Sharing something I learned, as it’s #wisdomwednesdays.

A wise person once said to me:

“In Traditional School, they Teach You a Lesson and then you’re Given a Test.

In Real Life, you’re Given a Test, and That Teaches You a Lesson.”

Would you agree?

Let me share with you my personal take on this.

In my experience, I wasn’t exactly the most brilliant guy in school.

There were some subjects that I really despised, especially those that (at that point in time) I didn’t feel had practical use in life after school, such as Philippine History and Theology.

On the flipside, there were subjects that I really excelled at, such as Math, and English, because I thought that these were things that I would be able to use after school.

I think having been exposed to my father’s business at an early stage, and helping with some tasks such as doing accounting for him helped give me a glimpse of what the real world would look like.

Fast forward to today, Math and English are probably the foundational skills that I rely on day in and day out. And I don’t really regret not taking interest in Philippine History and Theology. I found that there are always books or the internet that you can refer to for topics related to these.

But still, there’s something I learned from the experience of having to go through the subjects that I didn’t like, in order for me to graduate.

And that is to get through your journey in life, there are really things that you have to do even if you don’t want to, such as adhoc tasks, project documentation, work plans, etc.

The lesson that I learned is that I should master time-blocking, prioritization, and project management.

That way, I could quickly get through the stuff I don’t like, so I can focus more time and energy on the things that I am good at that matter to me, and bring the most value to my team, the business, and most importantly, my clients and customers.

Ending Note

I hope you found this to be of value.

If you have any questions, reply with a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

And if you think this is helpful and you’d want to get more, then subscribe for updates, and get a free copy of my book – The Business Optimization Blueprint.

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For #wisdomwendesdays I’ll be helping shed some light on the fears that have been brought about by the coming of Artificial Intelligence.

Though I’ve mentioned in one of my previous articles that:

“Though we all know that technology is continuously improving. But we shouldn’t put all our trust in it just yet. Yes, Google’s AI has nearly twice the IQ of Siri, but a 6-year-old child is still smarter than both. And even if it does improve further, 75% if customers, like you, still say that they would want to interact with a real person more as technology improves. child.”

I’d still like to talk about this a bit more, especially on why AI is still considered “Primitive.”

There’s another article from the IEM Community that talks about this in detail, which I think is worth a read, because I completely agree and share the same sentiments.

As for my view, I believe that Artificial Intelligence tools are like the technological equivalent of Savants – they’re good at one thing, but suck at everything else.

Let me give you a couple of specific examples.

The Lego Sorting AI Machine that I’ve shared previously has been trained to sort Lego Bricks, but if you give it other types of tasks such as sorting different types of recyclable materials, or tools in a workshop, it won’t really be able to understand what to do.

Another example is the AI used to predict Heart Attacks a year before it happens. While we all know that health is wealth, you can’t expect the same tool to predict stock market trends to make you financially wealthy.

So in a nutshell, Artificial Intelligence tools are like the Savants of the tech world. They are better than humans at certain tasks, but they are far from becoming super intelligent beings capable of replacing humanity.

If anything, Artificial Intelligence will be tools that humans use to enhance our own abilities, to allow us to be more productive, and help us achieve greater things.

Ending note

I hope you learned something new today.

If you want to learn how to do these things, and you think a career in Artificial Intelligence is for you, even if you’re just a beginner, I would recommend you check out the IBM Applied AI Professional course, which you can check further for details.

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For #wisdomwendesdays I’ve been asked by someone trying to learn Data Science what the difference is between Variance and Standard Deviation in terms of purpose.

For the sake of the uninitiated, I’ll share an article that shows the simplest explanation of what Variance and Standard Deviation are.

Now back to the purpose of each, the easiest analogy I can give you is like how the Red and Blue Pills work in the movie – The Matrix.

Let me explain.

Standard Deviation = Blue Pill

Standard Deviation is easier to visualize in the real world because it is in the same unit of measure as the Mean or Average, the Median, the Minimum and Maximum values, and so forth.

So if your purpose is on how you’re going to visualize your data and plot it on a graph for you to make decisions based on what you see, then it would be better to use Standard Deviation.

Variance = Red Pill

Now if you want to do some higher-level analysis, only then will you appreciate the benefits of utilizing Variance, which is essentially Standard Deviation, squared.

An example I can give you is when you would want to combine algorithms or mathematical models to form a new one, you can easily combine Means, but not with Standard Deviation.

What you can do is square the Standard Deviations to get the Variances, and then combine the models.

After which if you would want to get the Standard Deviation of the resulting model in order for you to create a visual representation via a graph or chart, simply take the Square Root of the Variance.

Ending note

So what do you think? Do you agree? Can you think of any other situations where Standard Deviation or Variance is better to use than the other?

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Some people use the terms Customer and Stakeholder interchangeably. But I would like to argue that they are different.

So for today’s #wisdomwednesdays I will simply draw the line and differentiate the 2.

Customer

A Customer is simply the recipient of the output of your process, whether that’s a product, or a service.

Stakeholder

A Stakeholder, on the other hand, does not necessarily have to be a recipient of your goods or services.

However, a Stakeholder does have a vested interest in how well your process performs.

A Stakeholder, as the name implies, holds a stake in your process.

Let me give you some specific examples.

Examples of Customers

There are 2 types:

1. Internal Customers
2. External Customers

Internal Customers are your process partners. They are usually in the same company or line of business as you, but are your downstream processes or department.

You yourself are an Internal Customer of the process or department upstream of yours.

External Customers are the clients who purchase your company’s products or services.

Examples of Stakeholders

As with Customers, there are also 2 types of Stakeholders:

1. Internal Stakeholders
2. External Stakeholders

Examples of Internal Stakeholders are your Employees, the Management and Leadership Team, and the Owners of the Business.

Examples of External Stakeholders are the Government, Regulators, Investors and Shareholders, Suppliers and Vendors.

What about those who are both Customer and Stakeholder?

There are some instances wherein the lines are blurred. Still, it’s important to make a distinction between a Customer and a Stakeholder.

For example, Internal Customers are also Employees. Therefore they are both Stakeholder and Customer at the same time. However, as an Internal Customer, their concern is the accuracy and timeliness of the output of your process. But as an Internal Stakeholder, their stake in your business is their job security and safety.

Same line of thinking goes for Suppliers and Vendors, like if you outsource work to them.

Another example would be employees, management, and leadership who also own stocks of the company. In this scenario, you can be an Internal Customer (I need the output of my upstream process to match my process’ input requirements), Internal Stakeholder (stake in job security and safety), and External Stakeholder (stake in the company performing well such that I’ll be getting return on investment) at the same time. It’s worth noting that your mindset is different for each.

Ending note

Customers, specifically External Customers, are more powerful than Stakeholders.

This is because these Customers have the power to fire you, your boss, and everyone in your company, including the CEO and all Stakeholders, simply by taking their business elsewhere.

So take good care of your employees, because they will, in return, take good care of your customers.

Once you take care of your customers and your employees, your business process will thrive, so long as you keep improving and innovating, and your stakeholders will be happy.

I hope you learned something today.

If you want to learn more, download a copy of my book for FREE (for a limited time only) – The Business Optimization Blueprint, and learn how you can improve your business process and take it to the next level.

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It’s #wisdomwednesdays so it’s time to share things I learned.

Here are 10 Process Improvement Mistakes you Don’t Want to Make.

I was actually going to create a list myself, but my friends Karlo and Tracy at GoLeanSixSigma.com have already put this together, and I agree 100% to all of what they said!

So I thought I would just share it with you!

My personal favorites are:

1. The Glory Hoarder

An example of is when Project Leads take all the recognition, and the team members are not given any credit whatsoever.

Sometimes, Project Leads tend to do this unknowingly too. Like when it’s time to present and demonstrate the project results, the Leads feel they should always be the one to take stage, while somehow leaving the rest of the team out of the spotlight.

How about letting the team members who actually developed the solutions take center stage?

2. The Pet Solution

This is where people already have a preferred solution to the problem.

In my experience, what happens here is that people tend to reverse-engineer their Pet Solution into the DMAIC approach just for them to be able to complete a Lean Six Sigma project.

That’s just wrong!

3. Passing the Buck

This happens when you try to eliminate steps within the process you’re looking to improve, only for another department upstream or downstream to end up taking on that piece of work.

Continue on to see the rest of the mistakes you don’t want to make, along with some great examples.

Here’s the full video webinar.

Click here if you want access to the transcription, as well as the slides used in the webinar.

I hope you learned something new today.

If you want to learn Lean Six Sigma and become Green Belt Certified, click here for the upcoming flipped classroom session, before slots run out!

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For today’s #wisdomwednesdays I’ll talk about the difference between Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

In a sense, they can both be categorized as forms of software automation. But the major difference is their purpose.

The short explanation is that RPA is used to automate repetitive rules-based tasks, such as repetitive clicks and keystrokes, copying and pasting, if-then types of processes.

On the other hand, AI is used to automate tasks that require judgment, such as reading unstructured documents, identifying patterns, making decisions based on what you see in photos, or getting context based on what you hear in conversations.

Read on to find out the long explanation as well as some examples. This will also touch on Machine Learning.

Check out the video below for the detailed explanation.

RPA vs AI

Video © Mind Data AI ML

Now let me give you a specific example. Let’s say, you’re a business owner. One of the common tasks that your business would usually be doing regularly is responding to customer inquiries.

Let’s say you have a contact form on your site with the following fields:

• Customer name
• Email address
• Message (free-format field)

When a customer contacts you, your typical task is as follows:

1. Open message from contact form
2. Copy-paste contents into spreadsheet (timestamp, customer name, email address, and message from the free-format field)
3. Read the customer’s free-format message, understand the context
4. Decide if you will either (4.1) respond asking for more information, or if (4.2) you will fill-out a template ticket for the processing team to take action.

If you think about it, in this simple process, steps 1, 2, and 4.2 are rules-based tasks that do not require human judgment.

These are the types of tasks that you can automate using Robotic Process Automation or RPA.

Whereas steps 3 and 4.1 are tasks that require human judgment, as in step 3 you need to read and understand the context of the customer’s message, and in step 4.1 you need to provide a customized response based on your understanding and judgment of what the customer has said in the message.

These are tasks that can potentially be addressed by Artificial Intelligence or AI.

It is in this portion that Machine Learning comes into play. For example, in step 3, you need to teach the program how to understand the context and make a decision.

For that to happen, you need to feed it with a lot of historical data – past messages from customers, and the decisions humans made based on those messages.

i.e. If customers say this, do this. If they say that, do that.

And you should always establish a means to audit the decisions made by the algorithm, as well as the exceptions, so that you can constantly tune it and it will learn from its mistakes, or scenarios that it hasn’t faced before. That way, the Artificial Intelligence will know what to do next time around, hence Machine Learning.

I hope you learned something new today. What’s important is that you understand where RPA and AI can be applicable in a process, and where they do not.

For example, I would prefer pure human intervention on step 4.1, as it would still be best to maintain that human to human connection with your customers.

That’s all for today! Reply with a comment if you have any questions or clarifications. I would love to hear from you.

Are you interested in learning Artificial Intelligence, even if you’re just a beginner? Click here!

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For today’s #wisdomwednesdays I would like to give a shout out to Hernie Rante from our membership group – The Business Optimization Experts for sharing his key learnings from this video.

It’s really about how to stop consuming and instead, start creating.

It’s talks about “how.” Because people always tell you to “Follow Your Dreams,” as if it’s so easy, but they never really tell you “how.”

Well, here’s an example of how, from Carlo Ople from a recent TedX event.

Enjoy!

I hope you learned something out of this.

If you want to be a part of our group, create value for others, and engage in the conversations that will help build your problem solving muscles, then join The Business Optimization Experts.

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For #wisdomwendesdays I’m sharing some quick tips that will be helpful, especially for process improvement professionals growing a team or have frequent organizational changes.

You know when you’ve been working with a client for at least year or two, and then there are so many changes in their organization happening, perhaps due to growth, movement, or restructuring?

Often times you’ll be assigned to work with new faces. And usually they are either younger in age, or have less tenure than the previous people you were working with.

While your clients may say that it’s for the better, or that it’s good to have a fresh set of eyes, even though I agree to that, it does present itself with a challenge.

The challenge with having new people in the organization is that the

History usually repeats itself. So find pain points based on history.

Read on as I share 3 quick tips to allow you to work with new team members and alleviate this challenge.

Tip #1: Get Historical Data

Get historical data, at the very least, 1 year prior, and plot it into a time-series chart or better yet, a control chart.

Then using that data, identify historical trends such as seasonality of volume, special causes, events, initiatives deployed, and such.

Tip #2: Tell the Story

Provide the story behind key points in the trend.

For example, these new guys you’re working with have probably never experienced what a recession feels like. They were probably in high school when it last happened.

Paint a story for them on what a recession is like, what people go through and experience, how people prepare for it, what works and what doesn’t, and so forth.

Tip #3: Create a FMEA

FMEA stands for Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. Sometimes I refer to this as a “What could possibly go wrong?” analysis.

First, this will allow you to think about and identify all potential things that can potentially go wrong, before it even happens.

Second, it will allow you to identify what the effects will be, if it does happen.

Third, you will get to identify how severe the effects will be based in how it will impact business, employees, and customers, how often it can potentially happen, and how effective you are at finding out if it is about to happen.

Lastly, it will allow you to calculate the risk for each, and using the math behind it, you will be able to prioritize each potential failure point so you can create solutions for it before it even happens.

Ending note

I would like to impart that knowledge with you, and I show how root cause analysis and the FMEA works in my book – The Business Optimization Blueprint (downloaded in 34 countries!). Downand it for FREE (for a limited time only) so you can start applying these skills to improve your business and your life.

The post 3 Tips How to Solve for Problems Before they even Happen appeared first on Robbie Agustin.

For today’s #wisdomwednesdays, you gotta choose which statement makes more sense to you:

1. “Build it and they will come” or
2. “People adapt to what they helped build”

Think of a scenario in your your past when you tried to deploy initiatives that you think would benefit a lot of people.

Which strategy worked best?

The one where you built it, and then tried to push it to market? How did that go? Did they love it immediately soon as they saw it? Did they thank you for creating such a wonderful product or service?

Or did the strategy where you involved your audience in creating it work better for you?

If you’d want to find out what worked in my experience, then read on.

In my personal experience, #2 works best. And I had to learn the hard way.

When I tried method #1: Build it and they will come

In the past, I always came up with ideas for improving the process, and I went on to put together the business case, why I think it makes sense, what the benefits will be, and all the nitty gritty stuff.

Then when I present it to the stakeholders, I get a lot of push back, with reasons that looked like excuses to me.

I mean, why would they push back if they will be benefiting from this anyway right?

When I tried method #2: People adapt to what they helped build

But when I started involving them from the start, as early as developing and making sense out of the idea, that’s where the magic started to happen.

All of a sudden they started to become involved.

They wanted to voice out what they liked about it, what they didn’t, and they started to share suggestions.

The approval process was as frictionless as can be, and they were very open to clearing roadblocks to make sure it happens.

Not only that, come time to implement improvements, they helped mandate frontliners to ensure participation and implementation.

The change was like night and day.

I hope you found this to be of value. And feel free to try it out yourself!

Reply with a comment to let me know how it goes. I would love to hear from you!

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Time for some sharing on today’s #wisdomwendesdays.

Sometime ago I attended a talk on the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team:

1. Absence of Trust
2. Fear of Conflict
3. Lack of Commitment
4. Avoidance of Accountability
5. Inattention to Results

The talk was based on the book by Patrick Leoncioni.

Read on as I share with you my story on how we mitigated these through the implementing a methodology of how we do things in the team.

If you have experienced any of these disfunctions, you know that without trust amongst team members, you cannot establish a culture where it is safe to raise issues and concerns.

If it isn’t safe to raise concerns, there is fear of conflict, therefore people will be afraid to fully commit to getting things done.

If there is lack of commitment, then people will naturally avoid accountability.

Without a sense of accountability, people will no longer be looking forward to achieving results.

Ultimately, people will focus on their own self interests at the expense of the business.

It’s really a pyramid, where the foundation is trust, and results are at the top of the pyramid.

Years passed and I sort of kept these at the back of mind, making sure that I try and mitigate these 5 dysfunctions throughout my career, in whatever way I can.

Only recently did it dawn on me, upon seeing a post by a gentleman named Bhanu Pratap Singh, that I have already unknowingly mitigated these through the implementation of the Agile methodology!

Let me share with you why that is so.

If you want to find out how Agile works, I talk about it in detail in Chapter 6 of my book – The Business Optimization Blueprint, where I lay it down step-by-step how this works.

The reason why it mitigates the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team is as follows.

Dysfunction #1: Absence of Trust

Telltale signs: People are afraid of sharing weaknesses, admitting mistakes, or asking for help.

With Agile: The daily standup is designed in such a way that it will encourage team members to reach out to each other and discuss stuff like what they already completed, what they are going to work on next, as well as what their impediments and challenges are so that the Product Owner and/or Scrum Master can act on it accordingly.

Dysfunction #2: Fear of Conflict

Telltale signs: People are afraid to raise risks, issues, concerns, or even suggest better ways of doing things.

With Agile: The sprint planning, sprint review, and retrospective meetings are designed to encourage team members to talk about what needs to be worked on, what they think they are capable of working on, issues, concerns, and how the team can be better at doing things.

Dysfunction #3: Lack of Commitment

Telltale signs: People not committing to decisions and timelines, they feel there is lack of direction.

With Agile: Sprints are run in as short as 1 week to as long as 4 week cycles. Tasks for the duration of the Sprint are prioritized before beginning each Sprint, picked up by each team member, and they commit to completing the tasks by the end of the Sprint.

Dysfunction #4: Avoidance of Accountability

Telltale signs: People not holding each other accountable for their commitments.

With Agile: The daily standups ensure tasks are moving accordingly, impediments can be cleared, and team members can pitch in to help each other as needed. The sprint review ensures the minimum viable product committed collectively by the team is as what was discussed at the start during Sprint Planning.

Dysfunction #5: Inattention to Results

Telltale signs: Team members put their own selfish pursuits first over business results driven by team effort.

With Agile: Continuous Iteration and shipping a Minimum Viable Product each sprint is what the Agile methodology is designed to do. It’s as if you have no choice but to deliver results. That’s the Agile way.

And that’s it!

I wouldn’t say that Agile is the only answer, and that it will remove all dysfunctions per se.

But if you successfully implement Agile in your organization, you stand a greater chance at success.

I hope you found this to be of value.

Feel free to check out more articles that I’ve written about my experiences with the Agile Methodology.

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