How to do a TMS

TMS provides unparalleled access to the real work your team performs. By moving closer to the work, you can generate world-class insights for improving performance.

“What you don’t commit to finding out, you don’t deserve to know. What you don’t uncover, you cannot leverage.” ~ Assegid Habtewold

Introduction

TMS drives the standardization of work, and the efficiency of people, equipment, and networks. As a tool, TMS is so impactful, one program participant even told us that TMS had “added 10-15 years to my IT career.”

This participant went on to explain how, as they progressed in their career, they got farther and farther away from the work being performed on the frontline. They enthusiastically stated that TMS helped them to become an expert again in their field of technology. The same is true for you, even if you're just beginning your career. Embrace the power of TMS and let it work for you.

Key Benefits of TMS

TMS can be performed on any team room, regardless of its performance, domain or expertise level. Every team room has a top performer, or multiple top performers who developed their own tricks to do finish units in higher quality or with higher productivity.

The TMS reveals how exactly a team is working and provides the following key benefits:

Sets Expectations - TMS sets production standards for team output (e.g. if the Top Performer delivers a unit in 30 minutes and works 36 hours/week on unit delivery, expected weekly delivery would be 36/0.5 = 72 units)
Documents processes - TMS creates documentation for standardization and for the creation of job aids (newcomers can use TMS sheets / recordings to learn how units are delivered)
Supports optimal timing - TMS supports calendar adherence by providing guidance on timing for process and subprocess (e.g. if you spend 40 minutes on Jira and 40 minutes on text editor for 80-minutes units, then your manager can create a calendar which would expect you to spend 50% of your time on Jira and 50% on text editor).
Drives short-term goals - It's a simple guidebook for bottom performers (and those who study them), TMS generates and maintains goals to strive for (e.g. if the Top Performer can deliver a unit in X minutes, all ICs should be able to learn from the TP and deliver a unit in X minutes)

TMS step-by-step

1. Read unit delivery instructions and create a draft process

Read unit delivery instructions. Come up with a list of steps that needs to be executed (this is a draft list). Write down the list of steps to your TMS table:

2. Deliver the unit yourself, as much as you understand

When you try to deliver a unit for the very first time, it is common to lose track of time and spend hours to deliver even a trivial unit (because you miss learnings from the Top Performer). You should set a timebox before starting your delivery, to avoid losing time.

Determine the max. amount of time you need to spend on unit delivery. For the IC RemoteU assignments, this should be max 30 minutes. (For the factory, after your graduation, set the max time as 2x of TP's unit delivery time.) Now that you know the max time you are supposed to spend on your very first unit delivery, set an alarm to remind you the end of the unit delivery.

Start recording your screen. Read instructions and try to execute the steps you defined on #1 above one by one.

You execute step 1, step 2.... and your alarm reminded you the time is up!

Now, open your recording. Watch the recording (quickly, by fast forwarding), and re-visit the high level list of steps you created on #1 above. This time, write more granular steps and explain what exactly you are doing. (For the IC RU assignment, have minimum 7 steps). Also write how much time you spent on each step:

Afterwards, write the calculate the total amount of time you spent (i.e. length of the video). That is your TMS amount.

3. Time to learn from the TP

You will now learn how TP delivers a unit. Watch the TP recording from start to end (quickly, by fast forwarding or playing at 2x). Write down the draft steps TP follows into your TMS table.

Now, go back to the beginning of the recording, and watch what TP is doing at that step. Try to see if there is anything TP is doing differently from you. Now, you should be able to explain what TP with did with more granular steps. Revisit the step list and write detailed steps instead of that high level, draft step.

1) Write granular steps 2) Measure the time spent on the step and add it to your table 3) If there is anything TP is doing differently from you, add your learning to insights table

4) Afterwards, write the calculate the total amount of time you spent (i.e. length of the video). That TP's TMS amount.

5) Stack rank your TP learnings - order them from the most important one to the least, based on the impact:

4. Apply what you learned from the TP

Read your insights and prepare yourself for executing those insights / following TP's methods. Start recording your screen and deliver a unit. Since you learned TP's methods (and also seen his inefficiency), you should be able do deliver the units faster than the TP.

Watch your recording, fill your TMS table and calculate your own TMS amount (which is faster than the TP). If you cannot deliver the unit faster than the TP, then you didn't generate good enough learnings. Go back to #3 above and repeat the steps

Now that you are faster, you should quantify the impact of the TMS exercise, to see how much you improved yourself:

That's it! You deliver a unit, learned from TP, applied your learnings and delivered the unit even faster than the TP! That shows the power of the TMS technique.

By using your TMS amount, you can now determine how many units you can deliver in a day or in a week.

Ex: If your TMS is 152 seconds and you work 7 hours a day on this ticket type, you can deliver

(5 days x 7 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds) / 152 = 1160 units each week.

You can also calculate the cost of a unit

Ex: If your hourly rate is 10 USD/hour and you work 40 hours each week, your weekly cost is 40x10 = 400 USD.

Cost of a unit is 400 USD / 1160 units = 34 cents A note on frequency: In the factory, while working on a unit, there might be steps that you don't always execute. For instance, there might be a Ticket Escalation step for a Support team, but not all tickets get escalated. In such cases, you should determine the frequency of the step and multiply it with the measured amount to understand its actual impact on TMS. e.g. let's say Escalation step takes 4 minutes. If you escalate 25% of your tickets, then that step should impact your TMS by 4 mins x 25% of tickets = 1 minute.

Benchmarking winners and losers

Testing is about tracking winners and losers. We can’t make business decisions based on conjecture or hypothesis. Rather, we make data-driven decisions based on what actually works. TMS highlights differences between top and bottom performers to help determine how top performers output higher quality, and to provide coaching opportunities to low performers.

What’s the next step for your team?

While TMS tells you how you are performing today in your current state, it won't take you much farther than that. The next tool on your tool belt ZBT. In that exercise you’ll discover ways to at least double your current capabilities. As you improve, you’ll move away from your TMS, toward your ZBT.

Conclusion

TMS provides you unparalleled access to the real work you are performing. By moving closer to the work, you generate world-class insights for improving performance. This process allows you to learn both the good and bad practices among your team in order to raise your own performance level. Ultimately, TMS helps quality-focused enterprises drive efficiency and generate deep insights for continuous improvement.