1. Introduction to the Vanguard Method in People Centred Services Joanne Gibson Brendan O’Donovan

2. The Vanguard Method Intervention Theory Systems Theory
Talked through systems theory as all one system but to stay sane find your boundary. Linked to Purpose and control, influence and Victim
Thinking Systems Performance = Unlearn ReLearn

3. Changing management thinking
Purpose is to move the organisation
from this….
to this….
Changing management thinking
Command and Control Thinking
The Vanguard Method
Some fundamental principles:
Design – when I talk about design versus demand ,value flow then talk about nominal value – roadside resturant example
Measures – talk about Purpose -Measures Method –use next 2 slides
Role of management – do John Washing machine repair man – Deming 95%:5%
Top-down, hierarchy
Perspective
Outside-in, system
Functional specialisation
Design
Demand, value and flow
Separated from work
Decision-making
Integrated with work
Targets, standards, service levels; Relate to budget
Designed against purpose; demonstrate variation
Measures
Contractual
Attitude to customers
What matters…..?
Contractual
Attitude to suppliers
Co-operation, mutuality
Make #s + manage people
Role of management
Act on the system
Extrinsic (carrot & stick)
Motivation
Intrinsic
Reactive, projects, by plan
Approach to change
Adaptive, integral, emergent
Control
Ethos
Learning

4. Measures must be derived from purpose
Otherwise you’ll have a de facto purpose….
“Manage the queues,
meet the targets +
keep the Leader happy”
“Pay the right people the right money”
Purpose
E2E time to right decision
Number right decisions
Measures
“Max. wait 15 minutes”
Find & act on causes of variation
“Give out forms, take in documents, golden tickets”
Method

5. How do we change our thinking?
Coercive
Rational
Normative
Explanation –v-
Exploration
How does it happen?
Is being told something enough for us to believe it? Eg the earth is round? Sometimes, if our thinking is already that way inclined.
Otherwise, we usually need to have an experience of something that changes our norms/beliefs. A Normative Experience. Helps us to see and feel things from a different perspective.
Normative experience example: Will in Ford – workers ignored the printed hand-out of the work flow and replaced it with their own, hand-drawn, pen version.
Research shows that the pen is mightier than the keyboard. Typing notes of a lecture is mindless transcription and student show less conceptual recall than those who write by hand and synthises and select what they right. Like the difference between transactional and relational?
Tell me and I will forget
Show me and I may remember
Involve me and I will understand
Attributed to Xun Kuang, Chinese Confucian philosopher 312–230 BC

6. Thinking Governs Performance
SYSTEMS THEORY
Thinking Governs Performance
Thinking
Underlying Assumptions?
“See patient in 8 minutes”
“Everybody seen in 4 hours”
“13 weeks to see a consultant”
System
Performance
Consequences?

7. Check Do Plan Change must be based on knowledge, not opinion
Get knowledge:
How do our current assumptions affect performance?
Check
Make normal:
How do we make this normal and sustainable?
Experiment:
Do different assumptions lead to improved performance? Do
Plan
Without Valid Data (Check) we have assumptions about the problems.
Without Experimentation (Plan) we have assumptions about the solutions.

8. The Vanguard model for ‘check’
What is the purpose (in customer terms)? 1
Thinking 6 C U S T O M E R
System Conditions 5
Flow : Value work + Waste 4
Capability of response 3
Demand : T + F, V + F
What matters? 2

9. Digging up…

10. Case Study: Housing benefits (From Seddon J and O’Donovan B, 2013, ‘The Achilles’ heel of scale service design in social security administration‘ International Social Security Review, Vol. 66, 1/2013)

11. What you learn from Check
What do customers want?
“Can I make a claim?”
“My circumstances have changed”

12. What’s the purpose? What Matters..? Pay me the right money
“I get an answer quickly so that I know whether or not I’m going to get help”
“Make it easy for me”
“Deliver payments quickly so that I don’t get hassle from my landlord or the CTax department”

13. Workers’ activity ‘managed’
Learning to see HB as a System
Multiple Sorts & Checks
Cases fragmented
Scanning/Indexing errors
“I want to claim”
64% passed back
Manage queues
34%V 66%F
Sort
Scan
Index
Hand out forms
Take in documents
Handoff
22%V 78%F HO
44%V 56%F
Workers’ activity ‘managed’
Allocate
1-10 cycles to clean (ave.4)
95% cases over-specified
20% docs. duplicated HO
99% claims ‘dirty’
No case ownership
CTax fragmentation
Letters unclear
87%
Decide HO HO HO
Pay
Notify
Inspect
0-152 days to pay
3% visit once
60% errors
Rework

14. Current operating principles:
It’s ok to handover information unclean
We work in functions and specialise the task
It’s ok to do waste work
We keep the people with expertise removed from the customer
We measure activity and control our staff
We check quality
We decide what’s important to the customer
It’s ok to ask for more information than we need

15. Exercise: Why do managers like targets?
Questioning assumptions
Exercise: Why do managers like targets?
Thinking
What are our assumptions?
How do they affect the system?
What are the consequences?
System
Single loop and double loop in VM
Also linked to PPI, Assumptions, actions, consequences
Linked to M4C as method for ensuring challenge to assumptions
Performance

16. The Vanguard Method in People Centred Services Course starting at Kingston University in May Contact