Business Processes
One year. The office kicked off a process improvement initiative.
They started by enrolling is in a 3-day seminar called best practices.
On the first day I showed up. The location was at an olss college that had been in the process of closing down. We were in 3 classrooms whose walls were rolled back to make one giant class. I guess there were over 100 of us there to take the class.
They talked about giving us tools to help us on our journey of the office place !!??!!.
I assumed maybe they’d give us wierd engineering tools I never heard of, or maybe some new program that I never heard of.
They talked about how important best practices are, but were very abstract like.. “there are external environmental factors which may or may not affect internal environmental practices for which you may or may not need to accommodate”
That was the first hour.
Then there was an exercise. .. like introduce your self, what are your expectations. I was the first asked. So I introduced myself, spoke about assets, depreciation, management, how I was looking forward to learning some busines tools. The rest of the group did the same thing. Then a lunch break. Then another exercise where we broke up into groups and tossed a ball to each other.
We did this for the entire 3 days.
three days later
At the end of the seminar I asked the questions “so what are the best practices?”
“Look in the back of your guide.”, I turned to the last page. There were 10 bulleted 3-5 word items, like. Be kind, communication is important, be on time, the list drolled on and on.
I have to say.. . That was a waste of time for the 100 or so people who attended.
When I left I felt like it was a scam to get money from the organization.
I work in an office that manages a lot of assets, ok sewer pipes, pump stations, manholes, which to them are assets. I hoped to learn this industry’s version of depreciation. I hoped to get guidance about asset management. When to replace vs when to fix. Maybe I’d learn the best way of lining a pipe. Insted I was suppose to gleam from some random and humiliating exercises to “always be professional”.
There definition of best practices are really poor.
Also they kept talking of business tools. I had hoped to learn what business tools and after the initial discussion they never spoke about business tools in start seminar.