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‘Systems Thinking? – Sorry I didn’t quite get that’.

Stuart McIntyre

MOUNTJOY – SMT 19th December 2013

The Clients’ Vision

> 2006 – SOR Contract (April 2006 – 10 years) to Open Book and Systems Thinking.> November 2006 - The five Service Providers at the time were called to the Civic offices

> ‘Customer’s Nominal Value’> A flagship service

> Let the interventions commence.> The selection process in full swing> Two service providers (+ Liberty)

> Customer Satisfaction

So what actually happened?


The Delivery Model according to Vanguard

The Vanguard tools:

> The Principles of Work> The PLAN acronym> Check – Plan – Do

> Double Loop Learning> The Value Steps

> The Enabling Steps> Leading and Lagging Measures

> The Purpose> Systems Conditions

> Customer’s Nominal Value>The Perfect Flow


The Pursuit of the Perfect Flow

The Vision The Actual The Result

One Man – One Visit

What Man – Many Visits

Who’s the Man – ‘Multi Man’

The Value Work What is the Value Work

Lucky to get the Value Work

Demand Driven What is Pull – What is Push

Don’t push me too far…

Thinking -Imagination

Creativity stifled – ‘straightjacket’

Frustration – misguided effort

Focus on the Flow

Misunderstanding of the Process

‘Costs reduction’ stagnant


An Evolution?

Criteria – ‘The Sell’. Command and Control

Systems Thinking The Mountjoy Way

Perspective Top-Down Outside-in Customer Driven

Design Functional Specification

Demand, Value, Flow Configured against demand type - quality

built in.

Decision making Separated from Work Capability, Variation, Purpose

Reliably informed

Measurement Outputs, Targets, Standards,

Budgets

What matters End to end times and Cost

Attitude to Customers Contractual Co-operative Attentive

Role of Management Manage people and budgets

Act on System Considerate

Ethos Control Learning Educational

Change Reactive, projects Adaptive, integral Informed, appropriate

Motivation Extrinsic Intrinsic Variation elimination


Universal Language…making sense.

> Customers Sets the Nominal Value – > Only do the Value Work – > Work Flows 100% Clean –

> Single Piece Flow – > Pull don’t Push –

> Best Resource Front End -

Proportionate - Lawful -

Auditable - Necessary –

‘70% good to go’

Please take 5 minutes to write

down your

definition of these

Connect Words and Terminology

Value Demand – the repair within the scope of the contract. Value Work – the repair done in a fair and cost effective way. Customers’ Nominal Value – Customers’ needs/expectation.

Best Resource – the right person with the right skills. Proportionate – Common Sense.

‘PLAN’ – economically safe and sound. Single Piece Flow – do all that you can as efficiently as possible.

Pull don’t Push – only take or give the amount that is needed, when it is needed. Mapping the Flow – a picture of the current process.

Failure – unsatisfactory work. Capability – how long does it take to do.

Capacity – have I got enough of it to do the work. Customer Satisfaction – fixed it right, when it was needed.

Cost – the amount the client pays. Value – a fair cost, a fair amount of work.

Optimum – the best we can achieve if we do everything right. System Condition – a rule, law, regulation or procedure/policy.

Work flows 100% clean – give and receive the relevant information. Demand – how many.

Waste – adds costs but no real value.

19th December 2013MOUNTJOY – SMT


How do we know?

No sustainable, understood, consistent reduction in costs to the service No known sustainable improvement to any service delivery since a Vanguard

intervention. Systems Thinking the Vanguard way is an ‘off the shelf’ product.

Control and Command has been replaced by Conform or Concede. In the name of Process Improvement we have overcomplicated the approach.

The method is not proportionate. The Vanguard Measures Suite is ill defined.

The Vanguard Methodology is flawed. The pursuit of perfect is aligned to Vanguards’ nominal value.

The client themselves are not carrying out the value work and are/have created roles to manage the activity.

A collision of purposes – a target driven mis-match. ‘Management by use of only visible figures with little or no consideration of figures that

are unknown or unknowable’. Vanguard have no ‘Plan B’.

Vanguard have no proven method to understand, change or effectively shift the paradigm.


So what is the way forward…………….

Optimum Level of Performance

Culture Recognition The Mountjoy Way

Dark Ages Medieval Age of Renaissance

‘Taylor’ Systems Thinking The Mountjoy Way Total Command and Control


What does it all mean to Mountjoy?

The PCC contract has been and continues to be a great place for us to learn and develop.

It is from this learning that we are able to challenge the Vanguard method. There are a series of stages that make up the process – units that feed into those stages.

If we started again – what would it look like? How can we build in robustness through understanding our resource and variation

control, while encouraging creativity and maintaining flexibility? Control and Creativity can be effective partners.

Everything is on the table.

A methodology that is understandable, relevant, applicable and sensible. Standard Cost

Contract or CostVariationReduction or Specification Stages

Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit

Questions please…

MOUNTJOY - SMT 19th December 2013


We have knowledge of the process – it is the component parts that need our focus.

• Operative Capability Cost – Demonstrated Average Visit E2E • Operative Materials Cost – Van Stock usage (£), Pull stock usage (£) inc cost of

delivery (£)• Operative Running Cost – Vehicle, phone, NI etc.

Standard Cost

Contract or CostVariationReduction or Specification Stages

Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit

The Start

The requirements of the customer determine the configuration of the system and the way in which the system should respond to their needs Words without meaning

Pull Value or Failure Perfect


The Start

The requirements of the customer determine the configuration of the system and the way in which the system should respond to their needs Words that reflect knowledge

Customers Our aim Demand System Waste Measures


The Law of Change


A C B

‘A’ – as it is‘B’ – how you want it to be‘C’ – always bigger than you expected

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