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Operational Excellence and Agile Integration: Alison’s COE Journey

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When Alison’s company decided to implement agile principles across the whole organisation, there was uncertainty over how this would work in operational teams. Agile had its origins in software development, where it had been effectively used to rapidly deliver software in quick iterations. How would this work in a continuous operating environment? QBS’s Core Operational Excellence leadership development program gave Alison the frameworks to solve this, paving the way for successful Operational Excellence and Agile Integration.

The Issues

Alison was able to leverage the Core Operational Excellence program to identify some key pain points that she could address with an Operational Excellence and Agile Integration:

  • Large customer deliverables were managed in an inflexible ‘waterfall’ approach
  • Negative customer sentiment towards time and cost to build new system requirements
  • Low visibility of team workload
  • Poor visibility of current work status and process performance
  • Single points of failure exacerbated by gaps in process documentation

Actions Taken

With her team, Alison systematically tackled these pain points with some key actions:

  • Addressed process vulnerabilities in a Confluence knowledge base – a one-stop shop for the team
  • Increased cross-skilling and improved capacity utilisation
  • Chunked down customer deliverables into smaller deliverables measured as agile storyboard points and managed in sprints
  • Increased visibility of workload using a Kanban board
  • Established shared workload management meetings with a joint Jira board
  • Created dashboards to give visibility on status and performance

The Results

The results that Alison achieved within seven months are impressive and demonstrate the tangible benefits of Operational Excellence and Agile Integration:

  • Annual OPEX saving of $429k with a different approach to workload management
  • Further 1 FTE saving while managing a 30% increase in workload
  • Double the number of new requirements delivered to customers in the same amount of time (100% productivity gain)
  • More consistent customer experience – approximately 75% reduction in customer issues
  • Greater collaboration between teams and different areas of the business
  • 100% of key roles have succession plans

Her team are now working smarter, not harder, but the journey does not end here for Alison and the team. They now have a different way of looking at their operation and the mindset to improve!

Operational Excellence and Agile Integration in Your Organisation

If you and your leaders would like to sustainably solve your own operational challenges, start here to learn more about Core Operational Excellence and QBS’s other development programs.

COE: A Win/Win/Win

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We are often asked about the myriad of benefits our Core Operational Excellence (COE) program brings to individuals, leaders, and organisations. However, the specific advantages to be gained depends on who is asking the question! 

In this comprehensive guide, we explore the numerous ways COE offers a “win/win/win”. Read on to discover how COE can transform your strategic thinking, enhance team dynamics, and drive continuous improvement, resulting in a triple whammy for all stakeholders.

Participant Wins:

  • Grow your strategic critical thinking skills while you develop and start delivering on your own operational improvement plan 
  • Learn and apply a much better way of managing your team – more time working on the business with less stress and improved KPI performance
  • Develop a more robust team where risk is proactively managed
  • Create a culture of collaboration, empowerment and continuous improvement in your team
  • Sharpened customer focus
  • Remove waste and optimise using collaborative systems thinking
  • Use the data from your own area to shift from anecdotes to analytics
  • Active team capability and succession plans 
  • Earn a full university qualification and pathway credits to further education

Leader Wins:

  • Less time working in the business to drive performance improvement – your participant is delivering on a strategic improvement plan aligned with yours
  • Less escalations and complaints, improved productivity and engagement 
  • Increased confidence in participant’s business acumen, decision making and problem-solving skills
  • Greater collaboration across teams
  • Operational risks are understood and being managed – less worry for you
  • Stronger capability development and succession plans
  • Shift from anecdotes and gut feel to analytical thinking with a laser sharp focus on the root causes
  • Streamlining and automation opportunities are being identified
  • Learn with your participant and guide them to solve the problems that need solving
  • Get feedback on your participant’s operational excellence skills and mindset
  • Share the best practices across the rest of your leadership team – a multiplier effect

Organisation Wins:

  • A well-executed program can deliver a 20-fold annual return on investment (in addition to outstanding graduate feedback)
  • Program graduates and their team members lift performance in their area
  • Continuous improvement culture spreads out from the graduates and their team
  • Siloes are being replaced by collaborative systems thinking
  • Customer experience is improving
  • Graduates are critical thinkers who are asking better questions
  • Process efficiencies and automation opportunities are being driven by graduates instead of central improvement teams or consultants
  • Data is used to inform decision making and improvement
  • Graduates are retained and ready for their next stretch opportunity

In a nutshell, participants elevate their skills, becoming strategic thinkers and operational improvement champions.  Through this process, leaders experience incredible transformations in their teams and themselves, leading to improved productivity and collaboration. Simultaneously, organisations experience a profound cultural shift towards continuous improvement, with a substantial return on investment and a newfound focus on data-driven decision-making.

QBS is committed to fostering a culture of collaboration, empowerment, and excellence. Therefore, COE is not just a program; it’s a journey that reshapes leadership, enhances team dynamics, and propels organisations toward a brighter, more efficient future. 

If your team is ready to create a future filled with strategic thinking, operational excellence, and continuous improvement, check out our Programs page now.

Transforming Global Service Delivery: Anila’s Journey with QBS

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Anila managed an international telecommunications service centre and her team faced numerous challenges. Their responsibilities included providing global customer support in multiple languages, all while working under the continual expectation to enhance service standards and reduce costs. The team faced a challenging environment with numerous new products, staff cuts, and unexpected turnover particularly detrimental due to the time required to train new hires to competency.

Anila sought to find a more intelligent approach to meet their customers’ service expectations while simultaneously addressing budget constraints.

Ineffective methodology for improvements

Traditional coaching and performance management methods, based primarily on phone statistics per agent, had been applied within the contact centre.  However, these methods were ineffective as the team was already making substantial efforts.    The problem was not the people, it was the business and management processes that needed to improve which required a lift in operational intelligence (OQ).

Anila’s introduction to senior leader training at QBS motivated her to introduce Operational Excellence leadership programs to her team. Here’s how they benefited from the programs:

  • Key managers were selected to participate in the COE program, which provided them with a structured approach to analyse their respective business areas and develop strategies to address issues. Regular engagement and challenging discussions with Anila encouraged these leaders to think at the right level. Their teams also got involved, contributing diverse perspectives to the discussions.
  • High-potential team members underwent the Introductory OE program, complementing COE activities. This approach promoted a common language, engaged teams, and facilitated more improvements. QBS also added a half day on difficult conversations – demonstrating their flexibility to meet client needs.

Not all easy

Anila’s team faced a few tough discussions when some participants didn’t complete the program. These discussions, though challenging, were necessary to ensure the right individuals progressed. Some individuals struggled to apply what they had learned—showing the importance of aligning words with actions, and the effectiveness of in-person collaborative training over online formats.

“This is a fabulous way to develop leaders and improve your business at the same time.  Future leaders can also do the program and achieve great things.  We got honest and direct feedback on how the people were going.” Anila 

If you and your team have tried traditional coaching and performance management methods, and things are still not clicking, then there might be some leadership skills gaps in your team. Check out our audit where you can quickly identify what it is here.

Soft Skills Need Hard Skills Too: Lynley Corcoran’s QBS Journey at Coles

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Prior to engaging QBS, Lynley Corcoran and her team at Coles had done extensive work on soft skill development programs. These programs were highly beneficial, but they lacked the operational management skills that their operational leaders required.

Lynley aimed to address specific challenges within the organisation, including:

  1. Supporting leaders in transitioning to a new operational management model that placed people management responsibilities back with the leaders themselves.
  2. Providing recognition and qualifications for employees, many of whom lacked formal qualifications, to prepare them for future roles.

While Coles had implemented programs related to soft skills, financial management and job readiness, they had a gap in critical thinking and operational improvement skill development.

How QBS Solved the Challenge:

Engaging with QBS, specifically through the COE program, provided a structured and effective solution. Here’s how it benefited Coles:

  • COE’s 70/20/10 design initially challenged leaders, especially those without tertiary education, and some who had not finished high school. However, QBS provided exceptional support, instilling confidence in participants to complete the program.
  • Leaders emerged from the program with the ability to proactively manage both their business operations and their teams for all-round KPI improvement.
  • Several COE graduates were promoted to more significant roles.
  • The program’s extensive engagement requirements, including interaction with managers, teams, and stakeholders, had a cascading effect on the organisation. This butterfly effect contributed to tangible improvements in engagement scores, with program participants positively influencing their teams.

Key Takeaways 

Lynley highlighted the brilliance of COE’s extensive engagement requirements, noting that participants couldn’t avoid engaging with various stakeholders. This engagement had a pronounced and positive effect on engagement scores across teams. Lynley strongly recommends QBS programs, highlighting their elegant design, significant impact, and positive feedback. She suggests starting with key leverage points and influencers within the organisation, particularly those with a growth mindset.

If you like what you read here, and feel you could benefit from a chat to scope your unique situation, book a call here to chat with Anita or one of the team.

From Firefighting to Strategic Planning: Rich James’ COE Journey at Coles

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Rich and his team were eager to explore new approaches and make changes, particularly in harnessing the potential of their data. He and his team at Coles were grappling with several challenges:

  • They frequently found themselves dealing with emergencies, constantly putting out fires without a clear understanding of what they were accomplishing.
  • There was a lack of measurement and no focused improvement initiatives in place.
  • They had a vast amount of data but lacked the insights needed to make informed decisions.

They hadn’t taken significant steps to address their issues. In some ways, they had begun to accept their chaotic situation as the norm.

“ I was busting for a new way of doing things.  This was it!” Rich James.

An end to the chaos

COE provided structured methodologies that Rich and his team could apply, lifting the operational intelligence (OQ) across the board. Here’s how they found solutions to their problems:

  • By fostering better understanding and communication between teams, they realigned with key internal customers, strengthening their relationships.
  • They worked together to create a simple, comprehensive 12-month plan that everyone could support.
  • COE introduced a structured approach to measuring demand, a practice they hadn’t engaged in before. This helped them grasp the extent of their ad hoc activities and time investments, enabling discussions that led to different, more informed decisions. 
  • They used the skills matrix to prioritise skill development and succession planning, feeding into Individual Development Plans (IDPs) in a structured manner.
  • The team learned to extract and analyse data using novel techniques, shifting from their usual focus on short-term data to a more comprehensive, long-term view. This approach discouraged overreacting to minor data fluctuations and, instead, honed in on the outliers, saving valuable time.
  • Regular Continuous Improvement (CI) sessions became a norm for Rich’s team, a practice he initially wouldn’t have believed possible. This evolution stemmed from the work they did during COE.
  • Tangible impacts followed, including improved KPIs in forecasting, stock availability, and engagement. They also achieved significant time savings by streamlining their processes.

Key Learnings

Rich recognised that he had been a key person dependency, hesitant to let go. Through COE, he learned to empower his team to grow, ensuring they could function independently. If you are ready to empower your team, a call with Anita and the QBS team is the right place to start!  Rich strongly recommends the COE program to any leader. He highlights its broad yet deep approach, enabling participants to apply learning directly to their roles. COE – an unforgettable experience that transforms leadership practices.

Leading from Analytics to Leadership: Matt’s COE Journey at Coles

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Matt and his team operated within the workforce planning function of Coles, planning for a workforce of tens of thousands of team members. Their analytics-focused team was immersed in intricate details and grappled with an intense workload, especially given the specialised nature of their roles.

Matt was looking to transition from being primarily an analytics expert to a leader: He wanted to shift his focus from delving into the data (which was in his comfort zone) to taking on a more proactive leadership role. Additionally, he sought solutions for the team’s workload challenges, although he was unsure whether COE could provide the necessary help.

An unsustainable situation

Matt’s team had not explored alternative approaches to their workload challenges but recognised that their current unsustainable situation required a change.

Through their experience with the COE program, they found:

  • A substantial portion of their time was being consumed by ad hoc, non-core activities and they learned to say no to these distractions.
  • Recognising that rework resulted from the absence of process documentation, they committed to documenting half of their processes.
  • COE compelled Matt to step back from day-to-day tasks, allowing his team to take on greater responsibilities.
  • The skills matrix helped identify skill gaps within the team that were affecting Matt’s ability to step back, prompting targeted skill development.

The challenge (and rewards) of more work (temporarily)!

Managing time was a substantial challenge due to the team’s heavy workload—a classic catch-22 situation. Matt’s coach supported him in devising strategies to carve out the necessary time and space for the changes they needed to implement.

It became clear for Matt that, even though he held an MBA, he could learn and benefit from COE. While the individual concepts weren’t entirely new, the program provided practical, real-time application that reinforced their significance.

Ironically, for a team of data analysts, they lacked metrics for their own performance. COE enabled them to deploy their first quantifiable team performance metrics.

“It is a lot of work but it was worth it.  Any leader who needs to step back from the day to day to improve will benefit significantly.” Matt Rodgers

 If you feel like you might be ready to explore an alternative approach, book a call here to chat with Anita or one of the team.

Reviving Engagement and Leadership: Graeme Lee’s COE Experience at Coles

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Graeme faced the formidable challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted his facility’s operations due to lockdowns, and isolation periods. 

Graeme’s primary objectives were to engage his team in a growth and improvement mindset and to enhance his own leadership skills, as he had not previously undergone formal training. 

Graeme faced several challenges for himself, and within his team as the Distribution Centre Manager at Coles:

  • As someone not accustomed to formal study, Graeme initially found the COE program daunting.
  • He had a fairly disengaged team that was aware of the pending closure of the warehouse.
  • There was a reactive and undisciplined approach to Continuous Improvement (CI), with top-down efforts proving ineffective.

Previous attempts to address the disengagement issue included incentives and campaigns. It was no surprise that these measures were short-lived and failed to produce lasting results.

Structured Frameworks

Participating in COE provided Graeme with a structured framework and challenged him to think differently, identifying areas where improvements were needed. He personally successfully navigated the program with the support of the business language and COE coaches. On top of that, the team and company benefitted through; 

  • The development of a business plan with clear deliverables and timelines, guided by SMART objectives.
  • Engagement of his team to provide input, leading to the formulation of new strategies for capacity improvement.
  • Utilisation of demand forecasts to drive decision-making.
  • Effective coaching using the GROW method to achieve desired outcomes.
  • Involving his team in the Continuous Improvement journey.
  • The establishment of development and succession plans driven by a skills matrix.
  • Implementation of a structured approach to meetings for improved effectiveness.

Powerful Conversations

Graeme intends to continue his learning by further developing his coaching skills, having recognised the profound impact that powerful conversations can have on desired outcomes. He is now driving individual development plans for his team to optimise skills coverage and succession planning.

He also emphasises the importance of involving the team as much as possible and as early as possible in improvement initiatives. Additionally, Graeme acknowledges that even simple changes, such as a consistent approach to meetings, can significantly enhance their effectiveness.

Graeme highly recommends COE to leaders seeking improvement. He underscores that while the concepts covered may not be groundbreaking individually, they form a cohesive framework that serves as an excellent reminder of the fundamentals often overlooked in the busyness of leadership. He believes that any leader, irrespective of their experience level, can benefit from COE if they are committed to improvement. If you feel like you might be a leader ready for the COE program, book a call here to chat with Anita or one of the team.

A New Approach: Neil Devlin’s COE Journey through Coles

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Prior to Neil’s engagement with COE, he grappled with an array of challenges within his newly inherited Coles team and region. These issues encompassed a team that lacked cohesion and experience, an ‘average’ people plan, and a region ranking in the middle of the pack. Missed People & Culture (P&C) targets further compounded the difficulties, exacerbated by the absence of a clear strategy and strategic plans. Neil was tasked with navigating the complexities of a post-COVID environment, adding an additional layer of complexity to an already intricate landscape.

A New Way of Thinking

Neil’s goals were to align his team and instil a new way of thinking, particularly in light of the need for a turnaround. He aimed to transition towards a proactive approach and focus more on the business.

Before COE, Neil had inherited a relatively new team that had been adversely affected by the challenges stemming from the COVID pandemic. Existing efforts to address the situation had not yielded significant improvements.

How COE Solved the Challenge:

Participating in COE challenged Neil in various ways, prompting self-reflection, strategic thinking, forward planning, enhanced communication, and a deeper understanding of demand and capacity principles. He also gained valuable insights into succession planning and the application of the “Plan, Do, Study, Adjust” model to team management. The outcomes of this transformation included:

  • Full alignment within the leadership team and the establishment of mentoring relationships.
  • Improved regional performance, ranking near the top in delivering metrics.
  • Exceeding P&C targets with a 5 point increase in engagement.
  • Development of Individual Development Plans (IDPs) for the entire team.

“Every leader should do COE – it will transform how you and your team operate.  You won’t be able to imagine your life without it” Neil Devlin

Team resistance

Neil faced team resistance, which was rooted in both the difficult situation the team had experienced and a reluctance to embrace change.

But Neil’s COE journey equipped him with an array of useful tools and insights, such as the PDSA (Plan, Do, Study, Adjust) cycle, multivote for quick consensus building, ecosystem analysis, EQ (Emotional Intelligence) self-assessment, skills matrix for identifying skill gaps, driver trees, value stream analysis, and the GROW model for coaching and mentoring.

The shift in how Neil’s team operates and the direct applicability of COE principles to his day-to-day responsibilities have been profound.

Elevating Business Operations: True problem recognition and the comprehensive solution

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Tim Robinson’s organisation was dealing with several challenges within his business area, such as:

  • Reactive resourcing.
  • A cumbersome change management process for customers.
  • Neglect of operational data review.
  • Absence of a continuous improvement strategic plan.
  • Operating in DevOps phase 1.

Tim and his team were aware of the issues but didn’t fully recognise their extent until he joined the Core Operational Excellence (COE) program with QBS. Initially introduced to the program as one of the pioneers from his business area, the team hoped to tackle their challenges more comprehensively.  They wanted to move away from simply reacting to problems as they arose, knowing they wouldn’t lead to sustainable solutions.

A Different Lens

Participating in COE compelled Tim to step back and view his business through a different lens. It forced him to question how he allocated his time. He identified several key issues and devised solutions, such as avoiding non-value-added meetings, planning further ahead, addressing important but non-urgent matters, and documenting and sharing his knowledge.

By addressing these challenges, Tim created space to work on the business itself. This involved strategic planning, future resource planning, eliminating single points of failure, and nurturing junior team members. This allowed him to invest more time back into the business and enhance continuous improvement efforts. 

Focussing on the Vision

By focusing on a vision extending beyond the current year Tim significantly reduced the time spent on immediate concerns. His COE journey had other valuable lessons too:

  • Balancing immediate concerns with future planning is crucial.
  • Empowering and upskilling teams reduces dependencies on individuals.
  • Meaningful change requires proactive action.
  • Supportive and engaged leadership is vital.
  • Peer support and collaboration are invaluable.

Proactive Results 

Under Tim’s leadership, the team underwent a profound transformation. They transitioned to a more proactive approach to resourcing, allowing for better alignment with organisational needs. Multiple initiatives were launched to streamline change management processes, resulting in substantial time savings. Enhanced data analysis capabilities significantly improved the team’s performance. On top of that, under Tim’s guidance, the chapter successfully established a strategic improvement plan for the fiscal year. Progress was made, advancing the team to DevOps phase 2. Valuable insights gleaned from these improvements led to the conversion of contract roles into permanent positions, generating annual savings of $150,000. Perhaps most notably, team engagement surged, and a culture of continuous improvement took root, fostering a dynamic and forward-thinking environment.

“Through my COE journey, I’ve learned to strike a balance between focusing on the present and preparing for the future. It’s crucial to empower my teams, reducing dependency on me and embracing change. A supportive leader plays a pivotal role, and having colleagues on the same journey for support was invaluable.” Tim Robinson