Recommendation for a coffee machine

As a follow up to the previous posting – Yoav and Allison introduced us to a great coffee machine - Nespresso CitiZ & Milk.

Great Espresso and Latte and the service was great (at least the one we got at Yoav’s and Allison’s place).

What can a simple espresso teach a project manager?

Not complaining, just an educational story:

Almost every morning I buy a double espresso at the busy Starbuck near the Boston old City Hall (27 School St). The line is a little long, so I usually wait 6-7 minutes for my coffee. Apparently, the store wanted to improve their service (Very nice!!!!), so they went into two weeks of renovation. During this period I had to get my coffee somewhere else and I did some interesting comparison, but this is a different story.
They basically added one more cashier station, one more coffee machine, organized the line, made the place look shinier and added more stuff. And the result – I am now waiting 10-12 minutes to my coffee (almost double the original time!).

Why?

Well – first they spend more time on communication between their stuff. Because there are more employees, the shouting mechanism ("A DOUBLE ESPRESSO" shout going from one side of the counter to the other) is not as efficient. Thus, last week, I waited several minutes for the cashier to come and pick my order after he had to “travel” to the end of the counter to explain to the coffee maker what he was looking for in a previous order.

Second – they spend a lot of time on training.

Third – because of the new hiring - the coffee making time is less predictable. Guess how much time I had to wait when my coffee ended at the new employee queue?

If you survived reading to this point, it means that:

1. The topic interests you.

2. You work for Starbucks PR.

3. Or - you got nothing else to do.

Either way, this story actually demonstrates very nicely a lesson that my experience as a project manager thought me. When you have delivery problems in the middle of a project or when to find it hard to meet expectations with existing resources – the short term solution IS NOT adding more bodies or resources. That might be a longer term solution. The shorter term solution is improving the effectiveness of existing resources. For example – better communication, giving more decision power to subordinate managers, shorter processes etc.