Watch an A3 Evolve From Start to "Finish"

-- Tony Markel

I recently got to a good point with an A3 and wondered what it would look like if you could step back and forth in time to watch it evolve. I had tried using a really nifty tool called Draftback, but it only offered text playback, no layout, no graphics.  But, if you want a letter-by-letter account of your work, it's worth a look.

For this exercise, I took some screenshots using the revision history and turned them into a slide show.

Some things I learned while going over the playback:

1. It's okay to jot down potential solutions as you go. You might learn that you're solving the wrong problem. It also frees your mind to focus on figuring out what problem you're trying to solve.
   
2. Get your work in front of people as soon as you can. Tell yourself it's a draft, an experiment, whatever. You need to make sure you can communicate your idea well. Seek help, seek input, seek information, seek guidance, just go get information.
   
3. Spend as little time as possible on visual polish until you're fairly satisfied with your conclusions.
   
4. At the same time, use visual language as a shortcut to paragraphs of prose. Remember this is an artifact for conversation, which means that it pays to have visual cues to guide you and your audience rather than reams of data or words.
   
5. Having earlier drafts to draw upon helped me remember points I may have tossed aside early on, that suddenly became relevant as my problem came more into focus.
   
6. Expect to change everything. No idea is worth so much that it cannot be sacrificed for something more meritorious.
   
7. There is no page 2. Make everything count.

If you want a closer look at the document as it evolves, go here and check it out. (U-M login required)

MSIS NPS Survey Results: Quarter 2 2016

-- Gray Carper (gcarper@med.umich.edu)

Performance & Improvement Management recently closed another round of our periodic customer and staff survey, based on Net Promoter Score methodology, and you'll find the results below. This data will catalyze improvement actions using existing mechanics, like our Problem Management process, and we'll be launching another survey round in the near future. If you have any questions about this or any other improvement initiatives, please reach out to PIM.

Thanks to all of you who participated in the survey this time - please continue to do so in future rounds!

If the report image isn't displaying properly below, you can also see it in Confluence and Infogr.am.

Dispatchers, Field Agents, and Depot Technicians, OH MY!

Introducing an improvement on the services provided from our Device Support teams.

The project was known as IKEA: At the Elbow support improvements. Now, DSA's have a new way of performing their work using new roles and defined competencies.

We are introducing the roles of Dispatcher, Field Agent, and Depot Technician, initially at MedCampus.

• Dispatcher is a rotating role that allows better communication between service teams, and to coordinate a response to issues such as work stoppages.
• Field Agents truly the definition of "At the elbow" support. Our Field Agents build relationships with the end users, and are out in the field most of their time, efficiently resolving issues. Dispatcher to Field Agent communications are key to the success of this role.
• Depot Technicians are the behind-the-scenes team that builds devices, backs up data, and process tickets to enable consistent performance and reliability.

The key to improvements in Ikea were to develop a set of core competencies that defined skills across all roles and teams for DSA's. These competencies set expectations and provided a path for development and growth. Quarterly reviews are combined with annual goals and measurement to help prompt growth. Out of these competencies and efforts came the DSA Handbook which will provide consistency and a source of information for all teams moving forward.

What's Next?

DSA teams are still adjusting to his new work flow, and the initial effort will be monitored so that we can learn and adjust as we go, while challenging our assumptions. We are also working with MCIT teams to understand how their DSA work flows, too. We would like to expand to the NCRC and utilize the model for the remaining DSA teams, carefully considering the right way to learn and grow.

Some recent examples of success using this new model have shown promise. In one case, a Field Agent was in Brehm, when the Dispatcher was able to reach out, and route work directly over, thus improving the end user's experience in an efficient manner.

We wanted to thank all those who had involvement in developing Project Ikea from the inception to fruition.  Special thanks to Tom Biancalana for insights into the MCIT DSA roles and definitions, and to Mike Yockey for his efforts providing guidance and feedback on the competencies.  Finally, this could not have been possible without support and leadership of Bon Thomas, Jonathan Komorowski, and JD Jordan's tireless efforts to bring these improvements to the DSA teams.  Thank you.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)

By Jermaine “JD” Jordan

What is DEI?

Many times a week I travel from the Medical School to the University’s hospitals and clinics. If you’ve made this trek, the most visible aspect of this journey is the class photos of the previous years’ Medical School graduates. What’s not as evident, but just as visible, is who the graduates are. The graduates all appear to be white males. It’s not until the mid-‘70s, when you begin to see more diverse graduating classes. And, the class that is truly representative of our country and our world has yet to be mounted on the wall.

Moving the Health System and University closer to being a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive institution is a priority of U-M President, Mark Schlissel, who says:

“The University of Michigan cannot be excellent without being diverse in the broadest sense of that word. We also must ensure that our community allows all individuals an equal opportunity to thrive.”

Last September, President Schlissel launched the Strategic Planning Process for the entire University. The goals are to engage students, faculty, and staff to create unit-focused strategic plans that address the following areas.

• Recruitment, retention and development
• Education and scholarship
• An equitable, inclusive environment
• Service

What does it mean for us?

Plans across the Health System are being coordinated through the Office of Health Equity and Inclusion (OHEI). Ted Hanss, associate CIO for the Health System, has put together a representative group from that will lead conversations and activities with all of you.

The members of your DEI planning team are:

Michael Collins		Fusen Li
Hong Da		Michael McKenzie
Stephanie Dascola		Brian Rafferty
James Estill		Marissa Rivas
Ryan Henyard		Amitava Shee
Jermaine “JD” Jordan		Gracie Trinidad
Molly Kleinman		Mariama Weaver

Your DEI planning team has been meeting over the last few weeks, and we’ve put together several options we hope you’ll like.

Reading Program

To increase awareness and spark discussion, we have gathered articles that focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. For example, one of the articles talks about implicit bias and how that affects day-to-day work. If we receive enough interest, we can host lunch-n-learn discussions to talk about the articles.

Affinity Wall Week

The OHEI has requested us to consider several questions, including ways diversity, equity, and inclusion can improve UMHS; and what one thing would you like UMHS to commit to in order to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion. In an effort to be creative and engaging, we decided to host an affinity wall. Starting July 11, each day there will be questions, and responses will be posted on the B200 windows. Employees not located at NCRC will have an alternative way to submit their answers (we’ll let you know more soon!).

I welcome and encourage everyone to participate in as many activities as possible. OHEI will also offer events that will help us continue to move toward a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive department, UMHS, and University of Michigan. Go Blue!  

For more information, to make suggestions, or join our local DEI team, please contact us: msis-dei-team@umich.edu. Learn more about the strategic plan, research, how to join the conversation, and much more on the University’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion website.

How well is MSIS serving you?

-- Gray Carper (gcarper@med.umich.edu) 

Performance & Improvement Management has launched the latest round of MSIS' quarterly customer and staff survey and we want to hear what you think. Tell us by following this link...

http://msis.med.umich.edu/feedback

Only the first question is required, so if that’s all you fill out, it’ll take just a few seconds. Any additional questions you see are optional and should take about five minutes if you choose to tackle them. What you share with us here drives our own improvement efforts, and we see how well those are going by reissuing this survey from time to time. If you’re curious, feel free to read about why and how we do this or browse previous results reports.

Please take a moment to make yourself heard and, if you have any questions, just send a note to msis-pim-questions@umich.edu.

Moving from mind-numbing to engaging meetings

Submitted by: Cindy Leavitt

London Liberating Structure User Group-www.meetup.com/LondonLS-User-Group/

How many mind-numbing meetings have you attended in the last week? I can say that I have attended a lot over my career and am guilty of leading many of them. Not all of the meetings I attend or lead are mind-numbing. I have tried many different techniques to bring life to meetings and had some limited success. However, consistently holding engaging meetings has been a challenge for me and so I am always looking for new ideas.

Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend a workshop on Liberating Structures that introduced me to a several new ways to approach meetings and create an empowering culture. Liberating structures are thirty-five simple structured methods to stimulate conversation and thought and unleash the potential of any group or organization.

The workshop was different than I expected and rather confusing at first because there were not a lot of explicit instruction. Instead, the facilitators used many of the liberating structures to teach the group how to use them. As the group gave feedback on what would be helpful, the facilitators modified their approach and added more context about how they had successfully used the liberating structure they were introducing.

(Note: I am going to refer to the names of the liberating structures in quotes throughout the rest of this blog, not to be confusing, but to allow you to look up more information about them if you are interested.)

The most profound series of exercises for me was “drawing together” using five symbols to draw our personal purpose. This was different than other drawing exercises that I have done because it was structured with very easy symbols, which made it less intimidating. Then we used “impromptu networking” to allow people we didn’t know describe our pictures back to us. It was fascinating to me and the feedback helped me clarify my thinking and identify how I could better communicate. This insight came without me talking at all about what I was trying to express with my picture.

The potential of what I learned has been growing in my mind since the workshop. I have been thinking a lot about how I could use these liberating structures more and talking with others who attended to see how they were using them. One colleague told me how she used these structures the day after the workshop to have an energetic and truthful conversation around inclusion and equity. She used “1-2-4-All” combined with “Triz” to have a large group describe how they could create a strategic plan for equity and inclusion that would NEVER be enacted. This allowed the group to have a truthful and brave conversation about the barriers that exist to improving equity and inclusion on campus.

If this blog has sparked any interest, go check out the website (http://www.liberatingstructures.com/) and see if any of the methods might help with your next meeting.

The Service Desk has a new number!

I am so happy to announce that starting June 1st at 9:00 am, the UMHS Service Desk and MLearning will have a single phone number.  936-8000.  The MSIS Service Desk number 763-7770 which has served us well for so many years will forward over to 6-8000.  Additionally, the MLearning Help Desk line at 615-5146 will also be moved over to 6-8000 in a further move to reduce the number of places where our customers need to go for help.

What's changing for our customers?

• The old numbers will still continue to work but will forward over to 6-8000.  
• All customers will notice a new phone menu, which is detailed below:
• Welcome to the Service Desk.  Your call may be recorded for quality purposes.  As of June 1, our menu options have changed.
• If you are calling about MiChart, providers press 4 and other roles press 1.
• If you are calling about other clinical applications, press 2.
• If you are calling about non-clinical applications, passwords, or IT devices, press 3.
• After they press 3:
• If you are calling about account-related issues, including password resets and multi-factor authentication, press 1.
• For MLearning, press 2.
• For all other technology issues, please press 3.

What's not changing?

• Customers can still contact us through msishelp@umich.edu, or through mcitservicedesk@med.umich.edu (either one works)
• The hours of support for MSIS services are still 7am-7pm M-F.  Although someone is available on 6-8000 around the clock for Platinum and Gold supported services, the evening/weekend staff will submit a ticket to MSIS for resolution the next business day.

Although we expect this to be a slight disruption for our customers while they get used to the new phone menu, we believe in time this will improve the overall experience for our customers in need of help.  Our customers can now call a single number for help across a broad portfolio of clinical, research, education, and administrative services.

I am so proud of what this team has done in the last 18 months.  Our MCIT and MSIS Service Desk staff have been working so hard to learn from each other. Everyone on the team had to learn how to do two different jobs.  And they did without shutting down operations.  In fact, they did it while we were still growing and getting busier than ever.

I don't know what I did to deserve such a great team, but I'm truly proud to be a part of it.  

Establishing Habits to Increase Energy and Effectiveness

Posted by: Cindy Leavitt

I have been struggling to write my blog this month and I realized that by shifting my personal expectation from one to two weeks between blogs, I quickly fell out of the habit of writing. Then it became harder to restart writing the longer it went since my last blog.

CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37670370

Writing this blog has been very important for me in helping me be the leader that I aspire to be. When I was doing it weekly, it was a lot of work, but energizing and grounding as well. This month as I have struggled to keep up the habit, it has been de-energizing. So while, I was not taking the time to do the blog, it didn’t feel like I got more done. I have been surprised at the number of people who have been following my blog and commenting about what they have learned from them. It has been gratifying to know that sharing my experiences is helpful to others. 

I have realized that I only have a limited set of energy and that it takes an extraordinary amount of energy to change. So when I am motivated enough to change, if I can do something consistently enough to create  a habit, it takes much less energy to keep it going. The real power is when I have established habits that generate more energy for me, which creates a positive reinforcing cycle that allows me to make other changes and have the energy and stamina to do meaningful work.

Recognizing where I have done this successfully in my life gives me the confidence to establish additional new habits, which include restarting when I fail to meet my original expectations.

Two areas where I have established successful habits are in my personal planning to make sure I focus on the most important things consistently and my exercise routines.

Every Monday morning, I take a few minutes to write down the most important things that I need to accomplish that week for my strategic initiatives at work, relationship building, and personal life. The lists for each area are not long, only 1-3 items. Than I look at my calendar and block times of when I can do the tasks. This simple habit has been incredibly effective and allowed me to advance important initiatives that are ambiguous. It is incredibly energizing to see the progress and the impact of focusing on these important items.

The second habit is exercise. I exercise every day and it is the basis for much of my vitality. The method of exercise has changed over many years, but it usually involves a social aspect as well as a physical aspect. It helps keep me going to know that others are expecting me to exercise with them. Whether it is being with my comrades at 6am at the gym, walking and talking with friends, biking with my buddies, or doing yoga when I want to be by myself. When I don’t exercise, I feel worse during the day.  My muscles actually hurt when I don’t move, so that is very motivating for me to keep up my exercise habits.

Try to take a few minutes over this long weekend to examine what you are doing that gives and drains your energy. What habit could you start to develop that would increase your energy and effectiveness?

I am recommitting to writing this blog weekly as a way to increase my energy and effectiveness.