Executive Pastor Online tagged 'Infrastructure Development'

Infrastructure Development � A Simple Example

kevin@moviechurch.com — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 05:00:00 +0100

I've expended a lot of my blog energy, over my more than a year as a blogger, on the topic of Infrastructure Development. I've written about what it is, how to do it, and why it's important. Developing infrastructure boils down to deciding how to do something, committing it to writing (the Management System), and continuously improving the method through revising policies, procedures, work instructions, forms, etc. That's it.

But, why is this so critical to church growth and the accomplishment of the mission? In order to grow, the church must be very good at connecting people to ministry teams that "run the business." In all areas of the church people must easily get connected and deployed in one service area or another. If deploying a new volunteer takes a significant amount of effort, either by the staff member or key volunteer leader, the number of volunteers that are connected over time will be fewer. And, the lack of ability to rapidly grow the volunteer base will ultimately slow the growth of the church overall.

Last Sunday I had a real example of this that I thought I would share. In our operations area we have several teams that take care of everything from parking cars to changing light bulbs. One of those teams is responsible for putting directional signs out to help new comers find our site. Not that our site is hard to find necessarily; we have just found over the years that having signs out raises the awareness of people that we are having services and that new comers are always welcome.

Anyway, the guy scheduled to put the signs out that morning called me to let me know, due to some back trouble, he wouldn't be able to take care of it. I said, "No problem. We'll take care of it. You take care of your back." I'm thinking this isn't a problem because this is one "task" that has been documented in the form of a Work Instruction. All I need is to find someone that is willing, give them the procedure and keys to the church truck and off they go. It didn't turn out to be that simple, though.

The volunteer came back 5 minutes later and asked if he could borrow my cell phone. I said no problem ... why do you need it? He said that he needed to stay on the phone (his battery was dead) with the guy scheduled to get the job done that morning because the procedure was "nowhere near accurate."

Nice.

I loaned him my phone which allowed him to be verbally walked through the route and the placement of signs. I thought to myself, "Nice try man." How simple it could have been had our "documented procedure" just been accurate.

Dashboard - Measuring Results

kevin@moviechurch.com — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

I've blogged before on the topic of measuring results. In my article on the Performance Cycle I discuss it in the context of everything else when it comes to leading the church in the accomplishment of the mission.

I have been asked lately about how to actually capture results and put them into a format that is readily available to staff and easy to read and interpret.

We use what we refer to as the Stat Sheet. It is e-mailed to the staff each week on Monday or Tuesday and contains just about anything you could possibly want. We also publish and review KPMs (Key Performance Measures) each month that put the data in graphical form. I have found that looking at data in graphical form makes it easier to actually learn something from the information. The Stat Sheet might be considered more of a dashboard, but both are needed and very helpful.

If you would like a copy of either our Stat Sheet or KPMs, send me an e-mail and I'll hook you up.

Solving the Supply Replenishment Challenge

kevin@moviechurch.com — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:00:00 +0100

A continuous challenge in the growing church is making sure every area has what it needs at all times in terms of supplies. You know ... paper towels, cleaning materials, paper, and the myriad of other items required to sustain the ministry week to week. Have you ever sent someone to the convenience store on Sunday morning (right before the service starts) for AA batteries? Or how about running out of grape juice during the 2nd of 3 services?

Every ministry, no matter the size, has a continuous need for supplies. And, just like any other area of church operations a system has to be developed and implemented that ensures that supplies are stocked and replenished as needed. In the manufacturing industry, where this is also an on-going challenge, implementation of a Reorder Point Based Supply System has been the solution.

It's pretty simple really. When the amount of supply (grape juice, batteries, paper, pens, diapers, baby wipes, crayons, etc.) gets to a pre-established quantity (reorder point) a demand signal is generated and the supply is replenished.

The simplest way to implement your own Reorder Point Based Supply System is to establish a location in your facility you'll call the stockroom. Equip the stockroom with shelving upon which you will place containers (plastic bins, boxes, etc.) to hold the supply items. The size of the container is determined by the size of the item and the amount of the item stocked at the maximum. (I'll explain how to determine this a little later.) The container is then labeled and a card is created with the same label to go along with the container. An individual (staff member or volunteer) is then assigned to go through the stockroom on the same day each week (Monday or Tuesday?) to look at each container to determine if the Reorder Point (ROP) has been reached. If it has, the card is "pulled" and given to the individual responsible for ordering supplies. The other thing that individual does on that day of the week is open newly received supplies from the previous week and put them in their designated container. It's as simple as that.

All that is left is to establish 3 very important variables: ROP, Order Quantity, and Stock Quantity. The ROP is calculated based on the usage. Basically, you have to make sure more supply is ordered and received before you run out. Let's take AA batteries for example. If your church has 10 wireless microphones, each using 2 AA batteries per week, the usage (assuming this is the only place AA batteries are used in your church) is 20 AA batteries per week. If it takes 2 weeks total time from order placement to receipt and restock to get more batteries, then you must generate your "demand signal" when you reach 40 (at a minimum) batteries left in stock. The ROP is of course 40.

The Order Quantity is determined item by item. It's a combination of how the particular item is ordered (each, box, sleeve, case, etc.), the usage, and how frequently you want to order it. Let's use our batteries as an example again. Batteries are usually sold in a package and the larger the package the lower the price. So, let's say we are going to order batteries by the "package." The next thing to consider is the usage. In this case we use 20 batteries per week. If we only want to order batteries once per month, then our order quantity is going to be a minimum of 80 (4 weeks x 20 batteries). The 80, of course, can be 8 packages of 10, 4 packages of 20, etc. This decision is based on best cost and availability.

I said I would address how to determine the size of the container earlier in this article. By now it should be pretty obvious to most. You have to base the size of the container on the Stock Quantity ... the maximum amount of stock, worst case. Sticking with the batteries ... if an order is placed when the stock is down to 40 and the order quantity is 80, the container should be sized to hold 120 batteries at a maximum. You might be thinking, "But the original 40 are gone by the time the 80 are received, so why not size the container for 80 instead of 120." This is a good question especially if space is limited in your stockroom. But what if things don't go exactly according to plan? For example, after the ROP is reached and an order is placed, weekend services are canceled due to the weather and the usage drops. Or the amount of microphones normally used on a Sunday is reduced to only one for some reason. The point is that things don't always go according to plan. And, the last thing you want is to receive a bunch of batteries and not have anywhere to put them. (Reference my article entitled A Place For Everything ... And Everything In Its Place.)

If you're really thinking this through, you've probably already observed that the opposite could happen as well ... usage could increase. What if you get a bad batch of batteries and they don't last as long, or more services are planned for a particular 2 week period? Obviously the ROP is reached faster which results in an order being placed sooner. If the increase in usage continues, the supply of AA batteries could run out before the new batteries are received. There are a number of ways to approach this situation, but my experience has told me that establishing an adjustment percentage is a good way to go. For example, the ROP of 40 could be increased to 50 to improve the system's ability to handle changes in demand.

Once the system is implemented it is continuously evaluated and quantities are adjusted. Like many other systems, tweaking and adjustment is required over time.

Give it a try, make adjustments, and watch your supply issues go away!

A Place For Everything ... And Everything In Its Place

kevin@moviechurch.com — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:00:00 +0100

The more I do this job, the more I realize that much of what I've learned over my years in corporate applies to managing the church. "Doing church" each weekend is a lot about logistics. You know ... having everything you need, where you need it, when you need it. Pulling this off, though, in a multi-purpose facility is difficult to say the least. Over time, everything gets shuffled and before you know it, you are stifled by the clutter and inefficiency.

In the manufacturing industry not only is efficiency important, high quality is a concern. It's difficult to build high quality products in a cluttered, inefficient environment. Enter the concept of "a place for everything and everything in its place."

It's really pretty simple. Everything that it takes to build a product (materials, tools, fixtures, equipment, etc.) has a designated location, and nothing that is not needed is allowed to be at the workstation. Sounds pretty simple, right?

While I was a Plant Manager in Mexico, I used to go down to the production floor and "rifle through" the various workstations (drawers, shelves, etc.). I remember being amazed at the amount of "stuff" that would accumulate. In some cases it was just due to the employee at the workstation being a "pack rat." Correcting this was a matter of setting expectations and accountability.

The more difficult situations were those where an employee was trying to get the job done and leadership hadn't provided them with what they needed. In this case, a place for everything they needed to get the job done wasn't provided. They, therefore, stuffed it in a drawer or otherwise "found a place" for it.

I've learned over and over that people will find a way to get the job done. They will find a way, despite the obstacles, to get done what you are asking of them. The challenge is that most of the time we as their leaders don't like the way they've found to "work around" the obstacles. If you put them in a situation where they are expected to create an exciting, dynamic production every Sunday without space to store props, supplies, and equipment they will get it done anyway and end up stuffing things in every available space.

To illustrate my point I'll describe the exercise I am now leading our staff through. Due to lack of financial resources and our insistence that "the ministry come first" we built a building that has very little if any storage space. In fact, it doesn't even have enough office space for our staff. We did this for the right reasons, but the result is not very pleasant. In fact, we were "busted" pretty seriously by our local Fire Marshal during a recent inspection for having "stuff" crammed everywhere!

So, as I've always found to be the case, our staff is doing what is necessary to get their jobs done. You've got to admire their tenacity. Unfortunately there is "stuff" everywhere.

The solution? As leaders we must evaluate the real need for equipment and supplies and provide "a place for everything." In our case, this means offsite storage. It's interesting. Making a decision not to provide proper storage space in a building is only a decision to increase operating costs through storage space rental. In other words, it really doesn't save money. The space is needed regardless and storage space isn't free.

Once a place for everything has been established and communicated, it's necessary to instill the discipline of putting "everything in its place." I hear it all the time, "Do we really have to put that in storage? I'm going to need it in 2 weeks." Where are you going to put it for the 2 weeks it's not needed? I can tell you. It will be leaned up against the back of the building outside and never be put in storage. Before you know it, it's rusted (or otherwise damaged) and has to be replaced. The staff has to get used to the idea that they are going to have to use the 6 days between Sundays to go to and from storage as needed to prepare for the coming weekend.

Of course a vehicle has to be provided and the storage space has to be organized in such a way as to make everything easy to store and retrieve. Again, this costs money and takes time.

A place for everything and everything in its place is an operational must!