No More Hopscotch at Work
2021 Prophecy – Part 2
In case you missed our whitepaper “Service Supply Chain Prophecy: 2021 and Beyond” and our webinar of the same name, we want to offer a bit of each of our prophecies here in our blog.
Ever play hopscotch with projects? It may seem like you’re getting a lot done, but in reality, you’re likely putting quantity over quality. Let’s talk about the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach. It implies that you can provide sufficient value by delivering minimal features, or realize enough improvements to call a project a win. But the problem with hopping to a new initiative is that you never fully optimize past projects.
I think the challenges of 2020, which are still present to at least some degree, are slowing the chase of the “next big thing.” Targeted initiatives to achieve corporate goals will always be necessary, but the game of hopscotch is going to be less popular moving forward.
A shift is coming where organizations circle back to fundamental projects like system implementations or upgrades, training initiatives, and process improvements, and do the fine-tuning required to fully realize their benefits.
In the end we’ll find that better utilization of existing processes and tools, versus the integration of new ones, is the most efficient way to stay on a continuous improvement path.
How You Can Act Now:
- Consider projects completed in the last couple of years and ask if you truly optimized them. Are you using them to their full potential?
- Manual processes clearly indicate that more systems-related work needs to happen. Strive to streamline and automate these.
- Concerning software, talk to your provider, consultant, or internal Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) for leadership and insight on what you can further optimize.
John P. Peterson III, CPIM
Enterprise Solutions Consultant
John is a supply chain professional with more than 30 years of experience; 25 years focused on the service supply chain. In 20 years at Baxter Planning, he has leveraged his expertise and experience to drive Implementations, Consulting, and Planning engagements.
In his current Enterprise Solutions Consultant role, John serves as a subject matter expert providing technical demonstrations and solutions development in support of our sales team. He continues to do extensive work on independent inventory analysis projects, to date identifying over $1B in inventory optimization opportunity alongside the opportunity to reduce service misses due to inventory shortages by over 30%. In 2019, John was named as a Supply Chain “Pro to Know” by Supply Chain & Demand Executive magazine.
Certified in Planning and Inventory Management by ASCM (formerly APICS), The Association for Supply Chain Management, John has served on the Board of the Dallas and Austin, Texas ASCM (formerly APICS) chapters.
John lives in the Austin, Texas area with his wife, Lisa, with whom he has twin sons. He enjoys spending downtime motorcycling through the Texas Hill Country, drumming, and ‘glamping’ around Texas.
