to be followed by the people when attempting to cross the valley are not important in terms of our understanding of the management aspect of the problem, however one can list them as:

o    The process needs to be coordinated and well-structured.

o   The movement need to be synchronous.

o   The persons should have faith in the solution.

o   Crossing the valley in a continuous and confident strides is vital.

·         The current scenario shows a clear-cut distinction between the various steps i.e. safe, half-safe and dangerous. However the role of the management is to make all steps as one and remove the distinction. This might seem as a stupid thing to say as there is a visible difference but for the sake of organization managers need to look at work in an objective manner and not stress on its ease or difficulty. This helps the people performing the job psychologically.

Three Monks – Detailed Analysis

This case has already been mentioned in my blog, however the management lessons learnt from the film are very rich and fundamental to management. This post will focus on an in-depth analysis of the lessons learnt and its application in real life. Since my work experience of almost 3 years has been in an IT industry in the EIS (Engineering and Industrial Services) domain, I feel that I’m at a position where I can provide a much better understanding of the applications of the lessons learnt.

                The key lessons learnt are:

v  Process Improvement

o   As an organization grows, it is all the more essential to keep improving its process so that it gets even more efficient and improves its business. Process improvement is not a easily stated concept as there are no set guidelines to do so and the way it can be done has no limit.

o   Process improvement also incorporates in itself the concept of process replacement. Process replacement is on a very basic level, throwing out the old and implementing the new and improved. There are many a times when it is not possible to address/rectify the flaws in the current system. So it is logical to setup a new process that addresses the fallacies of the old system and deliver more to the organization.

o   Example: - An Aerospace client of TCS wanted to improve upon its ordering process. Its current system was :

TCS came up with a solution that make the process as follows:

In this process the role of the sales rep is just to provide supervision to the ordering process by the airplane purchaser. The I-Pad application has a simple interface, is easy to use and reduces the complexity. Earlier the sales rep had to be knowledgeable about the airplane and had to have some engineering background. But now the application is built on all this information so that to ease the client’s burden.

v  Effort

o   The organization structure should be established in such a manner that adding in more people to the organization reduced the effective effort to do the earlier work.

o   Combined top-down interventions and bottom-up initiatives are effective ways to reduce the efforts required.

o   Example:- The TCS’s offshore development model as shown below:

Here assigning separate roles and responsibilities to each individual reduces the individual as well as total effort.

v  Participative Management

o   This concept is applied by the organization that understand the importance to human intellect and seek a strong relationship with their employees. They understand that the employees are the facilitators who deal directly with the customers and satisfy their needs. To beat the competition in market and to stay ahead of the competition, this form of management has been adopted by many organizations. They welcome the innovative ideas, concepts and thoughts from the employees and involve them in decision making process.

o   Example:- In the above mentioned TCS’s offshore development model , the individual stakeholders not only have the role of performing the task/work assigned to them but also come up with process improvement. This process improvement is not only limited to the scope of their assigned work but extends to the entire business process of the client.

Tower Building Activity – Detailed Analysis

The important lessons one derives from this activity are:

o   Division of Work

One important learning from this activity is the division of work. This doesn’t in anyway means that we are sacrificing on the work done, but in fact work is segmented and individuals are given specific roles. In this light the concept of S.M.A.R.T. goals is all the more valid as the division of work will be useful to the organization if all the players have a crystal clear idea of what their goals. They will focus all their energy on accomplishing that goal. The next step in this could be standardizing the segregated activities by the process of improving the step by learning after every iteration and incorporating those lessons learnt in the next iteration.

Example: - A standard model that is followed by many projects in TCS’s offshore development center is as follows:

Here the Administrator has the role of maintaining the system (development server) for the various stakeholder like developers, testers, users etc. His roles, responsibilities and areas of concern are all listed out clearly and onus lies entirely on him. The developers of various modules have a clear-cut task of working on their assigned module and cater to the demands of the client that involve his/her module. The testers have a specified role wherein they are required to thoroughly test the application after each development cycle to maintain integrity of the application.

o   Skill

When moving from the traditional model to the current management style there is “deskilling” labor. This “deskilling” is not in anyway compromising on the expertise of the workers, but in a way restricting the sight of the workers so that they can excel in their “domain”. This “domain” is a restricted space as the worker has access to a limited business process and its related information and work.

Example: - The current model followed in most big IT service companies have implemented this concept. The developer is concerned only with the technical aspect of the application i.e. the coding part of it, the technology to be used and other such areas. The management however focuses on the functional aspect of the application i.e. how the application needs to work, the client’s need that can be satisfied with this application and other related aspects.

o   Innovation

The division of labor allows the individuals to focus on their specified roles and responsibilities. This essentially helps one to break down the whole activity into various sub activities and these sub activities into tasks and so on. This provides an individual with a platform for innovation as his task now is simplified and narrow-scoped. The chances of these individuals coming up with innovation is increased many folds as compared to the traditional model.

Example:- The current model followed in most big IT service companies allows the developers to focus on technological innovations and the management with functional innovations. Furthermore the roles provided in development i.e. Administrator, traditional developer, tester provide even greater focus for innovation. Since individuals are assigned a slice of the work pie they can devote ever more time and effort for the process improvement in the form of innovations. The work that comes on to a developer is in the form of CR(Change Record) and WRs(Work Records). Many CRs make up a WR. Thus there is scope of improvement at two further levels.

o   Productivity

With the introduction of the concept of division of labor the work can be completed more easily. The effort needed from individual players is effectively reduced and the output increased, which leads to higher productivity.

Example:- The current model followed in most IT service companies is as follows:

With individuals dedicated to a particular role in the various steps mentioned, the application development cycle time has reduced from 1 year earlier to merely 3-4 months now. The same steps are followed even now ,but the improved productivity leads to shorter development cycles. 

Three Monks (Chinese animated short) – Management Lessons learnt

The following is the Three Monks, a Chinese animated feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. It has won the outstanding film award at China's Ministry of Culture, the Best animated film prize at the first Golden Rooster Awards in 1981 and also four international awards including a Silver Bear for Short Film at the 32nd Berlin Film Festival in 1982.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rolBiHfWokY

There are a lot of management lessons that can be learnt from this film. However a distinction should made in terms of insight into human behavior and the technical lessons that can be learnt.

“Human” Lessons

§  Co-operation

Without co-operation, it was very difficult for the monks to achieve their goal.

§  Positive behavior followed by negative behavior

The monks were initially courteous to one another and even displayed humility and respect to one another but in some time difference started to come up.

§  Synergy and team work

Finally it was the synergy and team work that helped them achieve their goal.

The above list is in no means the exhaustive set of lessons that one can learn from this film, however our main motive is to gain an insight into the technical lessons related to management that we can learn from this film.

Technical Lessons

§  Process Improvement

o   For a system to improve and be more efficient there needs to be constant process improvement and in cases process replacement.

§  Effort

o   Adding more people to the organization should ensure that the effort to perform the job is lessened.

§  Productivity

o   The productivity of the individuals participating should gain benefit from the system in terms of increased productivity

§  Division Of Labor

o   SMART goals need to be put in place and people assigned a fixed task.

§  Participative Management

o   When two monks are carrying a bucket between them, on marking the center the measurement is done by one and marking is done by other demonstrates participative management

o   This is good in terms of lesser grievances, providing motivation and increased efficiency.

Attributes	One Person	Two Person	Three Person
Process in place
Work Tools	Stick and two bucket	Stick and one bucket	Pulley , rope and two bucket
Effort	Maximum	Lesser than one person	Least
Output	Two Buckets	One bucket	One bucket
Efficiency(Per bucket)	Least	More than one person	Maximum

One key learning from this analysis is that systems should be put in place taking the organization needs into account rather than based on individuals in the organization.