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NMA LeaderLab

DELIVERY DELAY

TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY

JOINTLY FIND ANSWERS

WORK AS A TEAM

Figure out what steps your team can take to recover and how to involve your supplier and customers in the solution…

Make it our business!

“Honest communications and shared solutions are key to building trust and restoring confidence.”

Copyright © 2006, by National Management Association, Dayton, OH

NMA…

THE Leadership Development Organization

2210 Arbor Blvd.

Dayton, OH 45349

937-294-0421

Web Site: http://www.nma1.org

LeaderLab CEU Code 05007LL .1 CEU

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NMA LeaderLab Scenario

Your team has been working on a highly time-sensitive project for a very demanding customer. You have just learned that one of your providers will not be able to supply components on schedule, which means you will be unable to meet your deadline. This is not the first time that you have had this difficulty with this supplier or this customer. You had previously promised the customer that this would never happen again. You have also learned that the supplier knew of this delay weeks ago and did not inform you about it until now.

Your customer will arrive in 20 minutes for a briefing on your status and corrective actions. Your team is very reluctant to break the news to him for fear that it will jeopardize the overall relationship and possibly the program itself. You must determine a means to tell the customer what has happened without damaging the reputation of your team or your organization, and identify the top five actions you will take (in priority order) to make sure this problem is fixed and that you will make up the delay. The customer is also very unlikely to let you shift the blame to the supplier again – they will want to hold you accountable.

Before beginning, your team must unanimously select its LEADER and an OBSERVER who does not otherwise participate in the discussion. You will need to come up with five prioritized actions that address the customer’s concerns while still representing your organization credibly. You need to brief the CUSTOMER in 20 minutes, so GET TO WORK!

Each team LEADER will be allocated 3 minutes to brief his or her results including the five prioritized actions to recover from the delay. The OBSERVER will have 2 minutes to comment on the process used to arrive at these actions and the associated decisions. There will be a hard cutoff at the end of five minutes.

The facilitator will take the last 5 minutes to comment on each team’s results from the customer’s viewpoint. Teams that create a solution acceptable to the team and the customer will have a bright future ahead. The others will have more interesting conversations (or a new job) ahead of them.

ThemeLL #7 DELIVERY DELAY * “Satisfy Your Customer”

Scenario:

Challenge:

Operations:

Reports:

Evaluation:

* This LL exercise was suggested as one of the topics addressed in the new Dale Carnegie course on “Personal Rules of Business Excellence.”

NMA…THE Leadership Development Organization, Dayton, Ohio

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NMA LeaderLabPrizes

TBD

NMA…THE Leadership Development Organization, Dayton, Ohio

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NMA LeaderLab Lessons

• Acknowledge the supplier delay and accept responsibility for it

• Propose recovery steps to fix the problem, such as• Send in a tiger team to work with supplier• Co-locate a representative at supplier site• Jointly define problems and solution schedule• Hold daily telecons to status progress• Continuously report to the customer

• Get your customer involved and informed

• “The buck stops here….”

• “Make sure you have a plan….”

• “And work it as a team….”

Things to consider in your work environment!NMA…THE Leadership Development Organization, Dayton, Ohio

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NMA LeaderLab Facilitator Hints

• Assign each team a number (Team 1-5), then go through the LL instructions and make sure all teams adhere to the designated time allocation for each LL section. After taking reports from each of the teams, use the following script to provide feedback.

• Thank each group for their participation and inputs; hopefully this exercise helped them formulate specific and useful improvement actions. While the actual improvement steps clearly are subjective, here are some questions you can use to characterize each report:

• Are the group rationale and associated actions reasonable?

• Do the actions adequately address the problem, and did the team define all five actions?

• Are the actions likely to be effective in retaining Amy and ensuring consideration of her ideas?

• Was the group process effective?

Group reports with at least three YES ratings and no major adverse comments pass the exercise, and qualify as TROUBLE SHOOTERS. Conclude with LeaderLab lessons, and prizes to the winning groups.

TEAM # Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

1

2

3

4

5

NMA…THE Leadership Development Organization, Dayton, Ohio

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LeaderLab Evaluation Form

PLEASE CHECK THE APPROPRIATE BOX Excellent Good Fair Poor

1. The overall LeaderLab program

2. Appropriate use of the materials that made learning easy and enjoyable

3. Opportunity to exchange experiences and ideas with others

4. Length of LeaderLab relative to its objectives and meeting your needs

5. Applicability to your responsibilities, needs, and roles at home, work, and elsewhere

6. What is the most important thing you learned during the LeaderLab?

7. Which part of the LeaderLab was of MOST VALUE to you? Why?

8. Which part of the LeaderLab was of LEAST VALUE to you? Why?

9. What suggestions for improvement do you have for future LeaderLabs?

Check one ─

Your comments and suggestions are very important to us. Please take a few moments to reflect on your experiences at the LeaderLab. Your input will help us to continue to provide professional quality services

and maximize learning during the future LeaderLabs.

Yes No Did the facilitator(s)…

Keep the sessions “moving and interesting”?

Speak at a level that could be easily heard and understood by everyone?

Keep the discussions constructive, crisp, and well controlled?

Practice “good facilitation skills”?

NMA…THE Leadership Development Organization, Dayton, Ohio