Focus
There is a limit to the amount of change that anyone can handle at one time. Individual changes, organizational changes, and more macro or global changes can fill up capacity. By integrating supply chain changes into operational strategy, material flow, and work and information flow, a SCOR process results in fewer but deeper projects that ultimately produce bigger and faster returns—in other words, a manageable amount of change designed to be measurable and meaningful.That's why the best part of a project is often the final review, where the design team presents its TO BE design, project list, and associated assumptions. To watch each team member speak to both strategy and tactics in the same conversation and understand the thread that ties it all together is worth the pain of the previous weeks.SCOR's disconnect analysis—the process of identifying, grouping, quantifying, and prioritizing issues or barriers inhibiting performance—is a self-discovery process that helps design and extended teams through the stages of resistance. When the design team sees problems that have existed for years and makes decisions to close those disconnects, resistance is replaced with a clear motivation to embrace still more change. As design team members lead the discussion based on what they think is wrong, denial is replaced with a shared vision. By this stage, there's a personal investment in solving the problem and finding a solution that works. The roadmap helps guide out of the box thinking via trial and error.In a slightly more roundabout way, that's where the lunchtime conversation ended at Fowlers as members of the design team started to think again about the work waiting for them at their desks. It was already mid-afternoon, and the day was winding down. The coach had a plane to catch. But even as team members started folding their napkins and pushing back from the table, there was a sense that the celebratory meal had not been the end of the project. It was merely the end of planning and design.Brian Dowell picked up the check, but David Able had the last word. As he stood up from the table, he announced to nobody and everybody, "I've got to get back. There are a couple of projects waiting to get started."