Task 2 - Inputs to decision making – data, information & knowledge; systems analysis

In this entry I will show a recent, simple example of a small organisation. I have seen the exact same kind of problem over and over in larger companies. Even though most managers understand and explicitly know how good processes should work they tend to be human beings and will be prone to overconfidence and to leaving things for the last minute.

In the actual case the task was to fit 3 rooms of an executive rental property using the accessories (linen, towels) of the same owner’s nearby 3-star hotel. I am only involved because they asked me to lend a hand as they ran out of manpower.

The general outline of the progress of this mini-project is as follows: the owner and the manager of the hotel liaise what is needed and when it needs to be done à the manager provides the details and delegates the tasks to the head of housekeeping à the head of housekeeping organises the tasks, makes the necessary preparations and checks and does the job (it is too important to be delegated to less experienced housekeepers).

Process map

When I first heard about the project, my first question had been (based on my previous experience) whether anyone from the hotel have seen the actual premises? Typically, managers would know it all, would have seen it all, and I agree. But, they are not operational people anymore and might miss trivial but vital bits of information. And the answer to my question was the good old: ‘no, why should we, we know our trade’. Thus, I think a missing piece in the process flow is a reality check.

In this case, the owner and the hotel manager did cross-check the bed sizes but not the actual configurations: the hotel’s beds are plain structures, mattress on a frame, while the executive property has mattresses inside a frame. Which means they need different linen: although the same category (king size), nevertheless a little bit smaller, and fitted all around with elastic band and the blankets need to be custom size so they fit the beds perfectly. Otherwise it will be folds of material and creases all over the blanket. And, that’s what we got. All this means we have a problem with the base definitions and also in mapping out the solution (process #1 and #2).

Checking your facts: the manager listed the mattress protectors as ‘queen size, new ones’ when listing necessary items and activities (process #3). He did this from memory and didn’t check his facts. The new queen sized mattress protectors were fitted with elastic bands all around so they were not big enough for the king mattresses – this mistake had to be corrected minutes before the deadline. The solution was to use some of the bigger but old, used, very low quality protectors from the hotel. Guests would not know, or hopefully will never find out – but this example of overconfidence is quite frequent, can be a cause of serious problems and the same time can be avoided very easily.

This is how it looked like after fitting, notice the creases on the front and the quality, worn state of the linen.

Update: all linen have been replaced with new, proper items right before the property was rented out for the first time.