|
This issue finds me wondering about how to best manage a system safety program that is understaffed and behind schedule. Of course, it would be best not to get into this situation in the first place. However, that is not always possible. It's common to understaff safety programs. This problem isn't safety-specific; it seems that most programs that I've been involved with over the years are chronically understaffed across the board. Safety is just one of those.
In actuality, design engineering is usually staffed to the point that people are overworked, but not to the point that the work can't be completed. After all, if it is not completed, there is no product, and therefore, no profits. However, safety (along with many of the other "ilities") isn't so obviously on the design track. If the safety staff gets behind, or doesn't complete its work, the product still gets completed and sold. It might not be as good, or as safe, as it could be, but it goes out the door nonetheless. For this reason, safety can (and does) get staffed so that it is not physically possible to complete all of the appropriate safety tasks on time, or at all. Incomplete or low-quality reports, incomplete or insufficient testing and insufficient hazard analysis are accepted by management and the customer.
It seems to me that one of the most common approaches to managing in this situation is to implement a process of carefully documenting and tracking action items in the hope that if they are tracked more closely, there will somehow be an increase in productivity so that the impossible can be accomplished. This is sometimes referred to as "micromanaging." The theory behind this management approach is that the ones being micromanaged don't know how to do their job, and that they are wasting time needlessly. If this were true, then giving detailed instructions on how to do the job, and enforcing schedules, might actually help. However, in many (perhaps most) cases, the opposite is true. Usually, people know how to do the job and are, in fact, working as hard and as fast as they can.
When people are working in a situation where it is physically impossible to accomplish all of the tasks "on time," what is needed is flexibility, not restrictive directions. In an understaffed project, the situation takes on many of the characteristics of an emergency where triage is required. The reason for using triage in an emergency is that there is more to do than time and staffing permit. The typical triage approach is to first sort victims into three categories: (1) those that will die no matter what is done to help them, (2) those that will survive without any help, and (3) those that need assistance in order to survive. The attention of the staff is then placed on the last category, where it has the best chance of doing the most good. If all of those in this category are taken care of, then attention can be provided to the other two categories as time and staffing allow. Not only is the attention focused on the last group, but the approaches used are not nearly as rigid as they are when adequate staffing and time are available. Some flexibility is allowed to enhance the ability to be creative and more effective. For example, in an automobile accident situation where an injured person is trapped, and the scene is particularly hazardous for some reason, normal processes to ensure complete immobilization before moving the victim may be shortened in favor of some faster approach that provides some protection but is much less than optimal.
Where the analogy between an overloaded staff and an emergency situation falls apart is in how the triage is performed. In an accident, by the time the emergency response team arrives, the victims are however they are, and an initial triage by a designated team can be implemented. After that initial assessment, it is seldom necessary to reassess the categories. The status of one or two individuals may change in a manner that warrants changing their categorization, but in general, the original categories can remain throughout the evolution of the emergency response effort. Workplaces don't share that feature. New tasks, events and criteria sometimes seem to be created continuously, or at least hourly. I have worked on several projects where not a day goes by without my prioritization and approaches being significantly changed.
The problem with attempting to do triage during an overloaded project is that the process is ongoing and rapidly evolving. It is not practical, or possible, to let a person (the micromanager) make all of the decisions. If there is enough time for that, then the project is probably not really overloaded and doesn't even need to implement a triage process. The only way that the necessary decisions can be implemented effectively is to allow, and to trust, the people doing the work to make the decisions. They need to know the "real" limits, and not be confused by "false" schedules that are based upon some arbitrary factors indicating a lack of trust that people will meet the real requirements.
Allowing the workers to figure out how to best do their work, and allowing them to juggle the schedules (including postponing some tasks forever), is the only way to get the most from a bad situation. Attempting to micromanage by creating false schedules that need to be adhered to, requiring unnecessary status reporting, and enforcing approaches to work rather than the required outcome, only take up more time in doing unnecessary tasks and forcing people to work in inefficient ways. If, unfortunately, the micromanager then uses some sort of coercion to force compliance with the un-triaged goals, then efficiency goes down precipitously because the artificial goals get first attention and the staff becomes angry at getting "in trouble" for doing what is clearly the correct thing. This almost immediately stifles creativity and drops productivity to the lowest level that avoids being fired. People just do not put out as much when they feel that they are not trusted - which is what micromanaging, especially with negative consequences for meeting the micromanaged goals, means.
It seems to me that a much more effective approach is to supply the tools to allow the workers to do their jobs, provide information so they can understand how their decisions are related to the overall program, help keep track of tasks as a tool but not as a control, and trust folks to do what needs to be done. It is important to keep in mind that management is a resource for the workers, rather than the other way around. If they still do not accomplish what needs to be done, then either they are the wrong people for the job, or they are just so overloaded that it is not possible to accomplish the tasks — basically, they have not been provided with the tools necessary for doing their jobs. Then, it is necessary to trust that people will do what they can with what they have, and that they will almost never take advantage of the situation, work slow, or do poor work. It is my experience that they do the best that they can and can be trusted to do so. If that isn't good enough, then something has to be changed to allow them to do what needs to be done.
Of course, this doesn't mean that management personnel should simply close their eyes and trust that all is being handled correctly. Management needs to be on the lookout for problems and do what is necessary to help fix those problems, but this should be done from an oversight rather than a micromanagement point of view.
Maintaining creativity and efficiency depends upon the demeanor and interactions of the manager(s) and workers. Trust is key.
|
