In the last quarter of 2014, the North-pole International Centre for Excellence (NICE) boasted that Santa was a five nines organisation and the world could relax knowing that everybody would get the right present on time..
Process Guru Siobhan Sherman (a six Sigma Black Belt) ran the numbers and came up with shocking finding: running a five nines organisation wasn't good enough for global impact and accuracy. Based on current estimates, 7.2 million people missed out on Christmas! (Subsequent Intercontinental Statistical Testing [SIST], has shown this to be the case).
Earlier this year, North-pole spokesperson "Alf on the shelf" said that the core principle behind Santa Clause’s excellent supply chain delivery organisation was the checklist. Alf boasted, not only do we use checklists, we check them twice!
Nevertheless, 7.2 million people woke up on Boxing Day wondering whether or not they've been naughty or nice. So far, no comment from Alf on the shelf on how the North Pole organisation intended to correct this problem and ensure it does not happen again.
The harsh lessons we have learnt from this Christmas season can be summed up in one word, CHECKLIST!
If you want your organisation to compete with a world class supply chain like Santa's and make a positive impact on the world, you have to ask yourself, do you have a checklist? Do you use your checklist? Do you check it twice? Anything less will leave unhappy customers
checklists ensure that things get done in an organized and consistent way. They are the key to overcoming "task saturation", where the flow of incoming data and tasks is so overwhelming that one becomes paralyzed and unable to take action. Checklists can be used as an audit tool to see if you are utilizing best practices in your current and future plans.
As shocked as we all are about the 7.2 million mistakes uncovered after last Christmas, this tragedy could have been much worse had Santa and his elves not used checklists.
Are you smart enough to use checklists?
Maybe the first place you could use them is on your New Year's resolutions :-) .
Happy New Year from Tony Sherman, the Implementation Rabbi, at Impact Teams. My your checklists bring you prosperity throughout 2015.
Thanks for this entertaining post with simple wisdom. It reminds me that I must go back to using a checklist to keep our business meetings top notch!
ReplyDeleteSuch a simple thing, but yet so powerful! Thanks Tony for reminding us about the importance of checklists.
ReplyDeleteTony:
ReplyDeleteYou were on my checklist to wish you a Happy New Year. Good thing I checked it twice.
Great post.