Simmetrics™

Simmetrics Case Study

"How do you demonstrate powerfully just how expensive a simple administrative or process error can be to an organisation?"

That was the question asked by an HR manager in a financial services company. How do we encourage our staff to build a constant checking process into their work and to learn quickly from error so that mistakes are not repeated?

Simmetrics represents all those situations in which a simple mistake, made early in a process, can become a very costly and wasteful problem if it is not picked up and dealt with at an early stage.

Played over a series of rounds, each round begins with the disadvantage of having 'penalty points' transferred from earlier rounds. These penalty points make the achievement of targets increasingly difficult as the exercise progresses. In order to complete the exercise successfully, teams must work towards a shared strategy for minimising waste and error. This is dependent upon collaboration, a degree of 'big picture' thinking and a consideration of the impact of one decision, or individual choice, upon the wider team. Throughout the exercise, decisions are being made under time-pressure. It is not possible to evaluate every option, so a set of 'working principles' is of value.

Can the team establish the operating guidelines so that they demonstrate improved performance at every stage in the exercise? The scoring system, graphically represented on a linechart, allows people to see very clearly the improvements in process they are making as they learn. You cannot avoid error entirely - but you can use it constructively!

What are the learning outcomes?

The facilitator determines the key learning through the use of the review process. Key learning can be identified in areas of:

• The rapid cumulative cost of apparently minor errors
• The vital importance of on-going performance review
• The need to change systems to achieve significant performance improvement
• The need to ensure that all members of a problem-solving group understand and can apply the agreed solutions reliably
• Where full planning is impossible, the need to agree operating guidelines

Give me an example of how it is used.

A client from a major UK Financial Services company described Simmetrics as an ideal way of illustrating to a team of young, administrative staff the cost to their organisation of making a simple data-entry error whilst processing a store-card application. The rounds in the activity were likened to each stage in the process of issuing a card, having it refused in a store because the details were incorrect, losing a sale, re-issuing the card.... each having a financial cost to the business, as well as damaging customer satisfaction.

Participants in the exercise saw the costs spiralling and were able to explore ways of strenghtening their own checking and monitoring systems.

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