How writing instructions in Slovak increased speed and quality
An unusual Continuous Improvement experiment that worked
Lean, Agile, DevOps, and these days the Product Operating Model all stress the importance of Continuous Improvement and small experiments. As even experts cannot predict what will work and 80% of all experiments do not turn out as expected, the only way forward is by trying out more.
However, for my taste, I do not read enough about the unlikely hits. So why not do this myself?
This story happened in another job, another company, and a different environment. As a software developer, I worked with Operations on a daily base. Production Steering was done in Slovakia. I assume this decision had been made because of lower salaries compared to Germany.
(On a side note, what a shame to go cheap on people! In my life, I have met so many talented, competent, and responsible people from Slovakia. Even if you do not like humans in general, hiring somewhere for cost-cutting reasons means wasting a big opportunity.)
My perception of the situation was that staff fluctuation was high, and once people became competent enough, they would leave for a better offer. In other words, the knowledge level was never as high as it could be with decent salaries, and the daily interactions were filled with small misunderstandings and frustrations.
It was late summer 2012. I had just returned from an Esperanto event in Slovakia. (In case you wondered how I had met so many intelligent, charming, and creative Slovaks: This is one of the answers!) I remember working alone in the office at the end of the afternoon. A question came in from Production Support, and instead of answering “Yes, please”, I wrote “Áno, prosím” — the equivalent in Slovak. Less than one minute later, I had the Slovak colleague on the phone. (Yes, back then we still had phones in the office, but even then I rarely used them for calls.)
She was enthusiastic and asked me where I learned Slovak. I mentioned my recent summer holidays and how much I had enjoyed it. Nothing special, just a bit of small talk.
But following this reaction, I asked her to translate into Slovak the 10 most often requests I was sending. After all, these were standard instructions, and the only thing differing were the names of the jobs and plans. As I am a big fan of learning languages even a little, I thought this might be a fun variation of the daily routines. Of course, there was a personal risk of sending wrong instructions in a language that I did not speak. But then again, even the instructions in English often had not worked as expected, and at least I could understand the phrases in Slovak well enough. So I started my experiment.
It was an instant hit. Time to execute and answer requests went down, quality went up. The Slovaks gave short standard responses in Slovak (something like “job ended successfully”) which I understood perfectly and even corrected my Slovak phrases when I had put in too much variation! My every day was filled with more joy. It was not only a duty anymore — I was practicing another language while aiming for a useful goal.
I have always wondered why this worked out so well. In hindsight, I think it was about signaling respect and genuine interest to the other side and avoiding the impression of treating them like mere order-taking low-cost workers.
It was also something that fit me, that I could do, where I was gladly carrying the risk on my own. Furthermore, this was:
- neither planned nor brainstormed
- very low-cost and low-effort
- fun and respectful
So, yes, this was nothing that turned the world around or saved a company. But it was something that improved the day of everyone involved a bit. And that alone is worth experimentation.
While I do not expect my colleagues from that time to find this article, I still want to say: Thanks! Ďakujem!
Polemic: Komplikovaná
