This week I will be going into an operational planning meeting.  Like most of the operational planning meetings I have attended, three questions are being asked:

1. What do we want/need to start doing
2. What do we need to continue to do or finish and
3. What should we STOP doing?

The first two questions are relatively easy to answer and there is a plethora of information on How, Why, When, Where and What to plan.  In this blog, I want to focus on the Stop question, specifically:

What does “Stop” Mean in the Context of Operational Planning?

How Many Stops have been Really Stopped?

In my career, I have been in dozens of planning meetings and I cannot really recall something identified as ‘should be Stopped’ that was actually stopped.  At the same time, over my career, I have stopped doing many things that I used to do with out the ‘thing’ being part of a planning meeting.  Why is it so hard to identify a process to stop and then actually stop it?

Stopping to Define A Process

A quick stop for a definition and in this case the word ‘Process’ which is one of these wonderfully loaded terms.  Fortunately the good folks at the International Standards Organization can help: (source: http://www.iso.org, ISO 9000:2015; Terms and Definitions, 3.4.1, accessed 2016-04-02):

3.4.1 process: set of interrelated or interacting activities that use inputs to deliver an intended result (Note 1 to entry: Whether the “intended result” of a process is called output (3.7.5), product (3.7.6) or service (3.7.7) depends on the context of the reference.).

Assuming that an organization wants to stop a process, the challenge of doing so is built into the definition – when you stop something, you must deal with the inputs, the outputs and the impact on the inter-relation between potentially numerous activities.

Starting to Use a Process Focused Way of Stopping

Fortunately the above definition also gives us a methodology to evaluate what processes we can stop, change or that we are stuck with.  The Process Focused Way of Stopping uses a 2 x 2 matrix which asks two simple questions: will Inputs or Outputs Cease or Continue?  Inside the resulting matrix is a gradient between the extremes of fully stopping or continuing to deploy inputs and outputs. The four themed quadrants can help an organization understand the challenges and execution of stopping a process and interrelated impacts on the organization of doing so.

The Four Quadrants of Stopping

Or how to manage the “Law of Unintended Consequences“.

• Full Stop!:
  • Inputs Stop, Outputs Stop
  • Business Example: Nokia, formerly a pulp and paper company that evolved into an electronics/cell phone company.
  • Organizational thoughts: abandoning or decamping from a process.
  • Risks/challenges: if a downstream process requires the output, a new and not necessarily better process may spring up to fill the void
    
• Automation:
  • Inputs Stop, Outputs Continue
  • Business Example: Automation of airline ticketing and reservation systems over the past 40 years.
  • Organizational thoughts: automation is central to productivity enhancements and cost savings.
  • Risks/challenges: over automation can backfire, for example, being able to talk to a human is now seen as premium support for a product instead of simply directing customers to a website or a phone response system.
• Costs Without Benefits (Yikes!):
  • Inputs Continue, Outputs Stop
  • Business Example: A mining company paying for site remediation long after the mine has been closed.
  • Organizational thoughts: Generally this is the quadrant to avoid unless there is a plan to manage the risks and downside costs (e.g. a sinking fund).
  • Risks/challenges: Organizations may land here as a result of the Law of Unintended Consequences..
• Status Quo:
  • Inputs Continue, Outputs Continue
  • Business Example: any company that stays the course in their product line; this includes companies that should have changed such as Kodak.
  • Organizational Thoughts: this is a typical reaction when asked to changed processes.  Lack of organizational capacity and willingness to change supports general inertia.
  • Risks/challenges: As Kodak discovered, a lack of willingness to internally cannibalize and prune an organization may lead to external forces doing it for you.

How to Start Using a Process Focused Way of Stopping?

‘So What?’, how can this model be used?  At a minimum I plan to bring it with me to the next planning session and when someone identifies an activity to ‘STOP’ I will point to the quadrant the thing falls into.  This is not to prevent good organizational design, new ideas or planning; but it is to focus on the practicalities of planning and execution.

Hopefully you can start using this Stopping Model the next time you begin a planning meeting!