I heard a joke the other day. It goes like this:
A new major takes command of a unit. During an inspection, he finds two soldiers standing guard next to a garden bench. They received their orders from his predecessor and have no idea what they are guarding. The major calls his predecessor. He says that this is how it was done when he took over the unit. Eventually, the major reaches the two men’s retired predecessor. The puzzled veteran simply asks: “What? Has the paint still not dried?”
What sounds funny at first glance turns out to be a money-wasting nightmare for many companies. Processes that are carried on blindly are often pointless, sometimes harmful, and in any case tie up resources unnecessarily.
The most important question in any project
For me, the most important question I keep asking myself is: Why is it done that way? Is it even necessary?
For internal staff and those responsible for processes, however, it is far more difficult to question such established procedures. This is because they are part of the system. You see the garden bench every day, and at some point you simply stop asking why it is being guarded.
In software development, there are established solutions for this: code reviews, in which a colleague examines another’s code with a fresh pair of eyes; and regular refactoring, the deliberate rewriting of code to improve established structures and reduce the likelihood of errors.
In business processes, this is almost never done systematically. A procedure is established to the best of one’s knowledge and then followed to the letter. As long as no major problems arise, nothing is changed for years. The paint has long since dried, but the signs are still there.
A real-life example
In an in-house print shop, staff would examine printed documents, identify any apparent errors in the content, place the documents in a folder and send them via the internal post system to the relevant department.
When we looked at the process together, it turned out that what we thought was a mistake had simply been a standard practice for years – not a mistake at all. And the specialist department hadn’t even looked at the documents. The employee printed the documents out again locally and put them in an envelope to post.
A minor issue? Perhaps. But chronically overworked staff were spending time and energy on completely unnecessary printing and enveloping, not to mention the extra printing and postage costs.
The solution is simple: error handling should be built into the process itself – completely paperless, displayed on the employee’s screen with a clear indication of what has gone wrong. Ideally, the problem won’t arise in the first place if the process is designed to be more robust.
Why energy suppliers are particularly affected
In the energy sector in particular, processes have evolved over decades and are complex, diverse and prone to error. The reasons for this are just as varied:
- Public utility companies serve all customer segments, from domestic customers to large industrial firms.
- The range of technology is vast, and it doesn’t always do what you want it to.
- Communication between market participants changes twice a year in line with guidelines issued by the Federal Network Agency, in some cases significantly.
- And real people don’t always follow the rules: they move in or out without giving proper notice, which throws many automated processes off course.
- Added to this is the pace of change driven by the energy transition and digitalisation, which has increased enormously in recent years.
This makes it all the more important to take a systematic approach and put in place a programme that regularly reviews and optimises processes. This is not a short-term project, but a long-term initiative designed to ensure that processes and systems genuinely support people in their work.
The alternative is obvious: you just keep keeping watch over the garden bench.
How many garden benches do you look after?