We’ve all been annoyed by repetitive problems, right? Users not following standards, pressure from project managers urging us to cut corners, improper filing of files, etc. It often seems like CAD managers are doomed to live with the constant annoyance of these problems with no way out. Or, are we?
In this edition of The CAD Manager’s Newsletter, I’ll share an approach I’ve used for the last 11 years that was inspired by two very clever authors. The method seeks to reflect the annoyance of fixing problems back onto those who cause them until it becomes easier for them to just do the job right in the first place. Here goes.
Image source: boygostockphoto/stock.adobe.com.
Annoyance Transfer
Back in 2013, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal by Ray Fishman and Tim Sullivan (authors of the book The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office) that advocated the use of annoyance as a management strategy to improve quality. While the focus of their article wasn’t CAD — rather it was about a problematic web site — their story made me think about what a profound motivator eliminating annoyance can be and how it could be used to bring standards violators and other CAD troublemakers into line.
The core concept Fishman and Sullivan advocate is to channel the annoying consequences of errors to the person who caused the error, rather than dealing with the error yourself. The best contextual example cited was a travel web site that used customer annoyance to improve the usability of their site. How did they do it? They put the phone number of the web development team as the technical support contact prominently on the web site so the web development team got all the calls from frustrated customers. In this scenario, the customer’s annoyance becomes the web development team’s annoyance and darned if it didn’t get action!
Brilliant, right? As I thought more about the idea of using annoyance to manage CAD, I came up with an idea I call annoyance transfer. Like the travel web site case above, I’m going to make the people who cause CAD problems fix their own mess via clever use of diagnostic and management tools.
Annoying Standards Problems and Causes
Most CAD managers can describe where they experience annoying problems in their day-to-day duties and I’m betting you’re no exception. So, I’ll now ask you to create a list of these problems while asking yourself these diagnostic questions:
- What problems are due to not following standards?
- What problems are due to departmental barriers?
- What problems are caused by careless users?
- What problems are caused by project managers ignoring standards?
The more I’ve done this exercise with clients, the more I’ve noticed that quality problems caused by users are typically motivated by a desire to avoid something they themselves perceive as annoying. What do I mean? Well, how about these examples:
- Could it be that users ignore standards so they don’t have to read them?
- Might it be that users get done faster using older methods rather than new standards because they never have to change their own error prone methods?
- Do departments ignore communication with each other because it is a pain to make their information conform to other departments?
- Do users put files into wrong directories because they don’t like your standard directory structure or simply due to the “we’ve always done it the other way” excuse?
- Do project managers tell you/others to ignore standards or best practices in the interest of “just getting it done” even though that approach causes more problems than it solves?
As you catalog the quality problems you experience, keep in mind the cause of those problems because we’ll be using that information later. I think you’ll see that most (if not all) the quality problems you experience are due to people in the organization choosing (consciously or not) to avoid using standard methods because they find them annoying. (There’s that word again!)
Intervention Points and Contacts
Now that you know where the problems are and who is causing them, you can start to map out your intervention points. By intervention points, I mean the exact point in your work process where quality problems are discovered. The intervention contact is simply the person who discovers the problem. Here’s an example:
Situation: A tooling designer (Allan) often ignores a standard procedure directing them to place the latest versions of a tooling drawings in a specific monitored folder that prepares the drawing for automated manufacturing. This causes the tooling machine operator (Larry) to stop, locate the drawing, and then manually prepare the drawing for manufacturing. This causes a costly (and annoying) problem for the machine operator and delays production.
Intervention point: The moment Larry discovers that Allan hasn’t filed the drawing properly so the drawing hasn’t been prepared for manufacturing.
Intervention contact: Larry.
Finding this sort of information requires some detective work and you’ll need to ask good questions, but with persistence you’ll find the actual cause of the problem and can begin to quantify the corrective action.
Basic Annoyance Transfer
Many times, I found I can get the person who created the problem to fix it without making a big fuss — let’s call this basic annoyance transfer. Here’s the process using Allan and Larry’s situation from above as an example:
Communicate. “Allan, I’ve been helping Larry fix the drawing files you sent him for proper upload to the laser cutter. We’ve noticed that you’re not following our standard DWG filing format and this is causing substantial rework and wasted time in Larry’s department. Will you commit to following company standards so we can make this problem go away?”
Listen. Now if Allan says, “Yes, I’ll fix my files,” all you must do is check in periodically to make sure all remains fixed. On the other hand, if Allan says, “I can’t follow the standard because of the following technical issues,” you may have to investigate the problem and resolve any issues. But if Allan says something like, “No, I won’t conform to the standard because my boss tells me not to,” or, “No, that’s a waste of my time,” then you have a bigger problem to deal with — more on that shortly.
Document. Whatever the outcome of your conversation with Allan, you need to document the outcome. After all, you can’t prove somebody is continuing to cause problems if you don’t document the problems, right?
At this point you may have resolved the problem — which would be great! But, if other issues prevent resolving the problem, you’ll need to go beyond basic annoyance transfer.
Annoyance Transfer Up the Ladder
If you encounter hard-core violators who continue to create problems even after the basic annoyance transfer takes place, then you’ll need a more aggressive approach. In my experience dealing with these violators requires two key ingredients:
- Management involvement
- Financial focus
It stands to reason that when you can’t get somebody to do their job correctly, you’ll have to go up the ladder to their boss. But, chances are the engineering manager doesn’t want to get involved with something like Allan and Larry’s CAD standard problem and will just tell you to handle it — which you’ve already tried to do without success. The only path forward is to make the violator’s boss aware of the financial impact.
So, here’s the beyond basic solution laid out step by step:
Do the basic transfer first. Following the steps from above you communicate, listen, and document so that you have written documentation of the situation.
Document continuing noncompliance. After a few more instances of violations and the basic transfer method clearly isn’t working, transfer the annoyance to the violator’s boss.
Focus financially. Currently, the violator (Allan) is costing the company money because Larry (or you) must keep fixing Allan’s files. When talking to Allan’s boss, this financial loss must be made clear. Explain it like this, “Every week Larry must fix at least two of Allan’s files which costs about one hour of lost time. Over a 52-week year, using Larry’s $55/hour rate this 52-hour loss costs us $2,860 because Allan refuses to properly format and file his drawings.”
At this point you’re talking with a senior manager about rework and finance — the stuff they care about most. Allan will not be happy that you’ve gone to his boss but Allan had his chance to straighten up and ignored it, so what other option did you have?
My experience shows that the following will now occur:
- Allan’s boss will tell Allan to fix the problem
- Allan’s boss doesn’t want to be annoyed about this again, so Allan will fix his issues and not make errors moving forward.
- Allan will not like you in the short term, but will respect you more in the long term.
- Other users will see that you are serious and will be less likely to cause other problems.
Congratulations — your annoyance transfer is now complete.
Continuous Focus
The annoyance transfer process requires me (the CAD manager) to be directly involved. Therefore, my methods will only work as long as I remain engaged — as soon as I step back from the process, things can simply go back to the way they were.
But, as I remain engaged, it is up to me to be sure that I communicate to all involved what I’m doing so I can achieve the following objectives:
- Management is clear in supporting standards and processes.
- Management agrees quality problems must be fixed.
- Everyone is a partner in the quality process.
- Violators are expected to fix their own mistakes.
- Continuous improvement is the goal.
Your Second Homework Assignment
Now, it is up to you. Pick a couple annoying problems from your first homework assignment and use annoyance transfer to set things right.
After a few initial successes, make the annoyance transfer mechanism a permanent part of your CAD management strategies and both your users and management will see how serious you are about helping your team run efficiently.
Summing Up
The more I’ve used this annoyance transfer technique, the more I like it. It is one of the very few CAD management techniques that reduces my workload while at the same time allowing me to focus more on quality control, standards adherence, and eliminating renegade users. My hope is you can use the approach as successfully as I have. Until next time.
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