I’ve worked in and with quite a few supply chain teams. I’ve worked with small teams, large ones, from old companies and new ones; yet none of those factors actually affect a team’s “busyness.” More importantly, an extremely busy team is not always a very productive one. When I was running Supply Chain 360 assessments for several manufacturing businesses in Iowa, one team in particular was so busy it was hard for them to find an hour to talk to me. When I did my assessment, I found they were spending almost 100% of their time chasing down invoices with no purchase order, no history, and often no description on who on the field team purchased what. They were exceedingly busy, but nothing they were doing was moving the business forward and very little of it was even procurement activity.
In contrast, another manufacturer was running a surprisingly sophisticated procurement team and still felt calm and collected. They were proactively running bids and working through their categories, my largest contribution was to point them in the direction of contracts to better cover their risk profile. Their stakeholders knew what they were doing every day, their CFO was happy, and they were almost a model procurement team for a company of their size and age.
What makes the difference between the two teams? It wasn’t staff or industry or global pressures (which were all very similar), so it has to be something else. Today let’s talk about what a “busy” team vs. a truly productive team looks like.
Characteristics of a Busy Team
What does a busy team look like, how do you know if you have one? I confess, early in my career I definitely led teams that looked like this. Sometimes the environment tends to cause this kind of chaos, and sometimes we don’t even know we’re stuck in busyness until we look back. Here’s what a busy team looks like:
- Constant firefighting – this is the most common and most obvious attribute of a busy team. They’re so wrapped up in just keeping the business running, they never make time for proactive work to prevent problems. This is a spiral and it’s hard to get out of.
Quickest fix: Carve out time to do proactive problem solving (like a process mapping exercise or root cause analysis) and protect it against every other demand. This is a no-multitasking, leaders-present meeting, even if it’s only for an hour or two. Make sure the results of the event are that problems are actually solved.
- Expedites – when your expedite spend is through the roof, you’re definitely paying more than you should for materials and freight. Having a high volume of expedites always indicates a reactive supply chain and also shows a supply chain where stakeholders are asking for things last minute.
Quickest fix: Start by making sure your expedite fees are easy to track, consider creating a part number called “Expedite-Fee” that allows you to run reports on how often and how much expedites cost you. Don’t let those fees hide in paying a higher price for the product, pull them out. Once you can track it, look for patterns. Are certain stakeholder teams constantly expediting? Are certain suppliers charging particularly high fees? The solution is different for each, but the first step is good data.
- Excessive meetings – how many professionals do I know who “can’t get anything done” because they spend their day in meetings? (It’s a lot.) It’s hard to engage in a meeting and cut POs or build bid packages at the same time. Teams that are very busy tend to spend all day in meetings, which then leads to working longer hours in order to get things done.
Quickest fix: I’ve heard Boeing used to have a policy that every attendee to a meeting had to explain what they brought to that meeting, what they would take away from the meeting, and why they should be included in the meeting. I’ve never been brave enough to implement this one, but I do think there are often a lot of people who shouldn’t be in a meeting. They attend because their boss sent them an invite, and it’s “rude” to decline. If you’re the boss, be extremely thoughtful about who is actually needed in the meeting and invite only them. Watch for people who want to be included in meetings so they can seem important. Also, people are goldfish and will use the resources given to them. If you need a 45-minute meeting, don’t schedule one for an hour.
- Manual work – this one is especially dangerous in today’s age. When people are spending significant time on very manual tasks, that’s when companies try to replace people with AI. While AI can be a great tool to pull out of busyness (if you’ve paid your debts!), manual work is a symptom of a team that is busy and not high-performing.
Quickest fix: Look for ways to remove busywork, after doing some process mapping. This might mean replacing some manual POs with blankets, using AI to either draft or edit scopes of work (not both!), or creating part numbers for commonly-used services to reduce data entry.
The long-term fix for any of these is always culture. Quick fixes are a place to start the momentum going the right direction and stop the busyness spiral, but they’re only a first step.
Characteristics of a High-Performing Team
What does a high-performing team actually look like? I want to add that having a high-performing supply chain team is extremely difficult. You have to have the right people in the right roles, and a reasonable staffing level for your type of organization. While I’ve never met a supply chain leader yet who thought they had enough resources, we can still be running a higher-functioning team with what we have. Here’s what you see in a high-functioning team:
- Proactive problem-solving – people don’t spend a lot of time fighting fires because very few fires start. Orders are placed with sufficient lead time. Contracts are renewed before their expiration dates. Bids allow the technical and procurement teams enough time to evaluate results.
- Intentional processes – each process has a function, and the team understands why that process exists. This is an extension of good bureaucracy and generally shows an efficient supply chain. There aren’t too many approvals, and people who approve actions are accountable for those approvals.
- Managed spend – supply chain spend actually involves the supply chain team. This sounds intuitive, and it is, but it’s also fairly rare. I do assessments for many many companies where the procurement team only finds out about a purchase long after the quote was issued and the supplier selected. In a high-functioning team, procurement is involved from the start.
- Clear priorities – change is inevitable everywhere and the supply chain is no exception. There will be things that “walk on” to a project or in a company and need to be dealt with immediately. In a high-performing team, the team already knows whether the walk-on item means removing something else from the tasks, or if it’s going to wait in line. People know their priorities.
- Low turnover – a high-performing team is a nice place to be. If supply chain is valued, compensated fairly, clearly supported, and understands its priorities, it’s adding great value to the business. That’s a good feeling and tends to help people stick around.
If a high-performing team sounds like living the dream, it is. If you’re lucky enough to be part of one, hold onto it. If you’re skilled enough to lead one, my hat is off to you. But if your team isn’t currently performing like it could, let’s chat. If you’d like to get these articles weekly straight to your inbox and never miss one, sign up for my newsletter.
My book, Transform Procurement: The Value of E-auctions is available in ebook, paperback and even hardcover format: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F79T6F25. My chapter in the powerful anthology Femme Led: Hard-Learned Lessons from Women in Leadership is now available in ebook and paperback format: https://a.co/d/0bOzma8F
This post was written entirely by me and not by AI. The article summaries, title, and graphic may all have used AI to assist/generate ideas/edit, but the article content is fully human.
