We’re all engaged in a massive experiment we didn’t plan on running: what happens when we make our employees work remotely?
The scientific mindset—whether you call it Kata, or Plan-Do-Check-Act, or something else—directs you to first make a hypothesis, then run the experiment, and then check the results. Only in our COVID-19 world, we’re running the experiment (working remotely) without having made any hypothesis first about what would happen when pajamas become the default work clothes.
But that doesn’t mean we should abandon the PDCA cycle. In fact, we need it now more than ever. Sure, everyone is working through Zoom, but how well is our telecommuting actually working? Are people efficient? Are they effective? How are they handling the psychological load of staring into their computer screens eight or more hours per day?
I suggest that this is the perfect time to think about the following:
Interview a broad range of employees—different job functions, hierarchy levels, and ages—to get a good feel for how telecommuting is working (or not) and how it can be made better for individuals, their groups, and the company as a whole.
Check with HR, IT, Legal, and other back departments to make sure that everyone can do their jobs without jeopardizing their own well-being, or the company’s.
Find out what habits and approaches are working well for people, and which are burdensome. Are meetings better when everyone is on video, rather than mixed (some on video, some audio-only?) Is there a maximum meeting length beyond which people lose focus? Is there an ideal size for a group Zoom session?
What should your work hours be, now that people are no longer commuting 30-60 minutes each way?
Which work processes and workflows don’t work in a telecommuting environment? For that matter, which work processes and workflows are deadweight in any kind of environment? The elimination of in-person meetings is an ideal time to re-examine existing processes and improve them.
Donald Rumsfeld is famous for saying that you don’t go to war with the army you want; you go with the army you have. Similarly, this isn’t the telecommuting experiment you want, but it is the one you have—so it’s incumbent upon you to make the best of it by embracing scientific thinking.