Vamsi's blog

Moving a tread mill and some lessons in professionalism.

When it comes to private service sector in Bangalore customer satisfaction is an unknown term. There are very few dependable service providers and most of those are themselves dependent upon unprofessional providers down the chain. Following are some experiences I had when I had to transport a tread mill from Bangalore to Hyderabad recently and some learnings.

Case 1: ANZ packers and movers. Very polite and mannerly in communication. Sound very earnest. After the first call, I really felt fortunate to have stumbled upon such a provider, almost confident that my work will get done without any hassle. The price they quoted was also pretty competitive. However, my joy did not last long. They never confirmed my booking. I had to follow up with them frequently to find out if they are willing to take my stuff or not. Every time they would make some excuse. The concerned person is not yet available, we'll get back to you with the details soon etc. All very politely. They also said that the package will reach only the week after as they can't transport a single object. I could understand that. Despite all that they could not take my booking. I finally gave up.

Case 2: Agarwal packers and movers. This was a really pathetic experience. When I call up, the executive tells me that it would take Rs. 4500 to pack and transport. That was unreasonable. ANZ had quoted 2,500. When I negotiated she said she would check with her manager and I should call her in 5 mins. I call back. This time some other person answers and quotes Rs. 6600!. It was not difficult to realize I should drop the call.

Case 3: Deccan 360. I had a good experience with them before when I transported a TV set. But they are only movers and would not pack stuff for me. After experiencing the other two I thought let me try breaking up the need. I'll figure out how to do the packing. They quoted approximately Rs. 1300 for a door to door transport (It turned out to be Rs. 1500 but that was ok). I confirmed the booking. The process was quiet smooth. They also charged objectively based on the volumetric weight instead of quoting out of the blue (6,600!)

Case 4: JD packers. They only pack. They won't move stuff. I call the proprietor. He quotes Rs. 1500 for just packing. I already had the carton. He just had to seal the case. I said thank you and held the phone. Any point negotiating with such providers?

Finally, I spent Rs. 100 on packing material, spent not more than 2 hours and did the packing myself. Deccan 360 picked up my package and hopefully it will be delivered on time and intact.

There were few things to learn (for being a successful service provider) from the above cases:

1. Avoid short-cuts. Give a second thought to your decisions. Agarwal packers and movers must have thought if I get trapped they would get a good profit. If I don't they don't loose much. But that's a really short-sighted conclusion. You have lost a customer forever, my friend! You have failed to hire a marketing professional who would be happy to work for you free of cost. Did you even do the math how much you saved there? You did not even consider the fact that I am not moving my entire house. I am still in Bangalore and a prospective returning customer. Next time I could come with a bigger request.

2. Unprofessional partners can bring your business down. Deccan 360 seems to partner with a local transport service for the package pickup from customer's place to their store. Deccan's executive would first come and register the package and collect the payment. The pickup truck comes after that. In my case, the executive had to literally beg the pickup truck driver to reach my place on time. It was just a 15 min. drive from their store to my house. Thankfully, the executive managed to persuade the driver and I was saved (I had to go somewhere in couple of hours). You almost lost good will even after being professional yourself. The customer has no idea you had partnered with an unprofessional guy and should be prepared for hick ups.

3. It is waste of time being polite and sound professional if you can't fulfil the customer's requirement. Better you communicate clearly and honestly. I would still comeback to you later if my requirement matched your capabilities and your intentions. That's a fair deal.

Opportunity Cost

Opportunity Cost is a term used in economics to indicate the cost of choosing one option over others in terms of what you loose by not having chosen any of the other options. This is applicable when the choices are mutually exclusive. The cost may not be measurable.

The opportunity cost of choosing an airline over a railway is the extra price you pay for an airline ticket and that of choosing a railway over an airline is the time and the other opportunities you would loose.

When it comes to housing you have two choices, either you could rent a house or purchase one using a housing loan. The opportunity cost of purchasing a house is the amount of money (interest and the extra costs) that you would save if you took a house on rent or more profitable avenues (if any!) where you could invest that money. The opportunity cost of renting a house is your ever reducing capacity to purchase one in future. It is what you'll pay for a similar house ten years down the line. 

Opportunity cost of employing inexperienced personnel at low cost for a job is the extra cost you will have to spend training and monitoring them, reduction in the quality of work and possible re-work. The opportunity cost of employing only experienced personnel is the eventual high price one would have to pay and sustainability of the venture some years later when experienced personnel become scarce. 

For a developing nation the opportunity cost of spending its capital on defense is the reduced capacity to solve basic problems like poverty, education, employment and infrastructure. Whereas the opportunity cost of spending more capital on basic problems is the reduced capacity to defend itself.

Most often the opportunity cost is not tangible. For e.g.

• Effect of over-work on health.
• Health expenses and misery saved by choosing to walk or ride a bicycle.
• Increased resourcefulness by spending some time regularly on improving/diversifying one's skills.
• Increased product quality and happy customers achieved by spending on effective quality practices that presently appear more expensive.

When it comes to choices involving intangible value, the opportunity cost is realized mostly only in hindsight.

 

Hard facts

Developers being asked to fill a time sheet every half an hour. How does that sound? It happens!!

Random Thought: A sprint planning game

Take cubes of 3-5 different sizes.

Take two boxes of some size. Name them A and B.

For each task in the backlog ask the developer to pick a cube of size propotional to the size of the task.

Start with a task that is obviously complex and big. Provide a short justification for why the task is complex and big. This will help members compare other tasks to it and choose appropriate cubes.

Keep adding the cubes to the box A.

Stop adding tasks to the sprint once either the A is full or none of the member is prepared to take up further tasks, whichever happens first.

There will be some place left where you can fit small cubes. Pick up some small task and add to the sprint.

Keep the boxes near your work area.

Ask developers to take out cubes from A as and when they finish the tasks and put them in B.

As the productivity of the team improves, as the members become more aware of the system and get used to it, they may start choosing smaller cubes for tasks for which they would have chosen bigger cubes before.

The cubes and the boxes have their volumes printed.

P = Total volume of cubes in B / Volume of B is the Productivity Factor.

E = Total Volume of cubes in A / volume of A is the Error Factor.

D = Volume per developer.

Goal is to keep improving P and D. E may not always be a concern (depends on your company/project).

Any ideas/suggestions?

Accountability without accounting

Accountability is important for a project’s success. It is one attribute that every manager desires that his people possess. However, when it comes to the problem of lack of accountability most practices used to make people accountable tend to be based on negative notions and appear ruthless. As with most management problems it takes courage, patience and clear conscience to find a humane solution. Most solutions end up asking the team members fill up more and more reports. It only results in loss of productivity and in most cases loss in quality.

If making people accountable is your purpose the following practices don’t serve it:

1. Filling time sheets
2. Asking people to account for at least 9 hours a day
3. Estimating in hours
4. Highlighting someone’s lapses in front of the team (with the hope that it won’t be repeated again). How sweetly you put it doesn’t matter.

Rather, the following practices work:

1. Getting people subscribe to a common vision
2. Instilling a sense of ownership in the team members
3. Freedom of thought and initiative
4. Incorporating tools to automate laborious work
5. Timely encouragement
6. Tolerance towards lapses
7. Humane employee policies
8. Intelligent negotiations with clients
9. Making clients realize how your management choices are affecting product quality
10. Sensible one-on-one communication with your team members

The first set of practices doesn’t deliver because it ignores the following facts:

1. We are human.
2. We “think”.
3. We like to “create”.
4. We are “free”.
5. We need inspiration
6. We are all equal in potential but different in strengths.
7. We are bound to make mistakes.
8. We need rest and change in activity.
9. Most often your client wants quality, maximized value for money (you should know how to market your service)

The second set of practices works because it respects the above facts, it is humane and it is based on trust.

I like the daily standup meetings with simple and clear-cut status that every member communicates to the rest of the team. I cannot remain un-accountable for long unless there is no one who is accountable.

What are your ways of bringing about accountability without accounting?