Tips and Insights

In an early posting, I mentioned the idea that sometimes workers don't have time to read or they don't want to read. There's a term for that-aliteracy. Our own Pat Sweeney described this phenomenon in his paper, "Developing Work Instructions for Aliterate Users" (PDF), which he presented to the American Society for Quality at their Annual Quality Congress in 2003. He noted aliteracy comes in two forms: functional and conditional.

Functional aliteracy includes people who have poor reading skills, and though that can be an issue in any work place, the people I'm addressing today can be defined as conditionally aliterate. Conditional aliteracy includes those people who possess satisfactory reading skills but find themselves in conditions that make reading text-heavy material unappealing or impossible.

Let me give you an example of this. Think for a minute about what happens when the computer screen freezes (typically only when a deadline looms). Working on a PC, the first thing I do is push Ctrl-Alt-Delete and see if I can solve it with the Task Manager screen. If that doesn't work, I'll probably reboot the computer. Next, because we're not big enough to have a tech support department, I'll ask the tech-savvy colleague in the cubicle next to me for help. If I'm working from home, I may call the manufacturer's help desk.

The point is, I will run through a whole host of possibilities to solve the problem, and not until I've exhausted all other options will it occur to me to read the user's guide that came with the computer.

Quite honestly, I don't even want to read it because it's not written for me. It's written to satisfy lawyers and auditors. I can never find what I need, no matter how many different ways I try to identify the problem.

Here's what I believe computer companies need to do when they create these user's guides:

• Write like they're talking to an average person-better yet, an average person with minimal computer skills.
• Organize their information based on "how to" do something, not on what features they offer. (Check out what we've done as an example.)
• Make their day-to-day instructions as simple as their assembly instructions:
  • Color-code topics.
  • Use graphics instead of words.
  • Space the text so it doesn't overwhelm.

Writing like this-for the user-might go a long way toward easing the trepidation people sometimes feel when working with computers.

Labels: aliteracy, technology, user's guides, visual work instructions

I like words . . . like their possibilities, their elusiveness, like how I can deliberately manipulate them, like how the same words can mean different things to different people.

I also like how different organizations make it a point to identify new expressions that should or should not come into our language. For instance, the American Dialect Society (ADS) celebrates new additions and chose plutoed as their 2006 Word of the Year, which means "to demote or devalue someone or something." You know, like the planet that's no longer a planet.

Lake Superior State University, however, likes to identify the words we need to banish, often for their overuse or superficial nature. Included on their 2007 List of Banished Words are Gitmo, awesome, boasts and last year's ADS winner truthiness. (Check out their reasons for banishment. If you're a word nerd like me, you'll find them funny.)

Of course at Bishop, we can't play with words when we're writing standard work instructions. Our job is to make our words-the few we choose to use-as explicit as possible.

This type of brevity and clarity also finds a place in a wordsmith's heart. I like having to figure out how to tighten a phrase or cluster information to fit in a list. Both challenge my mind and my skills, and though I may be generalizing, I don't believe most lawyers or auditors aspire to such simplicity. I suspect that's why traditional procedure manuals are filled with verbiage. (Before any lawyers contact me and complain, let me say that I do know a plain language movement is afoot, and, thankfully, a committee with the State Bar of Michigan is promoting it. Now, if we can just get everyone to actually use it. . . .)

Over the next few weeks, I'll share some of the editorial reasons and techniques behind our visual work instructions, and talk about the ways illustrations affect our decisions.

Labels: clarity, plain language, procedure manuals, work instructions

Since organizing is a relevant issue and a reoccurring theme for many companies employing 5S practices, I figure I have to say something about e-mail organization. Though I'm lucky enough not to receive 100 e-mails every day, I know people who do. I also know people who have thousands of e-mails stored somewhere, all waiting for something-a response, a reference . . . perhaps a burial.

E-mail, for many of us, has reached a point beyond usefulness and fallen into the realm of irritation and stress. When I have more than twenty e-mails in my in-box, I'm tempted to just hit the delete button. Surely we were not meant to hang on to all this information.

Because we're a small company, we've been given the freedom to use our skills and talents to fill niches as they become apparent. The leaders of the company happily delegate these tasks but recognize we need some oversight. Needless to say, their in-boxes are overflowing with copied and forwarded e-mails.

Recognizing this as a growing issue, we're now getting used to SharePoint, which, as I understand it, will end some of the e-mail nightmares that occur because we're trying to keep everyone informed. Instead, information-including e-mail discussions-will be stored on a server that everyone can access.

It's a good start, but as you've probably surmised, it still doesn't address all the issues. Several people have written articles with lots of solutions, and I especially like Stever Robbins' piece (a columnist for the Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge magazine). Not only does he give examples of good and bad e-mails, he also suggests that we figure out the per-minute rate it costs for each employee to read and respond to e-mail. When you multiply that number by the number of hours in a day, week, month . . . Well, you can imagine the steady trickle of money flowing down the drain.

One of his best suggestions, I believe, is the idea of training the senders. We know, of course, that we can't train clients how to send e-mails, but we can train ourselves (and maybe lead by example?).

Here are a few suggestions I like:

• Use the subject line as the whole message


• Include response expectations in the subject line
• NRN = No reply needed


• TY = Thank you


• NRB = Need response by (you fill in the date and time)
• Consider who you're copying and why, then tell each person what to do with the message


• Edit forwarded messages so they're appropriate for the next recipient

Even congress is inundated by e-mail, and they still haven't figured out a way to efficiently handle it (though one suggestion is to increase the budget for their offices-what a surprise). Since we don't have the luxury of extra money or staff to manage our e-mail, I guess we'll have to keep finding 5S solutions on our own.

Labels: 5S, Lean, organization, standardization

We're lucky here--our office windows look out onto a creek where Mallards, Canadian geese, muskrats, snapping turtles and kingfishers coexist peacefully together (except for that one incident with the turtle and the duck, but I won't go into that). We keep a set of binoculars near our desks for when we need a break from the computer screens and phones.

The pastoral landscape makes for a relaxing atmosphere, and though we share the building with other tenants, our interactions in the hallway are minimal at best. The nature of our work means we don't generate much foot traffic, so the idea of security has been limited to making sure our computer files can't be hacked, making sure we back up our hard drive, and making sure anything we need to access is safe from water or fire damage. That is, until we picked up our first aerospace defense contract. That's when we-they-turned a wary eye toward our daily routines, as well as the building itself.

With this contract came certain stipulations-ones that required us to beef up our security. Here are the provisions we have in place now-some old, some new. If you work among sectors with sensitive materials and you haven't already made these changes, you may want to consider similar actions.

• We have systems installed that segregate and protect information, giving access to employees only on a "need-to-know" basis.


• Separate, encrypted server hard drives are dedicated to single projects or clients.


• The terminal password system on our workstations requires new sign-ins after 10 minutes of inactivity.


• Our locked, tamper-proof server is enclosed with access limited to approved IT employees.


• We handle document shredding through a Department of Defense-approved contractor.


• Our offices and file cabinets are locked.


• The office entrance has a lock box that requires a pass code to access, preventing casual entry.


• Office visitors are accompanied at all times.


• Our e-mail and FTP data exchange are encrypted.


• We have offsite daily system backups.

Our clients are happy with the security we provide, and though the enhanced security feels a little Orwellian, the nature show outside our window helps remind us we're still part of a peaceable kingdom.

Labels: security, trust

The Bishop Company, a local business specializing in visual work instructions and technical documents, received national certification as a Women's Business Enterprise. The Michigan Women's Business Council (MWBC), a regional certifying partner of the Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), issued the award.

"Though we've been a woman-owned business for five years, it wasn't until a prospective client asked if we were certified that we pursued the designation. As it turns out, the WBENC investigation surprised us with its thoroughness and got us thinking in new ways about what it means to be included in this particular community," said Megan Roth, president and owner. "We'll be interested to see what changes, if any, it creates in our customer base and how our customers view us."

WBENC's national standard of certification implemented by the MWBC is a meticulous process including an in-depth review of the business and site inspection. The certification process is designed to confirm the business is at least 51% owned, operated and controlled by a woman or women. By including these women-owned businesses among their vendors, corporations and government agencies demonstrate a commitment to fostering diversity.

About The Bishop Company
With a 27-year history serving local and national clients in the aerospace, healthcare and manufacturing industries, The Bishop Company promotes quality standard operating procedures and processes with their EXPLAINITT Integrated Work Instructions. To learn more about The Bishop Company, please visit www.explainers.com.

About WBENC
The Women's Business Enterprise National Council is the nation's largest third party certifier of businesses owned and operated by women in the United States. WBENC is a resource for the more than 700 US companies and government agencies that rely on WBENC's certification as an integral part of their supplier diversity programs.

Labels: women-owned business, work instructions