On the manufacture of treadmills - Paul Madden @ Automica
If there is one thing that I have become known for it is the removal of the day to day grind of office life and the replacement with freedom through automation. I think when talking to people about that subject that they truly believe that automation solves all problems and is the goal. It isn’t.
The true goal is, for me at least, the ability to be where I want, when I want and the the freedom to decide each morning what to do with my day.
Imagine the freedom that comes from waking with a clean slate ahead of you, no appointments, no boss screaming, no need to do anything…
Of course it cant be like that everyday but thats the aim. Some people want to buy a bigger house, to drive a better car, to have lavish holidays once a year. I want to be able to scoop up my family and go find a beach somewhere warm and just spend the day with them walking along the shoreline whilst the waves roll in. I also dont want to disconnect to do that as that means its a holiday and not a lifestyle. Thats where this post comes in…
So the primary thing I think of when presented with a work problem isn’t “can I automate this?” – what I really think is “am I building a treadmill?”
By ‘treadmill’ I mean anything that requires me to be on call to it 24×7. That could be a person, a client or a business process. Anything that needs to own a part of me to operate…
So heres a brief example of that thinking in action: -
So I have a process that I need to do that normally requires a raft of staff, in fact the process is similar to 3 other processes that normally require staff.
Job 1.
Deskill…
Take the process or workflow as it exists in a successful business you are aware of and write it down as a procedure. I normally use a mindmap for that and I always do that on paper with a pencil, its just how my tiny brain works I am afraid.
Now once we have the stages mapped out we look for ways that we can separate the process into modular tasks that are easy to identify or allocate to a specific brief.
For example say we wanted to build a site we might start with someone providing look and feel roughs and then pass those to a logo provider who would come back with options, the designer would then evaluate the options and choose the best.
Once you have each of the main processes deskilled you should have a clear idea of where and what the skilled work is. You can then decide who is best to do that skilled work. Maybe its you or maybe its someone you know, I am sure though that as a discreet task its far cheaper for them or you to complete if the non-skilled parts have been removed.
Job 2.
Automate
Now we have a procedure with non-skilled tasks and the skilled parts identified we can go ahead and look at the best way to achieve each one.
For non skilled work look at automating via scripting or via the building of teams in oDesk etc.
For skilled work look at partnerships or how you can manage set times to do set tasks.
Job 3.
KPI’s
Key performance indicators or ‘KPI’s’ are set measures that when taken in isolation mean nothing but when looked at as a set indicate the performance of a business or process.
For example if I was running a manufacturing plant I might want to know things like: -
Number of units ordered
Number of units produced
Staff hours worked
Debtor payment days
Supplier credit days
Etc
Its from these indicators that the true picture of the management of the process comes.
Job 4.
Isolate, remove and delegate.
Once we have a business process defined, deskilled, automated and measured we can then empower someone within that process to keep tabs on the day to day and we can retire to looking at the KPI’s.
I tend to make those KPI’s available on my iPhone so even if I am on a beach in the med or in a casino in Vegas I can simply glance at a set of numbers and know what the health of a process is and because its modular you know who looks after each node and can repair its operation with one or two quick emails.
Building a team who youll never meet.
In the last section I talked about deconstructing a process to make it work without you being involved. Often that task involves building in a team of humans to do set tasks.
Humans, as you may be aware, suck. They suck big time. They are needy and whiny and they want feeding and praising.
Im not the maternal type when it comes to staffing. Im fair but to me most of the time you are performing a part in a larger machine.
I know that makes me sound like a victorian mill owner but I am not some bald fat white dude in northern England with a mill. Well to be fair I am all of those things but I dont have a mill, the old bakery I work from isn’t a mill despite the outward appearances… anyway…
So on with the reason I am writing this. Building a team of outsourced staff is about one thing, process…
The start point is oDesk. Post a job that defines the task in a way that gets the most people possible to apply. By this I mean dont add a description like “Article writer for the medical industry” – Just write “Creative writer, perfect english”.
Once we have a number of applicants we go through them and we email at least 10-20 with something like: -
“Hi we are looking for someone to fill our job (X) and thought you might be ideal. What we would like to do is hire you for a trial period. We will send you the tasks you need to do and if the standard of your work meets what we need we will extend that to a full time position”
Then those that accept get the tasks to trial. I then monitor how they do and after a few attempts I will hire perhaps 5 and ditch the rest (Leaving good feedback).
Now we have the start of our team. They run for about another 2 weeks before we review their results. There will normally be one of the team who has produced more results than any other or whos ability to communicate has been outstanding. I will then name them as ‘team leader’ and give them responsibility to manage the other team members and a bonus scheme to hit the targets as set in our system KPI’s
Now having designed that pyramid of people and scripting to plug the gaps inbetween the task for me to scale the system up or down is simple.
I log into the admin
I go to settings
I select the KPI I want to turn up
I increase the number
Having done that task, the team leaders hire or release workers and work their node to the point that the number gets hit.