Tools & Methods

Creating a Brown Paper a Practical Guideline

Tools & Methods / By

Creating a Brown Paper a Practical Guideline and Presentation Slide Show

This post includes a presentation on how a Brown Paper workshop can be run – it explains what a Brown Paper is and how to ‘create’ one in a workshop setting.

General Guidelines for a Brown Paper Exercise

  • In identifying which processes to ‘brown-paper’ consider what information you would like to get from the exercise as well as clearly defining the beginning and ending points of the process – the scope of the activity is important.
  • Start at a suitable level – usually departmental to start with. Gain experience before mapping going to larger scale.
  • Select those people who know the most about the process – the process-owners or the people who do the work day-to-day. These people are the true experts in how the job is done and through the thousands of everyday interactions and activities they do have a deep knowledge of what works and where the problems are.
  • Also include those people who are key interface points into and out of the process the ‘customers’ of what the process delivers or suppliers of what the process consumes.
  • The accuracy of the BP must be verified, both by the owners of the process and those impacted by the process.
  • Bringing in more people from the organization also increases awareness of the BP activities, builds buy-in, and begins to develop better interdepartmental knowledge and teamwork.
  • Evaluating the BP begins by looking at the process flow as a whole & studying individual components. Asking what this process component achieves and whether it adds value to the sum total.
  • At this point we can now make judgments and suggest ideas on the strengths and opportunities inherent the process. What is this BP telling us about how we carry out this task?

The BP also serves as a presentation tool to convey findings, strengths, opportunities, and ideas for process improvements. It is a wonderful tool to explain what is going on in an organisation and even better when explained by those whose day-to-day job is to carry out the process.

Tool Kit Brown Paper

Download a PDF of this post here: Toolkit-RACICharting

The Means-Ends Problem Solving Technique

Tools & Methods / By

MEA (Means-Ends Analysis) is an a approach that puts together aspects of both forward and backward reasoning in that both the condition and action portions of rules are considered when we decide which rules to apply. The logic of the process takes into account the gap between the current situation and the desired goal – where we wish to get to and proposes actions in order to close the gap between the two.

The method uses a set of rules that enable the goal to be achieved iteratively. The rules consist of two parts: rules that are prerequisites and ones that show the changes to be implemented.

MEA works by considering the present position as the current state and the objective as the goal state. The differences between the desired and the goal state are considered and actions are proposed that reduce the ‘gap’ between the initial and desired states.

Since the process is working from the current state towards a goal it is said to be doing forward chaining which implies a search strategy and a procedure that regards goal achievement as success – or if the outcome of a sub-goal is failure a new search is begun (or the process terminates as not possible).

Consider the following examples.

  1. In a travel problem the current state and the goal state are defined by physical locations where we are now and where we have to get to.
  2. In an assembly problem such as an IKEA flat pack the current state and the goal state are defined by the raw materials lying in a heap along with instructions on the floor and the finished product in your kitchen.

Aunt Agatha and the invite to tea

Aunt Agatha lives in Brighton and has invited me to tea this afternoon – she has a lot of money which she may leave to me which is actually a longer term goal for this journey. I am sitting in my office in London and need to decide how to get to Brighton.

Now there are lots of ways to do this: train, car, bus, on foot, private jet or roller blades but I subject myself to the following cost constraints:

  • I must arrive at Brighton today within three hours
  • The journey must cost no more than $100
  • Any distance less than one mile must be walked

To begin this process I consider the available means against my constraints and decide on taking the train via Victoria to Brighton. To do this I need to leave my office and travel to the main station at Victoria which is a new goal.

To get to Victoria I can walk, take a taxi, bus or go by underground. Because of time constraints and cost I decide to take the underground to Victoria – this becomes a new sub goal. The nearest tube station being less than one mile away I walk

On arrival at the station I find the line is down due to a breakdown (goal failure). I can return on foot to get my car to drive to Brighton but this moves me away from my goal on cost and distance. I decide to take the bus to Victoria which becomes a new goal and as the distance is less than one mile I walk to the bus station.

I take the bus to Victoria alight and walk to the station office and purchase a ticket to Brighton. At Brighton I have to get to Agatha’s house – I can use the Bus, Taxi or Walk. As the distance is less than one mile I walk and arrive at Aunt Agatha’s house the end goal.

Just then my cell phone rings with a message and it’s Aunt Agatha, ‘I hope you don’t mind but I forgot I have to be in London today perhaps we can make it next week…’ Arghhhhhhhh!!!

Some problems for you to solve…

Vicars and Tarts

There are 3 Vicars and 3 Tarts and a boat on one side of a river and the church on the other. How can the 6 of them get across the river for morning prayers in the boat subject to the following constraints?

  1. There must be at least one person in the boat
  2. There cannot be more than two people in the boat at any time
  3. There cannot be more Tarts than Vicars on either bank otherwise the tarts will take advantage the vicars and commit original sin.

Three coins

Three coins lie on a table in the order tails, heads, and tails. In precisely three moves make them face either all heads or all tails.

How to Organize Your Home Office by Jennifer Mattern

TipDrop / By

When you work from a home office, you automatically put yourself at risk for greater distractions than if you worked in a typical office environment. You may have to deal with the distractions of children, pets, your spouse, neighbours, radio, television, and your refrigerator. Don’t let home office clutter be added to the list! Having a messy or cluttered home office will do nothing more than add to your stress load and make you less productive.

Organizing your home office doesn’t have to be hard.

Here’s How:
1. Planning – Make a list of your biggest home office organization problems. Do you have piles of papers that need to be sorted, trashed, or filed? Do you have general garbage surrounding you (such as drink bottles, old magazines, etc.)? Do you have disks or CDs everywhere with files and programs that you need? Do you have a problem finding a pen or paper clip when you need one? Can you easily reach your files when you need them? You can’t start to organize your home office if you don’t identify your problem areas first.

2. Remove Trash – Trash should be the first thing you deal with once you jump into organizing your home office. If you see something that you don’t want or need, or that you can completely do without, just trash it! This could include anything from drink bottles to old copies of trade magazines to junk mail. If you’re not sure about something, ask yourself “Will I honestly need, or use, this a month or two from now?” If not, get rid of it. Make sure you have a trash can in your office at all times. If you don’t have one already, buy one so you don’t feel tempted to let trash accumulate again.

3. Filing – Find a box, bin, or even a shelf where you can put all of your „to be filed’ items. Take any loose papers you find, and place them there for the time being. Then look at your filing cabinet or drawer (if you don’t have one, now would be a good time to purchase one). Do you have your folders well organized? Do you need to create more? Work on neatening up your filing system in general, and then set aside a few hours, or even a full day, to file any papers you added to your „to be filed’ pile.

4. Digital Storage Media – If you have floppy disks, zip disks, or CDs lying around, it’s time to give them a home. Disks can be stored in plastic containers, and CDs are often best stored in binders. While you can store CDs in several ways, binders are ideal for the home office, because you can organize and move them easily, as well as being able to add adhesive tabs to binder pages for labeling.

5. Scheduling – Always keep your schedule and deadlines in front of you. When you work at home, you have to work extra hard to prove your credibility, so missing an important deadline isn’t an option. Keep a planner or PDA with you at all times. Additionally, keep a large wall calendar near your desk, so you can view general deadlines at a glance.

6. Finding Space – By this point, you should be left with only what’s necessary for you to work (and possibly a few personal items). Find a place
where you can permanently keep your writing utensils, printer paper, binders, and everything else you need on a daily basis. When you finish using something, get into the habit of putting it back there.

7. Organizing Your Computer – If your general home office space is cluttered and unorganized, chances are that your computer files are in disarray as well. You’ll find that you can work more productively if you don’t have to search for where you saved files. Simply delete anything you no longer need, clear any unnecessary icons off of your desktop area, and organize your computer’s file folders in a similar manner to your hard files.

8. Finishing Up – Once your home office area is organized, you should take some time to vacuum or sweep, wipe down your computer, monitor, mouse, and keyboard with a little bit of rubbing alcohol, and wash your desk. Touch up your cleaning every few days to help force you into the habit of keeping your home office clutter-free.

What you’ll need:

1. Trash can
2. Filing cabinet and folders
3. Cases for computer disks
4. Binder for CD storage
5. Planner or PDA
6. Wall calendar
7. Bottle of rubbing alcohol
8. Clean cloth
9. Spray cleaner for your desk
10. Time Tips:

  • Once your home office is organized and clean, touch it up frequently so clutter doesn’t re-accumulate.
  • Go digital wherever possible. File emails and documents on your computer in digital form, rather than printing everything out for paper files.
  • Only use rubbing alcohol for your monitor, mouse and keyboard. Other chemicals can damage them.

By Jennifer Mattern: I own a small PR firm and work part-time as a freelance business writer. I also run over a dozen websites and blogs including AllFreelanceWriting.com, BizAmmo.com, AllBookMarketing.com, and NakedPR.com