Self-Reform is a key to Agility – Part 8

Self-reform is simply improving the character or the habits. If we consider the maintenance team and the maintenance process as a persona then, we can reform its character and its habits. The character of he maintenance team is how maintenance is perceived by others. The habits of the maintenance team is simply what the maintenance team do most of the time; That’s a habit. You can ask everyone outside the maintenance team about how the maintenance team can be better. However, the real problems are only known by the team themselves. They know why some equipment fail, why there is a rework and why the backlog is growing indefinitely.

Why self-reform is better than external auditing?

When there is a chance that the team can speak about their own problems , they will clarify what is really hindering their efforts. Nevertheless, there is a step prior to this. Do they really know what is required from them? Knowing the task requirement and what the expected performance is crucial for the team and the auditor.

Some answers during a performance review meeting can be dull but this might indicate that there is ambiguity in the scene. Or, there is avoidance. Ambiguity is easy to handle. More self explanatory documents for the tasks can do the job together with some hands on training. However avoidance is more critical because it implies that the manager, supervisor or context need some reform.

Usually the magic is in the details. And the one who do the job is the best one to know the details. The more experienced team members have a wealth of experience that can handle almost any situation. However, if they don’t know the real context of the task then any advice may go astray. Experienced auditors are great when you use them as your third eye same as most of the maintenance stakeholders. But, who is hands-on-job will remain the key factor in doing things better. How better? That’s a long story about SMART targets or tasks.

This doesn’t diminish the need for a 3rd eye or an external unbiased opinion that has a helicopter view. But, who knows the details can reform the details.

Is it self-reform or context-reform?

Is there a channel to give a feedback about what went wrong and why? Not from a defensive point of view but as a request to do better next time. Does anyone read these notes in the feedback? If so, is there any action to clarify or rectify the task for the coming times. This doesn’t mean that every comment and feedback needs an action. But, every feedback needs attention and a mark that someone will take care. Managers, supervisors or team leaders need to avoid punishing those who are commenting by assigning the rectification to them.

Surely it can happen that we assign the corrective action about one of the elements of of the process or the repair of a tool or a sign board to the person who claimed about it if he is capable of this. Also make sure it is not the norm it can be him or any other team member or even an external support.

However the most important is to send a message that their request is heard, considered and will be discussed. Then this reform will go to whom available and capable of doing it. We need to ensure that the feedback reached to the commenter that either we will consider rectification followed by an action. Or there is another view that prevent this indifinetly or for the time being. Then we follow this by a decent direct face-to-face explanation.

The request for context-reform is in its own part of the self reform. It is not the only part but if the request is valid, it conveys a needed awareness that we need to maintain. In simple words, we can’t request an accuracy within a tolerance of few Micrometers while the measuring tools can measure only in Millimeter or Decimeters.

How self-reform makes a maintenance team Agile?

Let’s take it back to our friends who had written the Agile Manifesto principles. It says near the end “At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.” To reflect on some issue, this means the you Consider or think carefully about. This implies that there is a question that has been asked at some point. Or may be asking ourselves this question as a part of the process. The question could be: “How to become more effective?”

More effective leads us to how to be more successful in producing a desired or intended results. So we know the definition of success for the tasks that we have in hand and we shall achieve this success in less time, less effort, more accurately or delivering a higher value. There is another dimensions to the success that defines how to be successful along the way to the end result and not only when we reach there. We had defined it in our previous chats about Agility. This includes improved stakeholders communication, responsiveness and flexibility to integrate customer changes even late in time and excellence in every part of the big task.

So when we are aware all the time about those end results and route targets and we know that we shall answer this propping question: “How to become more effective?” We search for answers all the way long. Implementing those answers is just a complete different story. Some of this answers are on the personal level and can be directly implemented. Other answers or finding are related tot he process and the team work. Those need team’s agreement.

Do they know?

May be this question looks nonsense because they handled this task before. This means that they know for sure what is required from them. Actually the task itself is a small part of what they need to do and know. What they need to know and do in each task are major parts of the Secrets of Maintenance Program Training in Arabic and English as listed below. Enjoy The custom discount coupons below the ads.

In Conclusion,

Self-Reform leads to improved effectiveness in our maintenance tasks includes improved stakeholders communication, responsiveness and flexibility to integrate changes and respond to sudden requests and excellence in every part of the maintenance task. That’s lead to an Agile Maintenance Process and Team.