It's not uncommon to think “now we have so many variances“It's not good!” We want the company to function perfectly and then there must be no deviations, right?
In my opinion, this is the wrong way to look at it.
To say that we should drive down the amount reported deviations towards 0 usually result in us putting the lid on and just ignoring problems that may exist.
We stop reporting just because it should be felt better, not that it should become better.
What often happens when we act in this way is that the percentage of negative customer opinions increases, both in the short term and in the longer term, which leads to an even greater strain on the organization.
In the long run, it can lead to losing customers and losing revenue just because we did not work openly and with high ceilings with internal deviations in the organization.
Now that we understand the importance of not putting the lid on, but actually lifting everything up to the light — what do we need to do to not be completely overwhelmed by “all the problems we have suddenly started to have”?
What we need to start with is to prioritize deviations based on a severity rating that is defined based on the strength/severity of a single deviation, a negative customer point of view or an improvement proposal and how it can affect the organization.
Based on this priority, we then analyze, act on, follow up and feedback on the reported deviations and suggestions for improvement.
In short, we need to establish processes and procedures for Deviation Management.
Having a smart system like AmpliFlow's IT tool makes it easy to report, classify, link processes and follow up.
Imagine that you, as an employee, report a discrepancy and then never hear anything more about it. It disappears into a black hole. How would that have felt? Would you have been motivated to spend more of your already limited time reporting in more?
What would it have been like to see that your reporting is actually handled and taken seriously? That it leads to results and that your effort is recognized as something positive.
We have to remember that whatever we do, it's about people. It is very rare for anyone to go to work with the ambition to make things worse for themselves or their colleagues.
Structured and systematic work on deviations and suggestions for improvement is a powerful tool for working together across the company towards a better future.
