agility

The Difference Between QA & QC

| Jeremy Brien

What’s The Difference?

Quality Assurance and Quality Control are often used interchangeably. Many development teams have one or two members designated as “testers” or “QA/QC.” Unfortunately, this is a symptom not knowing the difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control. Most likely, these teams have a consistent bottleneck between development and testing activities. This causes frustration with the customer because they’re only getting new functionality delivered every few months vs. after each iteration.

Quality Assurance – It’s Everyone’s Responsibility

Quality Assurance are the processes and activities that ensure something is built well. This means it’s something everyone practices. Test-driven development (TDD) is an example of “baking in quality.” Instead of creating something and then testing it, we test and build at the same time.

I like to think of quality assurance like safety in a factory. A factory may have a “safety officer” who’s in charge of the overall program, but safety is everyone’s responsibility. It’s not the job of the safety officer to make sure you’re not misusing any equipment; the safety officer is charged with teaching practices about safety and creating a culture of safe practices. This is because the safety officer can’t be everywhere at once. Instead, it’s everyone’s responsibility to enforce safety and call out violations when they see them. It’s not to punish or harass, but to save lives and save the company from liability.

The same goes for your QA people. They shouldn’t sit over the shoulder of developers like hawks, inspecting every line of code. They don’t have the bandwidth or technical knowledge to carry out that task — and it’s not effective either. Instead, QA should be inspiring a culture of quality and encouraging creativity. QA should be helping with process improvement and identifying ways to remove waste and promote quality.

They shouldn’t sit over the shoulder of developers like hawks, inspecting every line of code. They don’t have the bandwidth or technical knowledge to carry out that task — and it’s not effective either.

Quality Control – Marking The Checkbox

Where Quality Assurance relates to “how” the software was made and making it everyone’s responsibility, Quality Control is the activities related to formally documenting and inspecting the product. This is where standardized documentation can help. Use just enough documentation as it makes sense, to ensure conformity to the

inspect
Inspect and test at the same time. Photo Credit

specifications of the client. This can be baked into the quality assurance process as well. Returning to our example of test-driven development, once a component is complete, saving the results of the unit test can be used as evidence of functionality. The combination of multiple components and testing their functionality is an integration test. Again, saving these results is evidence of interoperability via integration testing. Pushing new code into the existing code set and examining how the system reacts is called regression testing and we can save these results as well. I think you’re starting to get the idea though

 

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts on quality management. If you’d like to have a discussion, leave a comment below or contact me. I’d love to connect on social media as well!

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Related Posts

Quality Is Anti-Fragile

The People And Process Balancing Act

Improving Agile Retrospectives With SMART Goals

 

Quality Is Anti-Fragile

| Jeremy Brien

As the adoption of Scrum continues to grow,  non-technical people begin to fill the role of Scrum Master or Product Owner. This is a great thing, as it helps the business align with Information Technology. The organization’s IT unit isn’t seen as a service any longer; instead, they become business partners. Conversations break through company silos as Developers learn the business lexicon and Line of Business personnel learn how to build better software. Processes form to create quality. Quality software is beautiful.

Quality Systems Are Anti-Fragile

So what’s quality? It’s one of those things we know we need. But, what are we talking about when we say, “bake in the quality?” There’s so many definitions that exist today, but I like to think of quality as “anti-fragile.”

What do I mean by “anti-fragile.” It’s a concept developed by Professor Nissim Nicholas Taleb in his book called Antifragile. He describes “systems,” whether those systems are processes, organizations, software, or even cultures, that can withstand the stresses of the environment which act upon them. Anti-fragile is much more than “resilient,” meaning it stays the same despite what the environment throws at it. In software development, we strive to produce more with less effort. We strive for business agility. We pivot and adjust our processes as the environment throws things at us and we are anti-fragile. We use feedback loops, like retrospectives, Six Sigma, and Continual Integration.

We give developers freedom and autonomy by giving them “what” needs to be done, they tell us the “how.” Antifragile means being adaptive. Selection of the right tools and technology for the right job — versus prescriptive.

Anti-Fragile As An Analogy

Professor Taleb uses a great analogy in his book. He asks you to picture something in your home that you’d consider “anti-fragile.” This might be something like the remote control for your television or even your sofa. Of course they can break, right? But, they’re designed to take a bit of punishment. They’re designed to conform and adapt as they are used — they are serving a function and withstanding inputs from the environment. In fact, your sofa tends to feel more comfortable over time as it conforms to your body.

Now picture something in your home that you’d consider “fragile.” This might be something like your grandmother’s china or an ancient grandfather clock. They’re usually tucked away in the safest part of the house and are rarely touched. Why? Because we’re afraid we’ll break them. They’re designed to be aesthetically pleasing — serving a function and withstanding stresses from the environment were not considered in their design. These objects are fragile and saved for “the special occasion.”

Beauty In The Anti-Fragile

So what approach should we take to software development? Should we design something that’s large and complex but liable to break whenever a code commit is pushed? When there’s a tight schedule, should we spend our effort designing something beautiful to the eye but doesn’t serve our purposes? No, we shouldn’t.

I contend that there’s beauty in software when it just works. There’s beauty in software when it serves our users and solves their problems. There’s beauty in software when it gets better over time — not when it falls apart.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts on quality or anti-fragile. If you’d like to have a discussion, leave a comment below or contact me. I’d love to connect on social media as well!

Related Posts

Improving Agile Retrospectives With SMART Goals

 

Side Stepping Landmines: Managing Risk With Sprint Futurespectives

| Jeremy Brien

Risks Are Landmines

Risk and project issues are one of the roots of poor project performance. There are three areas that we measure regarding the success or failure of a project; these three areas are what we call in project management, the triple constraint. The triple constraint consists of scope, budget, and time.

The interactions of these three areas are a lot like Newton’s third law of motion. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Was there a decision to increase the scope? You’ll likely need more time and money. Has there been a cut to the project’s budget? There most likely needs to be a cut to the scope. Has the schedule been crashed and we need to get to market in two months instead of the planned six? Better give me more money and be prepared to cut some of that scope down to a “minimal viable product.” I think you get the idea.

The triple constraint consists of scope, budget, and time. The interaction of these three areas are a lot like Newton’s third law of motion. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

This is why scrum is so effective. It allows for business agility via quick decision making from the Product Owner and iterative delivery of working software from the team. Scrum deals with actions effecting the triple constraint rather well. Project issues concerning the budget or schedule can quickly be addressed by everyone and the Product Owner can assess the business impact to make a decision that usually concerns scope.

However, when a team starts off on a new project that has a medium to high amount of risk and uncertainty, I recommend allowing teams the time to mull over possible risks and to perform some pre-planning. Otherwise, the project can blow up in their face or decisions will be made for them by the changed environment. We address this with risk planning — we don’t send our soldiers into a battlefield knowing land mines exist. So how can scrum teams plan for risk?

Risks are landmines. Some we know about. Some we don’t. Creating a plan to navigate and manage the consequences of a triggered mine is the only way to help us navigate a minefield responsibly.

Conduct A Futurespective

Thinking ahead and talking can help, but writing down potential risks and plans to address them is even better. This is the point of the “Futurespective;” To conduct risk planning at the start of a project or product enhancement and to give the team some time to do some planning before stepping on a potential minefield. It’s an activity outside of the typical scrum events and because of that, it should not be done before each iteration. Instead, it should be done provided select circumstances:

  • Just before beginning a new effort (i.e. Sprint Zero);
  • Just before a critical milestone (i.e. a new feature release to Production);
  • A significant change to a project constraint is anticipated (i.e. change to schedule, scope, budget, or quality). 

Just Before A New Effort – The Sprint Zero As A Futurespective

The Sprint Zero is an activity I’ve seen successful teams use when they conclude one effort and move to another. There is no such thing as multi-tasking and that is why we should frown upon teams who work on multiple projects at once. What they’re really doing is engaging in “task-switching” or inefficient “serial-tasking.” Instead, we encourage the team to wrap up a product feature and release it to production for general use before moving onto another product.

The Sprint Zero is the time between efforts that allows teams to assess what the new project or product enhancement is. If they’re cracking open the code for an existing product to add a new feature set, they should be allowed up to two weeks depending on the complexity of the code. For older, more monolithic applications, carrying large amounts of technical debt, I’d recommend no time-box on this activity. Let the team take their time getting familiar with the product, the code, and documentation (if it exists or is up to date). If there is no documentation, stress the importance to managers that they should not be rushed into starting the project until they are ready. Let the team decide when they’re ready to begin and use common sense.

If the team is about to spin up a new project and create a new product from the ground up, there should already be a product backlog and roadmap ready for them to review. The Sprint Zero is a great opportunity for the team to familiarize themselves with the backlog, Product Owner, Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), and stakeholders of the new product. The team should be conducting working sessions to create better acceptance criteria for user stories, sketching wireframes, and getting a better understanding of what they are going to build. Encourage them to seek continual feedback on their wireframes and designs. Make it an iterative activity. Teams may also take some time to engage in training if they will be developing in a newer development framework. Again, exercise common sense and decide on a reasonable time-box before kicking off the project.

Just Before A Critical Milestone – Release Planning As A Futurespective

Usually a sprint or two before releasing a larger feature, the team should have a handle on the stability of their product. Testers have been giving Developers feedback on the quality of their code via Integration & Performance Testing and of course, Bugs. The Product Owner is busy preparing, coordinating, or wrapping up User Acceptance Testing (UAT).  The Scrum Master is busy assisting everyone with Impediments and UAT. It can be chaotic or running smoothly… sometimes too smoothly…but, maybe I’m just naturally pessimistic?

I find this is a great opportunity to use the time normally allocated for a Retrospective as a way to plan for risk and get everyone together for the release plan. Of course, the need for this will eventually disappear as practices become better and code is pushed into production more rapidly via continual integration and continual deployment, however, I recognize that it can take a while to get to this point.

The need for this will eventually disappear as practices become better and code is pushed into production more rapidly via continual integration and continual deployment.

There are multiple ways to conduct a Futurespective and each one could use their own article. However, it’s a good idea to invite the Product Owner and SMEs to this event. To be concise, I’ll give you the meat and potatoes of what makes a good Futurespective.

  1. Identification of plausible risks regarding the release
  2. Statement of assumptions about the release
  3. Statement of the issues currently occurring (problems & challenges the team is experiencing).
  4. Identification of dependencies effecting the release (technical or cross-team dependencies the team or organization has). 
  5. Written mitigation plans that is developed by the team and Product Owner.
  6. Assignments/Owners for each plan (“if risk 2 is realized, who is the person responsible for leading the plan?”). 

A Significant Change To A Project Constraint

When a business priority changes and the project’s budget, schedule, or scope, is effected, the Product Owner may decide to stop the iteration and cancel the sprint. The Product Owner should call the team together and appraise them of the situation and call on the team for advice. Ultimately, the Product Owner will likely make some tough decision about cuts to the product scope. The Product Owner should use her Subject Matter Experts, stakeholders, and Delivery Team to make the most informed decision possible. It’s a great opportunity for everyone to brainstorm with the Product Owner about the best way to continue moving forward and exercise business agility.

Prioritizing the Product Backlog and refining user stories that were in the “freezer” takes a lot of effort and planning. Schedule as many backlog grooming sessions as needed and run a Futurespective before proceeding.

Thanks for taking the time to read and I hope you found it useful. I’d love to hear your thoughts on risk management or any experience you’ve had with Futurespectives. If you’d like to have a discussion, leave a comment below or contact me. I’d love to connect on social media as well!

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Related Posts

The Scrum Product Owner Chooses Business Value

The Product Owner Steers The Ship

Urban Legends In Our Organization. Listening To Our Naysayers, Seers, And Jaded Sage

Scrum Product Owners Part 2

| Jeremy Brien

The Product Owner Chooses Business Value

As the “single wring-able neck,” the Product Owner is tasked with maximizing business value and setting the direction for a new or existing product. She shares the guiding view into the future and collaborates with customers, stakeholders, technical teams, and supporting roles to steer the product to the desired end-state. In this article, I would like to share my favorite two value areas that effective Product Owners understand.

  1. Customer Service
  2. Operational Efficiency

1. Customer Service

An organization is nothing without it’s customers — they are either external or internal customers. Customers are the people who use the product to fulfill a specific need. A product that is easy to use and accurately fulfills a customer’s needs is valuable to the organization. Design considerations like User Interface and User Experience need to be considered when crafting user stories, however, the main consideration is, “how are we best serving our customer with this feature?” 

External Customers look to “exploit artefacts[sic] produced by the organization with specific requirements and specifications” (Hobbs, 2016). External customers are essential to the success of the organization as it operates to produce the artifacts specified by external customers.

Internal customers are all members of the organization who rely on assistance from each other to fulfill their duties in the production of artifacts specified by the external customers.

“If you build a great experience customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.”

— Jeff Bezos, Amazon

2. Operational Efficiency

An organization is unable to best serve it’s customers if it’s inefficient. While running the air conditioning in the middle of winter is wasteful, Product Owners go beyond the obvious to make operations more efficient. Below is a list of operational efficiencies in a ‘lean’ context that Product Owners should consider in their user stories. Product Owners should start with, “how does this feature improve our operations or reduce waste?”

  1. Reducing defects – features aimed at reducing defects strive to reduce errors, mistakes, rework, and preserve data integrity of internal and external customers.
  2. Reducing motion – features directed at reducing motion strive to automate a formerly paper-driven process. This helps improve efficiency and standardizes the quality of those processes. Additionally, frees up resource capacity so internal customers can engage in more technical work.
  3. Creating a common language – features sighted on centralizing information in a common place creates a lexicon synonymous with the organization. It simplifies the way information is shared and understood throughout the organization. Internal customers are all speaking and sharing the same meanings and when extended to client-facing applications, external customers speak the language too.
  4. Improving decision making – features trained on increasing transparency allow internal customer to make decisions quickly — ultimately helping organizations exercise business agility and ‘pivot’ when the internal or external environment prompts for it. 

Leave your thoughts on Product Ownership or Business Value in a comment below. If you’d like to have a discussion, please contact me or connect with me on social media!

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Sources

Hobbs, B. &. (2016). Projects with internal vs. external customers: An empirical investigation of variation in practice. International Journal of Project Management Volume 34, Issue 4, 675 – 687.

Related Posts

Scrum Product Owners Part 1: The Product Owner Steers The Ship

The 5 P Pyramid Model. Assessing Policy, Process, Procedure, People and Personalities In Scrum

Six Elements Of An Effective Strategy

Agile Leaders Understand Customer Service and Culture 

 

 

 

Six Elements Of An Effective Strategy

| Jeremy Brien

Back to Basics: The Six Elements Of An Effective Strategy

Developing a strategy ready for execution is one of the most difficult tasks facing organizations. Global commerce is no longer reserved for the “titans of industry.” Small to medium sized enterprises are now operating in the global economy and other than resource constraints, the playing field is generally even for anyone with quality services and products. Understanding the basics of an effective strategy is more important than ever.

“Going back to basics strengthens your foundation”

Money, people, and time are finite resources and should be used wisely. When developing a new strategy or enhancing an existing one, leaders must understand there are three value areas that a strategy should address before proceeding.

  1. Improving Operational Performance
  2. Improving Customer Service
  3. Exploiting New Opportunities

Understanding the three value areas enables leaders to establish priorities based on business goals. Additionally, as a new initiative is developed and acted on, the tactical needs must be met while the organization continues moving forward. Long story short, understand your business needs & do not disrupt operations. 

The Six Elements Of An Effective Strategy

Element 1 – Continuation Of Policy

Formulating an effective strategy means understanding the landscape you operate in and and those affected by your decisions. Policies are both external and internal.

  • External policies are the laws and industry standards your organizations must follow. External policies mandate what an organization must adhere to and can include international, federal, and state laws.
  • Internal policies are an organization’s vision and mission. They must be aligned with an organization’s core competencies and value chain. Internal policy should be easily understood by everyone in the organization. A good litmus test is, “can our policy be described in three sentences or less and does it address the way we operate, how we treat our customers, and capture new markets?”

Element 2 – Overcoming Adversarial Competition

Understand those who operate in your market and either directly or indirectly oppose your progress. Leaders need to understand their competition, their internal policies, and value stream. Leaders should be honest when assessing the weaknesses of their own organizations and compare themselves as objectively as possible. Weaving fantasies about the competition or the competencies of your own organization leads to bad decision making. Entrepreneurs of small to medium sized organizations are especially prone to fantasy based thinking. While optimism is a good quality for successful entrepreneurship, it is not the basis for effective strategy formulation.

“If from your strategy you can’t identify anything that you would say no to, it’s probably not a good strategy.”
– Karl Scotland

Element 3 – Account For The Talent Gap

Organizational leaders and tactical managers must understand the skills required so the policy can move forward and succeed. An actionable strategy accounts for the talent gap. Unfortunately, HR departments lack the ability to close the skills gap — either through recruitment & retention efforts or training & development. Leaders must develop a roadmap for developing & recruiting the required skills for strategy execution.

Element 4 – Impetus & Focus

Firm understanding of the corporate culture and the attitudes required of those operating internally of the organization helps leaders gauge how well employees and the tactical management will readily adopt the strategy. Experienced leaders understand culture and attitudes are not specifically ‘defined’ — they evolve over time and accumulate based on whom the organization hires. The following considerations should be made when creating your strategy and roadmap.

  • Who are our external customers?
  • How well do our employees treat our external customers?
  • How well do we treat our employees?
  • When we’ve implemented change in the past, does the leadership team “walk the walk” or just walk around with a “big stick?”
  • Is company culture a strong consideration when hiring new employees?
  • Do we invest enough in training and fostering the growth of our talent?
  • How well do we on-board our new hires?
  • How well do we evaluate performance and customer satisfaction?
  • Do we provide opportunities for growth?
  • Do our employees feel empowered to make decisions and take ownership of the issues or are there silos in our organization?

Element 5 – Communicate The Guiding View Into The Future

Everyone wants to understand where their organization is moving and what the organization wants to accomplish. This has a strong influence on the decisions, priorities, and the way work is accomplished from day-to-day. Return to the internal policy established in the first element and re-write it in a way that everyone in the organization can easily understand. Fold in your vision statement in a way that makes sense and adopt it as the organization’s mantra. Consistently communicate the mantra across all mediums. It’ll eventually stick and influence your culture.

“The mantra should describe the way we operate, how we treat our customers, and communicate the guiding view into the future”

Element 6 – Measure

The above elements are all aimed at creating a strategy that can respond quickly to change. Many refer to this as business agility — starting with intention and pivoting over the long-term as internal or external factors require. Leaders should track what was intended, what emerged, and what was realized and adjust their strategy accordingly. The company culture and your talent gap will most likely cause you to lag behind emergent strategies, however, measuring the progress over time is useful because it can help you refine your strategies in the future. The below figure illustrates my point. Each black dot represents an environmental change and the green lines are the emergent strategies (E1, E2, E3). The red line lags behind, this is what is realized.

PlannedVsEmergentStrategy

The outcomes that should be measured are:

  1. Operational Performance
    • Time to Produce
    • Cost Savings
    • Quality
  2. Customer Service
    • Time to Delivery
    • Value Delivered to Customers
    • Customer Satisfaction
  3. New Opportunities
    • Time to Market
    • Return on Investment
    • Addressing Unserved Needs

Leave your thoughts on strategy in a comment below or if you’d like to have a discussion, please contact me or connect with me on social media!

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Related Posts
Sources

Agile Leaders Understand Customer Service And Culture

| Jeremy Brien

Transforming A Culture Is No Easy Task

Developing a strategic plan to promote internal and external customer service is no easy task. The role of organizational culture, the forces effecting the culture, understanding who the internal and external customers are, and identifying the key objectives required for effective customer service will help an organization meet specific goals: Develop an internal customer service culture, effectively train all employees who interact with the external customers, provide information to customers that is useful and relevant using the communication methods they desire, and developing or enhancing a means to follow-up with customers.

What Is Culture And The Forces Of Influence?

A corporate culture “refers to the beliefs and behaviors that determine how a company’s employees and management interact and handle outside business transactions” (Investopedia, 2017). Culture is usually implied and not specifically ‘defined’ – as it organically evolves over time and accumulates traits based on whom the organization hires, it’s dress code, office setup, benefits, turnover, and client satisfaction based on operations or the artifacts the organization produces.

Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” In general, his view indicates that repeated behaviors or habits are the core of a culture. What people feel, think or believe are the perceptions and ultimately the forces shaping our behaviors.

It is important to direct our efforts and identify the forces that shape our behaviors within our organizations and their relation to customer service. Describing the current and desired forces will assist with accurately capturing the thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions of the organizational structure and the incentives that deliver positive customer interactions by cultivating the desired culture of customer service.

Define The Customers: External vs. Internal

The distinction between internal and external customers isn’t always clear, however, we will can use an academic perspective for the purpose of this discussion.

External Customers look to “exploit artefacts[sic] produced by the organization with specific requirements and specifications” (Hobbs, 2016). External customers are essential to the success of the organization as it operates to produce the artifacts specified by external customers.

Internal customers are all members of the organization who rely on assistance from each other to fulfill their duties in the production of artifacts specified by the external customers.

Forces Of Influence And Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction doesn’t start with the customer. It starts ‘in-house,’ with the employees, incentives, and programs within the organization. Employee recognition programs, cultural expectations set during on-boarding, opportunities for training (both formal and informal), competencies measured during appraisals, and policies are all forces that influence the organization’s culture and affect customer satisfaction.

Agility Starts Start At The Top

An organization’s leadership team must set the tone and embody the practices themselves. It’s not about setting expectations – it’s about ‘practicing what they preach’ and treating employees the way they want the customer to be treated. Additionally, leaders “must make the measurement of service quality and feedback from the customer a basic part of everyone’s work experience” (Morrow, 2000). The Agile organization embodies these beliefs because the leadership is passionate about practicing what they preach. Leaders set the tone. 

Agile Organizations Hire For The Culture

Organizations like Zappos, a leading online retailer for the shoe industry, is well known for starting with a “cultural fit interview, which carries half the weight of whether the candidate is hired” (Patel, 2015) by offering $2,000 to quit after the first week of training if the candidate decides the job isn’t for them. Zappos instills their ‘ten core values’ on each of their employees and dedicates a portion of their budget to employee team building and promotion of its values and culture. The idea is, when the organization gets the culture right, great customer service and brand recognition will evolve organically on its own. Agile organizations are infectious with their values.

Additionally, it may be necessary to remove any employees who do not show the behaviors required to foster positive customer interactions. Often, organizations allow employees who work with external customers to remain on the job when they are not suited for the position. “If employees don’t want to serve the customer in the best possible way, document their behaviors and use the information to help them change or to move them from areas away from interactions with external customers” (Morrow, 2000). It only takes one bad apple to ruin the bushel.

Agile Organizations Invest In Training

Formal training in customer service is a good starting point, however, organizational leadership should reframe its’ thinking and recognize that training extends beyond a mandatory class taken once a year. Training employees, again, is a top-bottom approach. Organizational leadership, managers, and supervisors should always be training their employees, offering guidance and coaching each other and their subordinates on a continual and iterative basis relative to informal or formal training initiatives respectively.

Agile Organizations Effectively On-board New Hires

Effectively setting expectations and training employees starts with the organization’s on-boarding process. On-boarding new hires is the organization’s first opportunity to set expectations, provide examples of excellent customer service observed by past and current employees, and explain how the culture affects customer service in the respective industry.

Agile Organizations Evaluate Performance And Customer Satisfaction

Work Performance Standards and employee performance reviews are another opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the organization’s customer service initiatives. When employees are appraised on customer satisfaction as part of their work performance standards, they will be motivated to meet and exceed customer service standards as they are clearly measurable and defined. Performance reviews provide feedback to the employee regarding their competency in customer service within their organization and helps align the employee with the expectations, standards, and behaviors that are expected within the culture. “Using customer satisfaction as a measure of on-the-job success is one of the surest ways to guarantee great service” (Johnson C., 2015). What gets measured gets done.

Agile Organizations Provide Opportunities For Growth

Providing exceptional customer service to every customer every time is an unreasonable expectation – no one person is fully equipped to know the best possible solution that fits a customer’s needs in the best possible way. It’s important for leaders to recognize that mistakes do happen. However, addressing these mistakes and making them opportunities to learn not only helps the employee grow and gain improved competencies in customer service, but improves the organization’s overall readiness to meet similar challenges and issues experienced when addressing customer concerns or demands. Transparency is the key to success when mistakes are made, though they should be handled tactfully so as not to embarrass the employee or customer(s), as they help all members of the organization learn from the mistakes made so as not to repeat them.

Agile Organizations Encourage Ownership Of The Issue(s)

Employees that feel empowered to make decisions will take ownership of the issues challenging internal and external customers. Conversely, employees who worry about job security protect themselves first. When employees feel insecure about their jobs, they will hesitate to take ownership of issues. When shaping an organizational culture, it is important for employees to feel trusted and empowered to make decisions regarding the issues faced by customers without fear of repercussion.

Agile Organizations Develop Policies That Encourage Empowerment

Establish policies that are customer-centric and show concern for customer needs. Eliminate “routine and rigid policies and guidelines and strive to be an organization that is easy to do business with” (Morrow, 2000). Customer service is not the sole responsibility of the Customer Service Department; it is an organizational effort and policies that facilitate this empower all employees to deliver exceptional customer service.

Agile Organizations Reward High Performers

Reward employees for the behaviors you wish to cultivate. Cash incentives and bonuses are great, however, there are other ways to let an employee know they have done a good job. Extra time off, an article in the organization’s newsletter, a trophy awarded at a recognition dinner, tickets to special events, or even hand written notes are ways to reward behaviors you wish to see more of.

Identify the Objectives of Customer Service

The organization should identify the primary objectives in customer service. Below are some quantitative and qualitative examples that can trickle into an employee’s work performance standards and performance reviews.

  1. “Determine whether the organization is providing a satisfactory service to its customers” (West, 2017).
  2. Confirm that the requirements of the customer have not changed
  3. “Individual Customer Service Performance” (Vulpen, 2017).
  4. “Employee Satisfaction” (Liebenberg, 2004).
  5. Provide your organization with an objective evaluation of customer satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction.
  6. Level of knowledge of the problem(s).
  7. Identify areas for improvement.

Organizational Culture is difficult to define, however, recognizing the forces that influence your culture will aid in its’ refinement. The best culture makes all employees feel safe and welcome and it should grow organically to fit the needs of external and internal customers alike. It should be adjusted if it causes the organization to end up with homogenized employees who think and act the same. “Trust in your employees goes a long way towards a positive organizational culture, because trust leads to independent employees who help the organization grow” (Patel, 2015).

Share your company culture by leaving a comment or connecting with me. Follow me on social media and let’s have a conversation.

Photo Credit

Sources

Hobbs, B. &. (2016). Projects with internal vs. external customers: An empirical investigation of variation in practice. International Journal of Project Management Volume 34, Issue 4, 675 – 687.

Investopedia. (2017, April 11). Corporate Culture. Retrieved from Investopedia: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/corporate-culture.asp

Johnson C., R. (2015, July 8). 5 Ways Corporate Culture Affects Your Customer’s Experience. Retrieved from smallbizdaily: http://www.smallbizdaily.com/5-ways-corporate-culture-affects-customers-experience/

Liebenberg, J. &. (2004). Factors Influencing a Customer-Service Culture in a Higher Education Environment. Journal of Human Resrouce Management Issue 2 (2) , 1-10.

Morrow, P. (2000, August 2). Eight Keys to Creating a Customer Service Culture. Retrieved from Inc.: https://www.inc.com/articles/2000/08/20028.html

Patel, S. (2015, August 6). 10 Examples of Companies with Fantastic Cultures. Retrieved from Entrepreneur: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249174

Vulpen, E. V. (2017, January 4). How 11 Factors Influence Customer Service Performance. Retrieved from Analytics in HR: https://www.analyticsinhr.com/blog/factors-influencing-customer-service-performance/

West, K. (2017, April 13). Customer Satisfaction Surveys and Your Business. Retrieved from National Business Research Institute: https://www.nbrii.com/blog/customer-satisfaction-surveys-and-your-business/