Today I caught up with Aszadur Rahaman where we spoke about the interconnectedness of process optimisation, ESG and the use of technology to deliver measurable value when addressing business pain points. All topics close to our hearts, albeit with our selective focus and areas of expertise.
I haven’t started to record these conversations as part of the #100kJourney series yet, that’s coming soon. Meanwhile here are some highlights from our conversation.
How to identify areas of improvement by using approaches such as Value Stream and Single Point of Failure Analysis
When I work with clients to identify broken, stalled or cumbersome process, practice and ways of working, and likely solutions to address these, it’s very often a case that exploratory sessions with the teams provide more than enough insight about the difference between what the imagined process is and the actual process being enacted. Usually inconsistently, typically ineffectively and almost certainly erroneously. No fancy consulting models and techniques needed here.
However, there comes a point shortly after that fact finding, Sprint Zero, orientation phase when everyone is on the same rough-edged page and now we can start to tidy things up. This reminded me of a conversation I had with Rob Lambert about the difference between Effective and Efficient process and practice.
Review before streamlining
The inefficient can be effective, just not effective in achieving the desired outcomes. Therefore it’s often the case of going back to basics and understanding what we have in place and what the intended goal or outcome is of a particular process or practice. This may seem surprising but often it gets clouded in the love of the bureaucracy and organisational folklore. This lean thinking is something ‘agile’ has been fighting for from the days of the Agile Manifesto. Interestingly, the ‘point’ of which has become wrapped in its own bureaucracy and folklore to the point where agile in use isn’t so agile – but that’s a point for another article.
Aszadur mentioned that one of his go to approaches is simply to ‘remove stuff’ or at the very least to ‘not add more stuff’. I couldn’t agree more. Back in the days of being an ISO Lead Assessor that one simple trick was to remove processes and at least pare down process documentation to just what was needed. Less is more.
Technology as a tool for efficiency
Now that we’ve got a process that is more effective, we can make it more efficient. One way is through the use of technology. That’s where Aszadur Rahaman comes in again. Feel free to speak to him about that.
It’s ESG and IT together
You’ll know my passion for helping organisations hit Net Zero, of all things Carbon Accounting related and that I don’t really talk about CSR and ESG that much. That’s for the simple reason of focus. Decarbonising the workplace and supply chain, getting your carbon accounts in order and in the green and keeping them there is not the same as delivering on your CSR and ESG responsibilities. My work is about focus, focus and the journey to and beyond Net Zero. Yes, beyond.
We discussed that ESG however is the all encompassing wrapper across the work we both do. In context of my work Environmental is of course key given it covers the use of natural resources, energy efficiency, waste management and the organisational carbon footprint. Social somewhat. Governance in the context of the Environmental, absolutely. CSR will be enabled by this, but that’s not my focus.
Carbon Footprint of IT
Aszadur has had the ESG challenge in his work. One example was the need to assess the carbon footprint of a data centre – as part of delivering optimised solutions. This is not uncommon. IT is a huge consumer of potentially carbon heavy energy. Optimised technology systems, configuration and usage is critical in reducing and managing the future scale of emissions from the energy used to run and cool these systems. It’s not trivial thing to achieve and some of the ‘obvious’ solutions are not the correct ones.
That’s it for now. In summary consider the role of process optimisation and technology in your Net Zero goal, they’re critical elements, but remember that Net Zero is a journey, not an end goal of itself.
If you need help in these areas – get in touch.
Mark.
