Sparring Partners : Outsourcing May Not Equal Partnership
Building Operating Management
My latest article was the feature article and appeared on the May 2010 cover. I took a very hard look at what partnership is and isn’t as well as what needs to change in the industry.
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I’ve talked about it before - how KPI’s and other measurements with rewards and penalties attached can lead to behavior you didn’t expect.
While this example isn’t from Facilities or Property Management, it does illustrate the issue quite nicely and has relevance to anyone who is measuring customer or service satisfaction in their property or facilities. Continue reading »
Having been on the supplier and the client side in the past, I know that Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) themselves don’t result in performance. While some people like the carrot and stick approach, you need a management approach that uses measurements (and other techniques, not just KPI’s) to get performance. Don’t just rely on a passive performance measurement system. In fact, sometimes KPI’s can even drive the wrong behavior if you aren’t careful. Continue reading »
Performance measures are relatively common in outsourcing arrangements where project management services are included.
Whether you manage projects internally or use third party project management, you can manage results with a good performance management framework, just like you would apply to other outsourcing company, subcontractor, service providers or internal staff.
Whether performance management is effective or not depends on the specific conditions, since measures can sometimes drive the wrong behavior and cause unintended issues.
For instance, when I was on the supplier side, we had a client who measured each project based on the % deviation of the actual from the budget after completion. For some reason, the measure was +/- the budget, so if we were under budget by more than the required %, it counted against us. It was thought up by someone wanting to measure performance without understanding their goals or understanding the nature of the business they were trying to measure. Continue reading »
There are certain realities with implementing an IWMS / CAFM / CMMS system. I find that the right process is critical to success and is often overlooked. Here is what I recommend in a nutshell: Continue reading »
I had the pleasure of being invited to speak at the 2009 International Maintenance Excellence Conference recently. (IMEC.ca) Here is the blurb:
Do You Want Better Results? Don’t Just Measure Performance, Manage It!
Performance isn’t just about measuring results. You must implement management techniques that use performance measures proactively to drive behaviour and improve results. Start with measurement data and KPI’s, understand their impact on employee and subcontractor behaviour and implement a management approach that influences behaviour and drives results.
The conference is hosted by the University of Toronto’s Centre for Maintenance Optimization & Reliability Engineering (C-MORE) and organized by the publishers of Maintenance Technology Magazine.
My topic was a little different for the conference, which has an emphasis on technology, statistics and science to improve reliability, often for production facilities, factories and other organizations where high reliability and minimal unscheduled downtime are critical.
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FM is a complex, issues based role. I’ve learned along the way that nobody in the industry knows it all, and the best way to be successful is to leverage the knowledge and great ideas of others, including your staff, colleagues and suppliers.
Recently, I delivered a 3 day workshop on Strategic Facilities Management in Dubai. The location was spectacular, naturally, and the audience was diverse, interesting and most importantly, keenly interested in enhancing their skills and knowedge in the profession, which is quickly emerging in the Middle East.
While the 3 day workshop had many individual modules, the last session was on developing FM skills. This included an example from my past, dating over 15 years ago from a teamwork exercise while working in the Facility Management department of a major company.
It was so compelling about the the value of teamwork, I still had the exercise booklet. Continue reading »
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