$4.$ Breaking Down Silos

Breaking Down Silos

Literally speaking, silos are towers used to store grain. In business, $$silos$$ refer to departments or groups of employees working in isolation, without coordinating and communicating with other groups and departments. This often leads to inefficiencies, errors, and quality issues.

Often, IT departments are disconnected from the people they serve within their organization. Review the following situations and match each to its appropriate Deming Point of Quality.

Break down barriers among departments.

Adopt a new philosophy.

Drive out fear.

Take action to accomplish the transformation.

Match each of the options above to the items below.

To encourage the IT department to please the organizational members they serve, $360-$degree feedback is now included in their annual evaluations used for raises and promotions.

The company$$s IT department has historically refused to answer phone calls and emails with service requests; instead, they require people to put in service tickets that go through a $$support portal.$$ The organization has now changed that process to where people email or call the IT department directly and a response is required within $30$ minutes.

The company$$s IT employees are very touchy and often retaliate against employees who complain about their problems not being fixed in a timely manner. It is not unusual for IT to quit responding altogether to people who have complained. The company has now instituted a system where employees anonymously file complaints about IT issues.

Historically, the IT department has taken the attitude that everyone outside the department must do what they say, even if it hurts quality and performance. If this attitude is ever questioned, it is met with retaliation. The CEO of the organization had a meeting with the IT employees and explained to them that it is their job to $$serve$$ the rest of the employees and assist them to achieve their profit and quality goals. Now the IT department is evaluated, in part, on overall organizational profit and quality measures.