After watching a few episodes of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares series, K pointed out to me that Ramsay pretty much follows a six sigma process for business improvement in every episode.  In case you’re not familiar with Six Sigma, it is essentially a formal process to follow to identify problems, implement changes and measure the effectiveness of these changes.

From wikipedia:

Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes.

Although six sigma is often thrown around the boardrooms of large corporations wanting to cut costs, the premise it is built on is very sound and can be applied to all small businesses with little more than a basic understanding of how it works.  The six sigma process follows five steps: Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control.

Define the problem (and not the symptom)

The first part of a six sigma process is to define the problem.  The first question Ramsay asks the would-be-restauranteurs is “what is the problem” and they invariably answer “not enough clients”.  No! This simple response just shows how many people confuse the symptom of a problem with the actual problem.  In Kitchen Nightmares, the problem is usually bad quality food, poor management, or lack of direction. “not enough clients” is the symptom, or result of one or many of these.  It is therefore vital that if you want to improve an aspect of your business that you carefully (and honestly) identify and define the actual problem before you continue.

Measure (how will you know you made a difference?)

You need to measure what the problem is causing, or the extent of the problem before you can asses if the changes you implement make a difference.  Kitchen Nightmares is primarily focused on restaurants, so Ramsay measures the effects of his changes by quantifying the number of covers a night, the amount of profit, people served, number of complaints, number of dishes sent back.  This is usually the second thing he asks, eg “how many people do you have booked for dinner?”.  For other businesses, you could measure number of visitors to your site, number of orders, number of conversions on a site, number of hourly phone calls etc. Remember to document these before continuing.

Gordon Ramsay analysing a Chef at work

Analyse the problem (and find some solutions!)

The analysis step is very important to the six sigma process. It is very important to analyse the process or system prior to implementing any changes to fully understand how the system is (or isn’t!) working.  You shouldn’t dive in with a solution without taking a good hard look at the problem, or you might be addressing the wrong one (“not enough clients” is not the problem remember?)  On the first night in Kitchen Nightmares, Ramsay always watches a dinner service in the background to analyse how the kitchen and staff run the business.

Make an improvement to the business

After analysing the process you can identify areas of improvement.  In Kitchen Nightmares Ramsay implements small changes to address the problems he picked up during the analysis part.  If the problem is slow service with dishes coming out hourly and the chef is competent but struggling with the variety of choice then an improvement would be cutting down the size of the menu and using simpler dishes.  For web based businesses, improvements could be cutting clutter on the site, implementing a call to action button on every page, using basic SEO techniques or offering part of your business for free.

Control the change (and make sure it sticks!)

The Control part of six sigma is to ensure the improvements you’ve implemented stay and you don’t revert back to your old ways.  In Kitchen Nightmares, the control part is often overlooked however Ramsay often implements it through a variety of ways, including bringing in a consultant chef for a period of time to supervise, or simply by encouraging the owners to change ways.  Unfortunately, some stubborn owners who are reluctant to change slip back into their old ways rather quickly.

So there you have it, the next time you want to change something in your business or improve a process, have a look at Kitchen Nightmares and follow the steps Ramsay makes.

Image credit

Kitchen Nightmares

I must admit I’m a little bit into Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares series on TV and have been watching an episode a night for a while.  Apart from a thoroughly entertaining and confronting show, there are also great business lessons hidden throughout.
As I watch, I make note of the key reasons each business has failed and the techniques that Ramsay introduces to make them work.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are only a few reasons these restaurants are failing.

Keep it simple

Many of the restaurants were failing because their menus were too big, one even had over 180 items! Ramsay’s first task was to cut this down to less than half.

As well as being difficult to prepare, an overcomplicated and large menu means there is less chance for consistency and quality.

I’ve taken these lessons on board, in my Digital signage business we’ve reduced the number of systems we offer to facilitate production.  In AutoCarLog, I’ve reduced the number of packages to reduce confusion.

Find what the market wants, change, and give it to them

In many cases the restaurant was an extension of the owner or chef’s ego, who refused to change.  And in many cases the restaurant had completely lost touch with what their market wanted – and they wondered why they had no customers!

With Crystal we’re about to launch a very exciting new product which we believe will go crazy, but before we do, we’re going to conduct an extensive market survey.  We want to know if the market really wants it, how best to position it in the market and how best to sell it to the market.  At the end of the day, we’re not selling to our selves, so our opinions don’t really matter!

Set and maintain high standards

It goes without saying that fresh food is one of the cornerstones of the restaurant industry, yet many of the “nightmares” had this as a common problem.

To have high standards in a business, you first have to set them and then you have to maintain and manage them.  I’ve thrown myself in to systemising my business where I document every little process.  This is a very effective method to ensure the high standards we set are consistently reached and maintained.

Now I wonder what I can learn from Iron Chef…

Image credit

Hammer

• http://www.dropbox.com
  Drop box is a great file sharing service and is elegant in it’s implementation. Each user connected to your dropbox “sees” the same folder on their desktop. They can manipulate files directly and when they save, all other users files are automatically updated.
• http://www.google.com/calendar/
  I use google calendar a lot.  I share it with people I work with so that they always know where I am and I can check in what my staff are doing.  You can even sync it with most desktop applications and smartphones.
• http://www.google.com/analytics
  Google analytics is a fantastic free service to monitor traffic on your site(s).  There is a great tool within it that allows you to monitor how people navigate through your site.
• http://www.skype.com
  Skype is VOIP (Voice Over IP) made easy, video and phone chat over the internet.  I use Skype and GoogleTalk when I want to have a face-to-face with someone and can’t directly visit them in person.
• https://www.zoho.com/
  A swathe of tools, the one I’ve just started using is their project management tool.  A friend of mine (who lives on the other side of Australia in Perth) and I are collaborating on a Twitter project and are using this to share ideas
• http://www.business-widgets.net (public site coming soon)
  My own set of tools, starting with my CRM (CRAM) and building on this with a custom built finance application.  But there are a heap of CRM systems out there, mine is due for public release shortly.
• http://www.dimdim.com/
  When ever I need to give a presentation or demo of a piece of software to someone quickly in a remote location I setup a DimDim meeting. I can share my desktop with them, setup video conferencing and take them through an application.  It’s great for post sale support too and the best thing it’s free and web-based.

What tools do you use?

Photo credit

I’m pretty excited to be shortlisted for Australia’s Most Inspiring Young Engineer by the body of Engineers in Australia.  Below is an extract from the press release:

Young Engineers Australia put out a call late last year for Australia’s Most Inspiring Young Engineers, as part of the 2010 Year of Engineering Leadership.

“We are looking for motivated, inspirational engineers who display technical excellence, creativity or innovation; exceptional leadership or mentorship; or have made an outstanding contribution to the profession or society. The search will highlight the breadth of talent of Australia’s young engineers and celebrate their achievements.”

*snip*

Young Engineers Australia is pleased to announce the shortlist for the list of Australia’s Most Inspiring Young Engineers:

• Andrew Bagnall
• Andrew Botros
• Ashley Kingsborough
• Darren Loman
• Jillian Kilby
• Julian O’Shea
• Kathryn Smith
• Kim Axworthy
• Kimberley Clayfield
• Michael D’Onofrio
• Rachel Ann Coxon
• Salma Farouque
• Sebastian Eckersley-Maslin
• Steven Lindsay
• Suzanne Morris

source: http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/yea/inspiring/

I find out in a few weeks if I’ve been selected, and I’m heading up to the awards night in Brisbane.

One of the perils I’ve learned about blogging is that even on a modest site like this one, you get inundated with SPAM comments.  Fortunately I’ve got a few good filters running and all comments are moderated prior to publishing.

Most of the SPAM are just lists of links, but every now and then there’s one that makes me chuckle:

Hi Guys , my name is Ducky

It’s such a awesome forum that you have here, keep up the first-rate work

I would like to share on of the tips from my blog with you,

Blogging Tip # 2: Proofread.

A great deal of typos and grammatical errors will make your visitor close your web page. Tons of people today use a hard time with reading as its, and errors can just add to their confusion. Hold your posts as grammatically correct as feasible, and preserve it polished and neat.

Well “Ducky” you caught my attention (and made me laugh) with your comment – was that a not-so-subtle hint?  May I suggest you proof read your blogging tip first, as I am “using a hard time with reading as its” too.