Process Inefficiency and Work Innovations

There has been many theories of how innovation can be brought about in the work place. An ideal innovation loving culture like Facebook or Google is often showed as an example. Of course a conductive, incubation like environment to think and innovate is an ideal case scenario. And we as Amdocs have taken a step in the right direction with Innovation labs and separate areas and competitions to facilitate the same.

 

However, I feel the most Innovations comes from processes that are inefficient. Let’s take the basic example, Why was wheel invented? The person who got tired of carrying his wares by himself or on a sledge, felt it was grossly inefficient and he needed a better way to carry his ware.

 

Professor John Atanasoff, who built the world’s first electronic digital computer, way back in the late 1930’s was asked  Why did he do this?

He said, “I was too inefficient to calculate and so I invented the computer.”

 

          So much is the power of inefficiency that I personally would not mind spending 2 hours refining a process that will help me do a 30 minutes task in 15 minutes next time I do it. Of course it has to do to a large extent with my Six Sigma Black Belt DNA too.

         

          I distinctly remembered being asked to write a set of rules when I joined the new team. A task of 5 days needed tedious replication of work and repetition of steps. My manager was amazed when I completed it in 3 days. The way was to automate the repetition and using ShortKey tool for replication and error reduction. The gist being, there is always a need for work innovation in case of process inefficiencies.

 

          Many people would classify the task improvement as shortcuts. Let me tell you from firsthand experience that, the process of simplifying task takes a lot of effort. However once you develop a new innovation, you get to leverage it over and over again. So in the long run, you are ahead of the curve.

 Leverage here is the key word. Innovation often involves the creation of something that results in exponential returns.  The development of the computer by Professor John Atanasoff certainly did this. So did my two Six Sigma process improvements which stream lined and removed inefficiency and in turn saved considerable money.

          So when you see inefficiency, do you grump over it or run away? Or Do you take it head on and improvise and innovate to make a better work environment? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

 

                                                                   ~~Sanjay Ishwarlal Upadhyay