From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
I read, with interest, your description of the transition from a lead technician (S-I) to a supervisor (S-II). I find myself in the same situation. I was in a supervisory role (S-II) for the past six years, and now find myself in a managerial role (S-III), as a manager to a team of five supervisors, each with their own team. As a supervisor, when I struggled, I went to my manager. Now, I am the manager.

Response:
Not only are you, now, no longer doing the production work, you are no longer directly implementing the day to day, week to week or month to month production schedules, you are now a manager (S-III) of first-line managers (S-II).

You are still committed to two central questions, pace and quality, but your time orientation is, now, much longer. Yours is a system focus.

Take the concerns at S-II and change the outlook from 3-12 months to 12-24 months.

Team
S-II – Right technician assigned to the right project (3-12 months).
S-III – Build a team of technicians, accounting for the lead time from entry level to working competence, so, when a technician is needed, there is a competent team member ready to step in. Workforce planning (12-24 months).

Safety
S-II – Safe working environment, proper safety equipment (3-12 months)
S-III – Create systems of safety, begin with a prevailing mindset of safety. Create a safety curriculum, including policies, procedures, initial and recurrent training programs. Track those training programs to ensure that all personnel receive effective and appropriate training. Review safety metrics to adjust the safety program (system) to be continuously more effective. Review, recommend, approve and implement safety budgets for equipment, to ensure organizational competence to safety related matters (12-24 months).

Training
S-II – Right training for the right skill required by the project (3-12 months).
S-III – Identify necessary skills training, select appropriate training programs, both internal and outsourced. Assess the effectiveness (metrics) of those programs and adjust the training system (12-24 months).

Tools
S-II – Right tools used by the technicians required for the project (3-12 months).
S-III – Review, recommend and approve budgets and acquisition of appropriate (state of the art) tools, including capital budgets for equipment investments (12-24 months).

Materials
S-II – Right materials, in sufficient quantity, to be used for the project (3-12 months).
S-III – Material contracts with suppliers, negotiate favorable discounts and terms. Identifying critical order quantities, lead times and stock to meet production volume based on sales forecasts (12-24 months).

Equipment
S-II – Right equipment, in working order, properly maintained, to be used for the project (3-12 months).
S-III – Review, recommend and implement annual and capital budgets for equipment. Anticipate end-of-life for existing equipment, improvements in technology and capacity to meet production volume based on sales forecasts (12-24 months).

Work Environment
S-II – Conducive environment, proper lighting, working height (3-12 months).
S-III – Work flow layout, time and motion studies, sequence of production, system constraints and strategic constraint (12-24 months).

Coaching
S-II – Corrective feedback for mistakes and positive reinforment for performance (3-12months).
S-III – Conduct effective coaching 1-1s with supervisory team, model coaching sessions, set context. Ensure that supervisory team conducts effective coaching sessions with production team. Act as manager-once-removed to production team, review training, assess capability for advancement, set context.

All of these issues have long term impact on pace and quality. Your tools are no longer simple schedules and checklists, but work flow diagrams, schematics, time and motion studies, sequencing and planning.

As a supervisor (S-II), you relied on best-practice solutions to identified problems. As a manager (S-III) you will be asked to solve problems that have not been solved before. You will employ root cause or comparative analysis to examine difficult problems, to generate solutions based on cause and effect.

The value-add at this level of work is consistency and predictability. As a supervisor (S-II), it was your role to make sure that production was accurate, complete and on-time. As a manager (S-III), it is your role to ensure that the product or service is effectively delivered, AND that delivery was completed efficiently, yielding a reasonable (consistent and predictable) profit for the time, effort and resources required.

Welcome to the world at Stratum III. -Tom