George Herbert wrote:
This is a common operations problem - it's hard to
say "we need to
slow down" when people start screaming that problem reports or issues
requiring resolution are backing up and not getting dealt with in a
timely manner.
It is, as far as I know, practically impossible to significantly slow
down operational responses in the process of resolving structural
issues. It's almost always easier to make structural changes in a
nondestructive in-line manner, and work to diminish the inflow of
requests.
This is one of those organization-destroying growth phases, like the
"founder needs to hire a management team now and stop trying to do it
all directly himself" growth phase and the "we need to formalize
process now" phase. You have to figure out how to respin the process
and policy in flight, or you tend to fall down and implode.
That's very well put.
When I deal with this problem with clients, one option we look at is
temporary help. Is there some way we could alleviate the problem enough
in the short term to give people the space to find long-term solutions?
William
--
William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri