Exemplars of Top 10 Most Effective Tools in the Social Dimension

1

Organised site visits to other

units/departments to learn from their work

practices

 Intra site visits that were compulsory and one gets to know other units’ practice. In these instance the units were service centres in different regions. Hence there were all types of benchmarking done here (Informant 62)

 Similar function visit led to new practice discovered. These were visits specifically targeted to learn how to perform a certain function at the department level (Informant 73)

2

Met face-to-face with an external supplier and learnt of their work

practices

 Learnt from the industry practice of an experienced suppler. In this case the supplier had vast experience in data communications and shared how he performed service and integrated solutions for customers. This gave the learner new approaches to serve his own customers (Informant 10)

 Involved technology transfer when supplier teaches how to use an integrated solution for which the practice could be shared with other colleagues (Informant 10)

3

Attachment to other units/departments to learn from their work

practices

 Learnt deeply about the processes, functions and strategies through dialogues and attending meetings (Informant 18)

 Most effective was the shadowing of an expert or experience person performing his job and gleaning from the tacit know-how (Informant 18)

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Taking part in external best-practice sharing

event/activity and learning from the best

practices of other organisations

 Contributed and benefited from mutual sharing of best practices in one day “training seminars” conducted 3 times a year amongst similar service centres (Informant 62)

 Experimented with new practice learnt to see if it worked. Some did and became full-fledged benchmarking contracts. Some didn’t work and were dropped. One was very successful and helped the learner in her writing of a book (Informant 75 & 77)  Formation of best practice groups because of

common areas while learning from the best in class (Informant 5)

 Others wanted to ride on your best practice so that sparked an enlargement and promotion of your organisation, and those benchmarkers opening you to sharpen your current practice (Informant 3 & 5)  Sharing is triggered by incidents, stories about

successes and failures between CEOs (Informant 60)

5

Met face-to-face with an internal customer and learnt of their work

practices

 Discovered a superior method of presenting an argument when discussion a project with another department (Informant 20)

 requested for a template and examples in projects from another unit (Informant 31)

 Improved an approach to a process/problem while doing a live presentation and obtaining live feedback (Informant 3)

6

Met face-to-face with an internal supplier and

learnt of their work practices

 Technology transfer while speaking with the chief technology officer to improve practices & solution presentation when dealing with customers (Informant 10)

 Discussion with multiple parties to iron out internal process of approval from bureaucratic finance department so innovation does not get stumbled and profits go up (Informant 10)

7 Participated in business excellence

 Learnt many different techniques and approaches while assessing others (Informant 77)

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and incidentally learnt from the work practices

of other

 Learnt the rationale for policy and procedure (Informant 77)

 The assessor asked questions and in the process of answering one improves the work practice, in addition to being pointed out by the assessor practices and procedures that needed to be changed (Informant 27

 The audits kept one on his toes to ensure “the house is tidy” and industry standards are met at all times (Informant 75)

 The yearly assessments and audits results shared across various organisations enable one to learn how others do things better than you (Informant 20)  Audits and assessments drive one to want to benchmark with other similar agencies (Informant 60 & 63)

8

Consulted with a mentor/expert inside

your organisation to learn from the work practices of other units/departments

 Expert shared on a new software and how to exploit it to technologise and streamline a certain process (Informant 27)

 Internal mentors/experts were listed for employees to consult when they encounter an issue (Informant 27)

 Use of an internal consultant to improve processes and functions on a consistent basis. These were quality teams, innovation team project leaders, or lean & black belts (Informant 16, 60 & 73)

9

Regular face-to-face discussions with colleagues of other units/departments to learn from their work

practices

 Helped to understand “impact on other depts.” when certain practices were enforced so that steps to mitigate harm could be taken (Informant 16)

 Helped to understand other depts. business processes to improve one’s processes (Informant 16)

 Casual conversations with other colleagues were much more effective face-to-face to understand their circumstance in order to customise a quality improvement program that suit them (Informant 60)

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 Spoke with colleagues about issues and roadblocks to implementing a certain procedure or practice in engaging outside customers (Informant 31)

10

Regular face-to-face discussions with associates of other organisations to learn

from their work practices

 Always making it a practice to ask associates for best practices and success stories and failures in order to learn from them (Informant 3 & 5)

 Informal powerful sharing amongst marketers at a conference or event when technology transfer and tacit knowledge flow abounds (Informant 5, 10, 16, 60, 73 & 77)

 Getting feedback on a product presentation (Informant 3)

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