Your Team is NOT Like a “Human Resource Machine”

Usually, I recommend a game to help you get in the appropriate mindset for change. This time, you can get in the right mindset by avoiding the game. If a programming game like “Human Resource Machine” sounds interesting, you may also be interested in a better way to “ask for more” from your teams.

Do You Like to Set-up a Hyper-Efficient System?

Human Resource Machine by Tomorrow Games is a puzzle game that also teaches programming concepts. Each level you have a problem and must use your 11 programming commands to solve the problem. You can do very simple things like add, subtract, save a number, count iterations. All of this is done with a little meeple running around the office and a delightful soundtrack (I am listening to it right now).

Are Your Game Rules Too Strict?

If the thought of programming in a constrictive environment with hyper-efficient goals — least lines, least steps — appeals to you, then this is your game. However, if this is your game, and you are a manager, you may also want to remember that:

• Your job is to Get Results while Retaining your People.
• Not all of your team members value extreme efficiency.
• Not everyone is willing to put in the extra effort into a process that no one sees.

A drive for hyper-efficiency indicates your desire to have a team that can get normal things done without a lot of effort. However, it does require effort not directly related to delivering something today, and that can seem distracting to your team.

Win by Letting your Team Define “Efficiency” and “Improvement”.

You can Win in this situation by leading your team to improve a little at a time. Making iterative change allows the team try change and see if it works. It also changes the game from chasing efficiency to making things better for your team.

If you want to challenge your team to work smarter by asking for more, then consider these Lean Kata questions in team meetings:

• What can we do better?
  • Where is a point in our process that is annoying?
  • What is happening?
  • What would we like to happen?
• How can you fix it?
  • What is one thing we can change for next time to make that better?
  • Who can do it?
  • When can we see it?
• What do you need from me?
  • What systems need to change for this to work?
  • Who do I need to talk to in order to facilitate this change?

If this works for your team, you can see more about Lean Kata here.

Rule book

Human Resource Machine

Human Resources Machine, Soundtrack

Lean Kata at Lean.org

Play “Blek” before you set a policy

Blek Shows Us How to Set-up for the Future.

Blek is a puzzle game that allows you to solve it it’s your own actions. Your motion — a swipe, a loop, a curl — is repeated over and over across the screen until you hit all of your objectives. Or, until you run into a barrier that absorbs your motion.

The Rule for Policies is to make them simple.

After you play Blek, you can see that broad sweeping gestures just get you into trouble in the third or fourth repetition. So too is it with organizational policies. A policy is a rule that guides the way we work. If you think a policy works for your immediate situation, you must look deeper. The policy will continue on even beyond your tenure and affect people whom you do not know in a variety of situations.

A Policy Wins when It Deals with the Intended Issues.

Consider these questions before setting a policy in your organization. • How will this policy affect the next situation? • How will this policy be viewed in the future when I am not here? • How flexible is this policy to accommodate change?

Rule book

The official web site for Blek

Bust a Move With Blek

To be a better manager, I play the game “Rules!” before I ask someone to take on a new responsibility.

Set-up as few rules as possible, or at least make them easy to remember.

Rules! is a timed stressor that I really do not enjoy, but I feel like I have to play it. I believe that is the rules-follower in me. As with my recent post on the game KAMI, please consider Rules! when you give work direction.

This totalitarian game begins with a simple request such as, “Tap numbers in descending order.” When you complete that, you are rewarded with a new rule like, “Tap all greens.” After you do that, you must complete rule #1, “…descending…” As before, success is rewarded with more responsibility, and you get rule #3, then rule #4, and so on. At about rule #5, you feel the time pressure and start to forget rules, “was it animals THEN greens?”

The Rule with Rules! is that there are too many Rules, except for Rule #1.

If you have the role power to compel someone to do work, you are a rule-maker. Even when you ask nicely, it sounds like a rule that everyone must follow (everyone that already follows you will follow your rules).

Rule #1: When you give someone more work, you are also responsible for making the space for that work.

The Effective Manger has two strategies for this:

• Tell them to choose something to stop doing.
• Help them to delegate a task.

The idea behind Rule #1 is that success should not be rewarded with overwork. It should be rewarded with responsibility, and efficiently managing work is part of that responsibility.

Also following the style of Rules!, the game. You need to execute Rule #1 after you complete all of your own tasks (rules) and you find that you have too much to do (too many rules) in order to be effective.

Win by creating ways to beat the rules.

Think of this situation, I have a variation of Rule #1 when someone asks, “When is a good time for a weekly project meeting?”

Whenever you make a recurring meeting, you must delete two others to give participants the space to prioritize your meeting.

Practically speaking, you can roll in some of the topics from the other meetings into the new meeting and then de-prioritize the other topics.

Rule book

Rules! Official web site

The Effective Manager

This game teaches us how to win through conformity

KAMI teaches us how to set-up a consistent cultural habit.

KAMI is another visually colorful yet simple game. The trick is to change the colors to all one color. Pick a color and a space, and all adjacent spaces of that same color will change to the new color. We can use this to consider how to manage change in our organizations.

The Rule for change is to change to something familiar.

KAMI forces us to learn to look ahead of the game to ask:

• “To what color do I need to move individual pockets?”
• “How do I connect like colors to make the most change?”

Let’s say that you have the following three habits among your teams. While they are not totally different, they are not exactly the same:

• Team A: Monthly report delivered in the FIRST week.
• Team B: Monthly report delivered in the SECOND week.
• Team C: Monthly report delivered on the LAST DAY of the month.

As the Big Boss, you want:

Monthly Report on my desk on the SIXTH DAY of the month (or the next Monday in case of a weekend).

That sounds reasonable to ask, but eventually difficult to put into practice. KAMI teaches us to ask all to align to one common theme.

“Team C, please delay your reports to the FIRST week, to align with Team A.”

“Team B, please deliver your reports earlier in the FIRST week, to align with Team A.”

Give your teams a few tries to align. Provide feedback as necessary. Once all teams are aligned together, you may then ask:

“All Teams, please align to the specific date of the SIXTH DAY to deliver your reports to my desk.”

This strategy Wins by creating common ground.

This method focuses your change story on alignment and consistency rather than right or wrong. Aligning to one standard gives everyone a common goal, and aligning to an existing habit makes it easier for some.

This method also allows you to stay with the aligned standard if you decide.  You may find that a consistent standard is just as good as YOUR consistent standard.

Rule book

KAMI web site: www.stateofplaygames.com/kami/