Finishing what we start: A lesson for functional managers fr

Two relatively new management tools have revolutionized modern business processes: Project management and automated workflow. For its part, project management organizes major, one-time endeavors. As described excellently by Alice Gannon on several occasions, including a recent article in the July, 1994, RMQ, project management is a "method for getting things done," in contrast to functional management, which is a charge to keep things going. As Gannon points out, projects contain multiple elements that must be managed, e.g., scope, schedule, cost, and quality. In managing these, the project manager is responsible for multiple tasks, e.g., planning, organizing, executing, monitoring, and reporting. These tasks will sound familiar to the experienced functional manager. Yet the contexts in which they are performed are quite different, partly because the end product of the project manager's work is a creation that was not there when he started and partly because he will go on to something different after he finishes it. These are two characteristics functional managers will never share with project managers. But there is a third distinction of project management that functional managers would do well do emulate: A successful project manager completes what he starts.

At the opposite end of the spectrum of business processes, workflow automates those continuing, repetitive processes that are not susceptible to project management. Of course, long before automated workflow had become a buzzword, mainframe machines had been integrated into business operations, and personal computers (PCs) had become familiar office equipment. But in the office, PCs usually served merely as tools, replacements for typewriters and calculators. Workflow is radically different. For it applies basic, computer-oriented logic to office processes themselves, not just to ancillary tasks. This type of processing may be termed consequent, for it leads unfailingly to a logically consistent, necessary result. A typical example takes the format

IF A IS TRUE, THEN DO Z, ELSE DO Y.

Consequent processing is quite a change from the normal way that many functional managers handle the issues that cross their desks. We might term the latter the "dilly-dally" method, which takes the format

"PERHAPS ... WELL, MAYBE LATER WE'LL LEAVE IT ON HOLD FOR AWHILE."

The application of programming and programming logic to business workflow is called "scripting" -- a very apt term. A script has little in common with an open-ended procedure. Just as a theatrical production that "closely follows the script" will essentially be the same night after night, so scripted electronic business workflows with clear definitions and rules enable us to deal with similar matters in a consistent manner. The script enables us to preview the conclusion and to avoid surprise endings.

Automated workflow might also be termed "work standardization," since it implies that the output of the workflow can be depended upon to provide a reliable, quality product. Such consistency in processing work will naturally increase efficiency while reducing costs, for it facilitates streamlined, simplified, rule-controlled procedures, training, and resource procurement. Although best adapted to routine processes, electronic workflow can also deal with exceptions. It can even be adapted to multiple, simultaneous routing paths. Moreover, it does not vacillate or hesitate before numerous decision or routing branches, but hurries toward its conclusion with electronic speed. From a business perspective, this assurance of a result -- of a productive consequence -- is the most valuable advantage of automated workflow. If a workflow does perchance become entangled in a loop, the problem is immediately identified as a bug, and resources can be quickly dedicated to debugging the program.

Thus, like project management, automated workflow promises closure. It assures that processes will continue persistently until completed, rather than petering out, being sidetracked, or getting lost. Taken together, project management and workflow have oriented us toward achievement -- toward getting something done -- rather than just meandering along with the status quo.

THE DILEMMA OF FUNCTIONAL MANAGEMENT

The concept of the functional manager as one responsible only for maintaining the status quo has already been debunked by calls for "planning," "continuous improvement," and "proactive behavior." Yet when compared either to project management or automated workflow, the tasks that comprise the functional manager's day appear as a disconnected hodge-podge. The elements of functional management do not seem large or singular enough to be managed as a "project," nor do they appear routine enough to be scripted into an ongoing workflow. Instead, this myriad of disparate tasks, which constitute the majority of items with which the functional manager must deal, fall into the undetermined chasm between the project management and workflow categories.

Most of the functional manager's days are filled with a litany of personnel paperwork, meetings that conclude with little more decided than they began, cries for help, angry complaints, and brush fires for which someone has sounded three alarms ...

* "Do something about the refrigerator; it has frosted up so that the door won't even open...."

* "The toilet is stopped up (again?)...."

* "The CEO's newspaper was not delivered this morning, and we were promised...."

* "Our PCs 'hang up' every time we try to enter a record..."

* "We want all the records on the tunnel collapse now..."

* "Be careful to release none of the tunnel collapse records ever...."

* "We can't identify any of the tunnel collapse records any time soon. because no one coded them that way...."

* "Personnel says, no matter what he's been supervising the last five years, he's still classified as a "Mopper/waxer."

While certainly not ordinary, run-of-the-mill concerns, this barrage of petty crises is hardly the kind of serious processing deviations the management texts had in mind when they recommended "Management by exception." Escaping this turmoil at night and over weekends, the functional manager attempts to fashion systemic improvements that will address this flaw. All too often it is only the design, without the execution, of these improvements that receives the functional manager's attention. When he gets to the office, he calls a meeting to explain the betterments to his staff and to schedule their implementation. The staff agrees to try them and promises to let him know if any problems result -- then the phone rings:

"The toilet is stopped up again...."

"Coded or not, the CEO wants to review the tunnel documents this afternoon...."

"The refrigerator is finally defrosted -- and the carpet is soaked with melting ice...."

Without the formalized milestones of the control aspect of project management or the unfailing follow through of an automated workflow, the traditional manager encounters a missing link between beginning and end in dealing with these functional management tasks. He finds it difficult to bring them to closure. The areas in which this problem is most pronounced are the traditional tasks that occupy much of the functional manager's day: (1) supervision of a functional staff; (2) budgeting; (3) implementing operational improvements; and (4) the managerial miscellany that crosses his desk. Let's take a closer look at these four areas.

STAFF SUPERVISION: PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

Human resources programs to which I have been exposed lately have placed considerable emphasis on clear, structured supervision, in which the employees understand exactly what is expected of them. Thus, most of us spend considerable time negotiating employee goals, preferably every few months, but more likely, annually. Many of us have entered into "performance contracts," which are really just more formalized versions of obtaining staff commitment to a set of goals. Such goal-setting activities can only be praised. They provide employees with the critical knowledge of what is expected so that they can focus on what is most important and be able to judge their own progress. Without them, the employee is like the worker who is given a shovel and told "to dig a deep hole." After several hours of digging, even the most docile worker begins to wonder "How deep is deep?" or "Do I get to stop before I reach China?"

While nearly every functional manager has recognized the importance of goal-setting and reviewing performance toward achieving those goals, conscientious monitoring of goal achievement is much less in vogue. Many of us (whether we admit it or not) have made such contracts and not reviewed them until a year later. By that time, of course, half of the goals have become irrelevant, and half of the achievements that have been realized were not even included in the original contract. Often, the areas in which change was required -- and promised -- still need the same improvement, yet nothing has been said in the interim. Even more often . the goals that were quantifiable cannot now be examined, because no statistics were kept. Finally, many of the things in the contract that were achieved were done just after the contract was executed, so that the contract was irrelevant through most of its duration.

My own experiences have finally made clear to me the waste inherent in performance contracts that are not monitored frequently. This year -- like each prior year -- my boss gave me a deadline of two weeks to complete all of my performance reviews. I searched through my desk file for the performance contracts. With a sigh of relief, I found them, albeit in a rather dusty condition. I looked through the first contract, that of our Librarian: reasonable goals for cataloging, shelving, ordering, deaccessioning, etc. There was only one problem: Our Librarian had turned over control of the Library to another department six months earlier. She was now handling public records requests and litigation support. Deciding that this was obviously a fluke, I picked up the contract of the next person, who last year was in charge of processing the mail for a staff of 450. She still processes mail, but now for a staff of 10,000. Somehow the goals set forth in the old contract were not quite applicable. Even quicker to the wastebasket were the contracts of two mail carriers who have been incorporated into the clerical union. They are now governed by a union contract which, as I was chagrined to realize, had already superseded the almost forgotten performance contract with me.

STAFF SUPERVISION: THE FAILURE TO FOLLOW UP

Aside from the annual game of goal-setting and performance review, the apparent challenge to most supervisors is coming up with the plan, schedule, and resources for getting the work done and then getting the staff to commit to doing it. The effort and genius required to achieve this "essence of successful supervision" seem to so far exceed the mundane, tedious monitoring of the results that we often simply neglect to check up. The results of such neglect are almost invariably disappointing. For, since Murphy's Law is no myth, something nearly always goes wrong, and -- to be frank -- the staff cannot be counted on to relay the bad news.

Staff hesitancy to report problems is not really too surprising; indeed, it is human nature. Some employees are afraid to admit failure. Others keep hoping the current delays and setbacks are abnormal. When they finally accept that the "abnormal" is normal, they still do not tell their supervisors for fear of being blamed for not reporting the problem earlier. Finally, some employees pay no attention: After all, if the supervisor does not care enough to check on progress, why should the employee report on it?

Perhaps the most manifest examples of this problem occur when a manager institutes a "wonderful" new procedure. Often lured by the beauty of the procedure itself, the manager easily forgets that no procedure is any better than the understanding and commitment of the people who execute it. Recently, I spent hours negotiating with several offices the routing of various legal documents. In order to satisfy all of the other departments, I authored an extremely complex routing procedure that sent subpoenas regarding bus accidents to one lawyer, summons and complaints regarding bus operations to another, subpoenas regarding rail construction to a third, and so forth. Certain of these types had to be copied to several recipients. Some needed to be microfilmed and indexed; others did not; and still others were to be microfilmed on a separate roll of film. Everyone seemed to understand and was happy with this procedure. Almost everyone, that is, since I failed to ask the mail processing clerk who had to carry out this labyrinthine procedure -- the same clerk whose volume had increased from 450 to 10,000. However, she accepted it without question, though perhaps with something of an air of resignation. Since the "difficult tasks" of planning, negotiating, and writing were done, I went on to other challenges. Then, due to circumstances that did not neatly fit the criteria I had fashioned, we missed a couple of crucial court dates. I realized that, since I had not been bright enough to involve the mail clerk in the planning, I should have at least had the foresight to monitor the results.

For records managers, indexing rules present an even more common example of procedures implemented in a way very different from what is planned. Even though you think rules like "Spell it the way it is written" or "Find the appropriate subject code" are simple and straightforward, questions will begin to surface just as soon as you leave the room. What do you do when there is not enough space in the field to "spell it the way it is written?" What if the "way it is written" contains a spelling error? What about upper and lower case? Can you make up a new code when none of the existing ones fit? Left unmonitored, each indexer will come up with his own answers to questions such as these. The result will be an inconsistent index that may occasionally find something, but cannot be trusted.

BUDGETING: A TASK NOT FINISHED ON JULY 1

"Doing the budget" is a task similar to the setting of employee goals -- indeed, the two are often linked. In both cases, functional managers face a major task with a very tight deadline. For some reason, both budgeting and goal-setting are always demanded within a period of time that is totally inadequate to permit thoughtful, careful work on the part of managers. The results can be significantly in error. For instance, this year I budgeted $17,000 for the annual lease of a postage machine that had previously belonged to another department. When I made an effort to make the payments, the vendor looked at me quizzically and said, "But you already own this machine." On the other hand, I had budgeted for only a moderate increase for commercial records storage. This calculation overlooked three important considerations: (1) an organizational change left us with a state law prohibiting destruction of records less than ten years old; (2) we were going to move into a new building (always an encouragement to send paper to the records center); and (3) our major closed-out project would go into litigation precluding record destruction.

Oversights such as these -- silly though they may appear to be in retrospect -- are to be expected. What cannot be excused is the failure on most of our parts to modify the projected amounts on a regular basis as anticipated needs fail to materialize, or other needs appear that were not foreseen. For the budget is not just a one-time exercise. We must continually reanalyze our projected costs and take whatever actions are necessary to prevent an overrun of expenditures, as well as to follow up on opportunities that are made possible by funds that become available after July 1. For a change, this time I finally did something right by identifying the off-setting errors of postage machine lease and records storage. If we are lucky, by the time we run short in the records storage account, the mass of bureaucratic paperwork and approvals necessary to effect the transfer from the postal machine account will have taken place.

The challenge to the functional budget manager is not just to make corrections for budgeting mistakes, but also to spend the money that he has convinced the budget committee should be spent and to spend it wisely. One problem with hurried budgeting is that managers tend to believe that merely convincing the budget committee to set aside a certain sum of money is sufficient. I knew one manager who placed "imaging system" in his budget for $50,000. His idea was to scan all policies and procedures into an electronic format, so they would be available for the entire organization to reference. He did buy a system. The $50,000 was sufficient to cover the cost of the scanner, a large PC, and customized software. However, there was not enough to take care of the networking, image enabling of existing PCs, and data storage required for such a project. Moreover, the system he bought with the $50,000 was not compatible with the type of system needed for other applications -- so it now simply sits on the shelf.

At the other end of the spectrum of imaging system budgeting was my budget which included a $200,000 budget item for "imaging" for five years in a row -- and none of it was ever spent. To be sure, I had not "wasted" the $50,000, but my colleague had at least piloted an imaging system from which we could learn -- even if we could not greatly utilize it. Both cases exemplify the problem of identifying a functional betterment with setting aside money for it in the budget. Getting a budget approved is only the beginning.

MAJOR OPERATIONAL IMPROVEMENTS

Major operational improvements are usually significant enough to be defined and managed as projects. Unfortunately, most functional managers treat them as operational activities, as things to be dealt with as they crop up once in a while amidst the routine daily work. Often they begin as "really good ideas" for which the author has not worked out the implementation plan. One such idea was developed by our records management team as a response to the confusion arising from the multiplicity of copies and versions of various technical engineering documents. With many different organizations and departments, each having its own procedures, involved in different phases of our construction projects, it became very difficult to determine the location and ownership of the record copies. It was a challenge of how to apply configuration management controls to a multi-organization environment rife with planners, designers, contract administrators, and operators, each of whom viewed the construction documentation from his own perspective.

As two of us sat with our boss around a table one afternoon, one of us suggested, "What we really need is some graphic means of depicting the relationships between the organizational entities, the phase of the project, and the type of activity documented." Since, like many records managers, all three of us were essentially frustrated graphic artists, we became very excited by the prospect of a magical chart that would map out the solution to our documentation problems. The boss became so enthusiastic that he began sketching out his ideas directly on the polished wood table. Knowing that I would be assigned to clean the table, I quickly tried to point out the need for a more suitable media for our chart:

"How can we make it three dimensional to depict the three variables: activities, organizations, and construction phases?" I asked. "Do we need something like a papier-mache model?"

After spending several days just working on this chart, we finally managed to show all three axes of the relationship on a two-dimensional chart by using different colors to represent different organizational units. We even developed a fourth dimension by using different shapes (e.g., triangles, circles, stars, squares) to indicate different types of documents.

One of our draftspeople produced a magnificent rendering of this masterpiece. Our boss was so impressed that he sent it out to a commercial printer to be enlarged to fill a wall eight feet high by fifteen feet long. Then we sent out miniature copies to the heads of all the involved departments and organizational units, along with an invitation to attend the first meeting of a task force on multi-organizational configuration management. They all came, and we met in a conference room beneath our immense graphic idol, like primitive worshippers in some animistic religion. We performed the ancient ritual of exchanging business cards and spoke with reverence about "the chart." Our boss discussed for a few minutes our problems with documentation and our hope that this chart would be the first step in clarifying relationships in this area. Everyone promised to send in their comments and to set aside time for a future meeting. Then we all went back to our offices. I do not really know what the others thought. I remember wondering, "What comes next? Surely, someone will have an idea that will keep the process moving." But no one did. Comments were never received. There were no further meetings. The room with the chart stayed as empty as a church the Sunday after Easter. After all, we were all functional managers with busy schedules. A year or two later, I came across several of the miniatures of the chart in the boxes of records inactivated from different offices. Mine still hangs over my printer, and visitors sometimes ask, "What is that? It looks very impressive."

A similar fate awaited our "paperwork reduction" committee. Inspired by the realization that our agency was consuming "a tree a week" in paper, our boss appointed a committee of representatives -- including a few department heads -- from most of the critical departments. In this case, we did think a little more in terms of project management, and one of the managers was appointed "project manager." With his assistant, he developed overall paperwork reduction goals, a broad scope statement, and a year-long schedule. The early meetings were exciting brain-storming sessions, and there were assignments to collect data and negotiate with other departments about such things as expanding electronic mail and reducing the distribution of "ALL STAFF" memoranda.

Yet, while we had assimilated some ideas from project management on team formation and planning, someone must have clandestinely replaced Alice Gannon's sections on "execution" and "monitoring" with the chapter entitled "How to Let It Fall Through the Cracks" from a traditional "Functional Management Handbook." Members of the paperwork reduction team kept forgetting their assignments. Later meetings tended just to repeat the same brainstorming -- which gradually diminished into occasional showers of half-baked ideas and then just a drizzle of "appropriate" words. The team, which in the beginning met every other week, decreased the frequency of its meetings to once every month, then to not at all. Gradually, department heads began sending their representatives. In the final meetings, the project manager himself sent a representative, who chaired a group of new representatives freshly appointed by the original representatives.

Did we achieve our goals? Since the goals were not quantified, no one knows for sure. However, our copy center produces more than ever, and the mail carts are again overflowing with ALL STAFF memos. My contribution to all of this was supposedly an audit of all departments to make certain that they were inactivating their paper in accordance with the records retention schedule. I did complete the audit (more or less) and people did respond by sending a considerable number of boxes into storage. Yet the truth is that I did the task more as a part of my regular job as records manager than as member of the paper reduction project team. Similar disappointment has resulted from the MIS department's contribution: Electronic mail was expanded to everyone with a PC, but today fewer actually use it than a year ago. The moral seems clear: Unless someone accepts responsibility to persist in actually achieving a measurable goal, functional managers are likely to allow major operational improvements slip between the cracks of the immediate emergencies of daily emergencies and routine responsibilities.

MANAGERIAL MISCELLANY

So what are these pressing functional priorities that hinder the functional manager from checking on the implementation of his major improvements, from reviewing his staff's performance, and from carrying out what he planned and budgeted? As alluded to at the beginning, much of these functional managers' time is devoted to the minor, transient issues that flow across their desks -- issues not large enough to be managed as full-blown projects, but not regular and continuous enough to be caught in an automated workflow. These are the complaints about trivia, the housekeeping questions, the requests for exceptions, the bills not paid, the supplies not ordered, and the human resources paperwork.

Unfortunately, too often our reaction to all of these "minor" issues vying for our attention is to clear our desks by routing them to somewhere else: another organization, another department, or someone on staff. Clearing our desk becomes a goal in itself. We wash our hands of the problem once we have managed to pass it off -- then it becomes someone else's problem.

The drawback to this point of view is not only that it is unethical, but also that the results usually return to torment us. For example, when Accounts Payable recently sent me an invoice requesting approval for payment, something in the back of my mind told me it had been ordered without a purchase order. But rather than preparing a request for the purchase order, I approved it for payment and sent it back. The same day I received a public records request for some certified payrolls. The chances were pretty good that it would take a fair amount of searching before we could find the payrolls. Because I was in a hurry, I forwarded the request to another office that conceivably could (but probably would not) have them. Three days later, I paid for my haste in clearing my desk of these two issues. I received a nasty note from Procurement asking why I was bypassing the approved purchase order process. I also got the public records request back with a note saying that the whereabouts of the certified payrolls were unknown. Now with three days less of the ten days permitted by the law, I really had to find and redact the payrolls; I also had to rush to prepare the purchase order I had previously neglected -- this time with a very humble, apologetic cover memo. I had learned that the failure to follow through to closure on even the less critical concerns also weakens the functional manager's effectiveness.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS TO THE RESCUE

To some extent, we must learn to view everything of any significance and duration that comes across our desk or over the phone as a "project." In dealing with these "mini projects" of functional management, we can certainly learn from the discipline of project management. We must plan them, schedule them, and allocate resources for them. To actually achieve them, the functional manager must borrow project management's technique of continually comparing objective goals against actual results. He must establish and monitor milestones.

Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from project management is the need to pay attention to what Gannon has identified as project management's "soft elements" (e.g., the handling of people). In this respect, the functional manager must be aware of the human "frailties" of staff and other departments. He must remember that they have other aspects to their lives than work and that they do not always quickly understand concepts which have only just been introduced to them. He must remember that, when his staff are not yet familiar with a new procedure, they easily overestimate their ability to complete a certain task within a given time. Just blindly assuming they will achieve the goals to which they so easily committed is ridiculously sanguine. In this respect, the functional manager should strive to prefer realistic goal-setting and scheduling during the planning stage. He must also remember that it is much easier to plan achievement of a goal than actually to accomplish it.

The importance of communication, which Gannon stresses as another of her "soft elements," is just as essential for the functional manager. For the failure to "follow through" to closure ensues not only from dereliction in setting and reviewing realistic milestones, but also from failure to communicate effectively. Thus, if the manager who a delegates a task fails to elicit feedback -- or to listen to that feedback -- the chances of the undertaking reaching a productive conclusion are slight. It is in this regard that the much touted technique of MBWA (Managing By Walking Around) proves to be so valuable. If this technique is to provide serious feedback, rather than merely morale boosting, the manager must intersperse questions about family health, car stereos, and muffed field goals with pointed queries about progress toward job goals. Of course, listening to feedback must be combined with flexibility and a willingness to make adjustments in response to the unexpected problems or opportunities which the feedback exposes. Used as the core of the manager's program of monitoring, careful listening and flexibility will minimize many of the problems in supervision, budgeting, and managerial follow-through to which we have alluded.

LESSONS FROM WORK FLOW

The principles of automated workflow are not so easily assimilated into functional management as are those of project management. Certainly, it would be very tidy if functional managers could simply apply workflow automation to anything too small-scale or routine to be managed as a project. In such a perfect (albeit boring) world, the functional manager might "script" his daily handling of complaints, service requests, budget reviews, performance evaluations, and housekeeping chores, so that these would be expeditiously and consistently handled while the manager discusses strategy over martinis. In the real world, however, all of these tasks are too variable and unpredictable to be left to impersonal automation. Because workflow cannot provide the intuition, sensitivity to the needs of others, and the recognition of the need for emergency exceptions, functional management cannot be fully scripted. If it could, our organizations would not need any of their functional managers -- just a few proficient, prolific workflow programmers.

Yet, if he cannot mimic the undeviating, stringently rule-based electronic workflows, the functional manager can learn from their regularity, their consistency, and their dedication to completing a process even if it means blowing a circuit board. The lesson from this workflow is relatively simple: Whatever is repeated should be dealt with in a standard, persistent manner that does not quit until the issue is resolved. The functional manager can realize some of these same benefits by maintaining records and regularly keeping logs to assure that nothing is forgotten, that nothing is left unfinished, and that no major inconsistencies result. He can loosely script in a skeletal procedure those activities which he will repetitively encounter to ensure that what is begun will be completed.

For those willing to invest time and effort to emulate the consistent, consequential follow-through of automated workflow in handling the problems that cross their desks, the rewards include efficiency, protection against lapse of memory, and improved relations with those who will be able to rely upon them. As a bonus, the functional manager can use his new dedication to justify the purchase of one or more of the numerous toys for tracking issues, monitoring the achievement of mini milestones, and following up on the resolution of problems. Whether electronic calendars, project management software for functional managers, Personal Information Management (PIM) software, or personal organizers are really any more effective than a paper tickler file or pocket calendar is questionable. That these electronic toys are more fun cannot be doubted. Does not the functional manager who dedicates himself to completing whatever comes his way deserve some fun?

CONCLUSION

We have seen that functional management unfortunately does not fit perfectly into the models of either of the two modern methodologies that promise closure in business processes: project management and automated workflow. The issues facing functional managers are too unpredictable and episodic to fit workflow; at the same time, these managers lack the time and resources to adopt a full-blown project management strategy for everything they do. Consequently, they tend to languish like middle-aged, managerial Peter Pans in the neverland of incompletion. To escape this status and reach closure, functional managers cannot copy project management or mimic workflow, but they can learn from both.

From project management, functional managers can learn techniques for

* Establishing and monitoring milestones;

* Continually comparing objective goals against real results;

* Paying attention to "soft elements," like communication, in order to elicit feedback and to listen to it;

* Planning, scheduling, and allocating resources for anything they hope to accomplish, no matter how small.

From workflow, functional managers can learn

* The usefulness of developing loose "scripts" for even the miscellaneous issues that cross their desks in order to assure consistency and regularity;

* The importance of tracking and monitoring less significant issues, as well as the more important ones;

* The rewards of consequential behavior in managers.

From both project management and automated workflow, functional managers must learn the lesson of closure: Recognition that their responsibility in dealing with a problem or opportunity or issue, no matter how unglamorous or small, will not be fulfilled until it is resolved.

Copyright Association of Records Managers and Administrators Inc. Apr 1995
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved