Sent to Coventry...

Preparing my presentation

Not all of my travel destinations are glamorous.  In fact it could be argued that no matter where the destination, the insides of planes, hotels and offices are much the same.  However in my endeavours to get the Farmers and Mooses ordering the Cheese and Fish in the right way, as per agreed contractual process, it was time for me to meet with the Cheese and Fish Demand people, the cheese and fish Technical Design internal people and the people who put the end to end outsourcing process together, so that we could all understand how it works and help the Farmers and Miss Mooses order their cheese and fish in good time.  So - it was off to rainy, grey Coventry for me.

I read every process document I could get my paws on and typed up all of my notes from meetings with the Miss Mooses and the Farmers.  All I needed to do is map the demand to the process and voila - fresh fish and cheese when required.

In the room with me was Kitty from Finance, Pony from the Process Office, Dog-Dog, the Head of Cheese Design (we left the fish people out of this meeting - too far for Miss Mooses to travel), Rabbit from Cheese Demand and Woodstock, an enthusiastic young graduate from the school of Cheese who is very keen to get everything documented and supplied plenty of strong coffee in an attempt to get us all as enthused about it as he is.  Pony prepared a presentation demonstrating the cheese ordering process.  It goes like this:-

• All farmers cheese requirements are entered into a database as an 'idea'.  These 'ideas' are discussed at Farmers Board and it is agreed which ideas become Cheese Projects.  
• When a Cheese Project is agreed, a small team of rabbits start investigating all costs associated with the Cheese Project.  Dog-Dog and Cheese Design are involved at this point.
• When a cheese design is complete they complete a requirements sheet and give it to me to raise a Cheese Project Request with the Suppliers (remember there are two of these, those who make the cheese and those who package it and supply the culture).
• Then it goes into the Cheese Order process described a couple of blogs ago.
• The Cheese Requirements are eventually turned into a Cheese Proposal which goes back to the Cheese Demand rabbits to discuss with the Farmers.

If you remember, the Farm Shops have usually gone bust due to lack of stock before the Cheese is agreed and ordered, so to me - the answer was simple.  Engage us, and the Cheese Suppliers at the 'idea' stage.  We can contribute cost information which allows the Farmer to have a better idea of how much the cheese will cost.

Except it doesn't work that way.  Of course not.

At the Cheese 'idea' stage the Farmer doesn't have any money - which is fine if he knows exactly how much of what type of cheese he wants, and that it is in both Suppliers stock catalogue in the wrapping and quantities he requires it in.  If it isn't, and it usually isn't, he must wait until Dog-Dog's design team have submitted a cheese design to the Demand Rabbit and she has sent it to me and I have sent it to the Suppliers.  Who will then advise that they should be submitting Cheese Requirements and not Design. The Farmer only has budget allocated when a complete, costed Cheese Design is agreed and this must include the Supplier's proposals.  How can they, therefore, have a fully costed Cheese Design without involving the Suppliers, which costs money, and how can the get any money without having an approved fully costed design.

Catch 22.

Yes we all understand how it works...

Now my Boss, Edie, has told me that she wants Cheese Forecasts for all Farmers, and Fish Forecasts for the Miss Mooses by the end of next week, to give to the Cheese Suppliers (both of them) so that they know how many cows they need, how many maids to milk them, how much culture to bulk buy in advance and what types of wrapping materials.  In the many, many years before the Cheese and Fish Services were outsourced the Farmers didn't know from one month to the next what they needed - so why this should have changed now I don't know.  However, Edie is a hard boss and I must 'make it happen.'  So next week will be full to the brim with many difficult conversations with the Miss Mooses, Rabbit's Demand team, Dog-Dog and her Design team and, indeed, the Farmers themselves.  And they all think that by simply talking to me Cheese and Fish are ordered and the process is bypassed.  The Miss Mooses, of course, continue to smile pleasantly and pretend none of it is happening.

I think I need a Sherry.  And a Crystal Ball. And a magic wand.  If anyone has these items please mail them to Miss Mouse, c/o Edie.

Happy Weekend my Friends,

With love, Cheese and Sherry,

Mouse x

Delegation...

Pah! I was all set to go back to Malmo for another visit but I was hit by THE BUG.  There I was, sneezing, coughing and red eyed and completely incapable of packing a suitcase. So I had to delegate.


Delegation is always a tricky business, especially for a Mouse with Project Manager on her CV.  Those of you in the business will also know that Project Manager can be spelled C-O-N-T-R-O-L F-R-E-A-K.


Bear and Fairy offered to do the honours for me and attend a very important meeting with the Miss Mooses.  A meeting to represent the Mouse Outsourcing processes - see the last post for details of that.  The Miss Mooses, and especially the Mr. Head Moose (or is that Moose Head?) are not particularly fond of the Outsourcing model demonstrated by the Farmer and his Cheese, and they get around this by simply pretending it's not real.  Bear is fairly experienced in the ways of cheese, fish and Mooses, but Fairy is new to the company.  She is idealistic and pure of heart.  I worried for her safety.  


They started the journey with the same merry heart that I used to start my adventures with - not to mention a coffee and a blueberry muffin.  They reviewed the slides that they helped me put together with Bear's boss and they were ready to present to ALL of the Mooses.


The Mooses immediately saw the benefit in having Fairy there.  Mr. Head Moose (or is that...?) threw up his horned head in joy. 'At last I see the benefit of your department!  We are short of a resource here for entering the fish ordering data.  Fairy - you can be the resource. You can help us.'  He crossed his arms and leant back in his chair, a satisfactory smile on his whiskers.  Fairy, being relatively new, was aghast.  She was there to make sure that they order fish properly and to try to get them to give sight of their future fish orders.  Bear nudged Fairy - 'I think you'd better put them straight.' he said.


'I have to leave now - very busy.' said Mr. Head Moose (or... ?).


Another satisfactory meeting then. Fairy can hold her own - she soon put them straight - but by then there was no-one listening.  


So it would seem that if we don't like what is real, all we need do is ignore it?  Why did I never think of this before?  Next time Moose or Farmer gives me a telling off because of the new limited access to cows or fish, I will simply smile and pretend it's not happening.


Fairy also learned another valuable lesson on this trip.  In Sweden, a 'V' next to a menu item in a restaurant, and marked 'Vegetarian' in the key, means that there is a vegetarian OPTION which can be SPECIFICALLY ORDERED.  Oops - sorry, Mooses.


With Tissues and Love,
Mouse x

Memo...

To: Boss
From: Mouse
Date: Monday


Subject: Travelling and keeping in touch.


Dear Boss,


Please could you authorise a Data Card for me so that I can access the system when I am travelling?


Kind Regards,
Mouse.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


To: Mouse
From: Boss
Date: Monday


Subject: Re: Travelling and keeping in touch.


Dear Mouse,


After giving your request careful consideration I do not usually authorise data cards for Miss Mouses.  Also I would expect you to be in the office during working hours.


Regards,
Boss.


P.S. I hope you are going to Sweden soon - the customer must be kept informed.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


To: Boss
From: Mouse
Date: Monday


Subject: Re: Travelling and keeping in touch.


Dear Boss,


Fine.  Although you keep sending me to airports.  And hotels.


Kind Regards,
Mouse.


P.S. I am going to Sweden today. I will be back on Friday.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


To: Mouse
From: Boss
Date: Friday


Subject: Cheese order - URGENT!


Mouse,


Do you have the Cheese Order for the Farmer?   The Suppliers say that they have not received it and I got a telling off in the Cheese Board meeting.


Please send it urgently.


Boss.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


To: Boss
From: Mouse
Date: Monday


Subject: Re: Cheese order - URGENT!


Dear Boss,


I left you a voicemail telling you to speak to Miss Kitty in Accounts.  She will have a copy of the urgent order you required.  I hope you got the message.


I would have sent it to you immediately but I was at the airport returning from Sweden and I do not have a data card.


Mouse.

Collaborative working...

Well the week in Malmo draws to a close.  Not the easiest day, I am still at the 'Forming'or 'Storming' phase of working with the Miss Mooses out here.  Actually most of the Miss Mooses are just fine and dandy.  It's the Mr. Mooses to whom a mere Miss Mouse is, apparently, invisible.  Anyway, it got me to thinking about business relationships and collaborative working.

To cut a long story short I'm here because of outsourcing.  I'm sure you all know what outsourcing is, but if you don't, it's the selling off of the responsibility for a providing a service and buying that service back from a Service Provider.  Let's take cheese as an example.  To make cheese you need milk, and a churning device.  And you need a culture to start off the cheese process.  Let's assume that the farmer who used to do this in his barn no longer wants the responsibility of keeping cows and making cheese, but he wants it made, to his specification, to sell in his farm shop.  To give a parallel to my current role, let's assume the milk production and churning bit is outsourced to one Service Provider, and the provision of the culture, and the packaging of the finished product to another.  In order to make the cheese, the farmer has to specify what kind of cheese he wants, how much, what colour etc.  If it is a significant cheese order we call it a Project.  If it is a Cheese Project I am the link between the farmer and the two Service Providers.  Still with me?  However, if just a small amount of cheese is required the farmer can order it himself.  Yes. Keep up.  However, the Service Provider who produces milk, actually bought the farmer's old cows, so the farmer thinks he can just ask for milk and get it tomorrow, like he used to be able to do when the cows were in the barn at the bottom of the field. (Actually they are still there, but owned by someone else now).  And the culture and packaging people used to be his milking maids.  But they, too, now work for someone else.  And the milking maids can no longer milk the cows because they work for different companies. So - old process:-

Farmer tells milking maids he wants to make cheese. Maids milk cows and put milk into churns with culture.  Cheese.

New process:- 

Farmer wants cheese.  Raises requirements document for 'cheese'.  Comes to me.  I ask if 'cheese' project is in his project plan.  It is.  I send back requirements saying 'cheese' is not good enough - revise.  Farmer returns requirements document asking for 15kg of Red Leicester cheese, churned for exactly 36 hours and matured for a week in an oak casket, to be delivered by next Wednesday.  I tell farmer he can no longer specify HOW cheese is made as that process belongs to the Service Providers. Nor can he specify delivery dates.  He must plan better and order cheese well before he needs it. He will also not get any cheese unless he raises a cheese order.  Farmer grumbles.  I raise the Cheese Project Request.  It goes to committee to decide if it's one or two Service Providers (if the cheese is not required to be wrapped, the culture can be ordered as a standard product and it becomes single supplier).  It is multi supplier.  Each Supplier examines the requirements and individually send back proposals for cheese components.  I put them together and have it reviewed by the cheese standards board.  When they approve the cheese design I send it to the farmer for approval.  If a new type of cheese is required then this is a new cheese product, so this stage can take some time whilst the cheese commercials (price per kilo etc) are agreed.  Farmer agrees cheese proposal and authorises order.  Passes order details back to me.  I pass order details to Mouse Head Office and Miss Kitty, in Germany, raises the cheese order into the system.  Cheese is ordered and will delivered within the agreed timescales if the cows are in the mood to produce the milk and nothing goes wrong with the culture.  Cheese is delivered to farmer. I issue cheese acceptance forms to farmer.  Farmer signs them. Suppliers invoice farmer.

In the meantime the farm shop has gone bust.

Now - try doing all this again, but this time, in Swedish, with fish instead of cheese.  You can see why the Miss Mooses, who used to have as efficient a process as the farmer with his cheese, get cheesed off with me and think it's my fault.

Well slowly, slowly, I am sure we will make this work, but only by working together, so bear with me Miss Mooses.  I would come to your main Moose meeting and explain it all to you, but the top man Mister Moose won't let me as I'm only a Mouse, qualified only in cheese, not fish.  But we will get there.  But collaborative working is the only way to do it, and the Miss Mooses and I went to lunch together today to start on that very collaboration.

Collaboratively yours, as always,

Mouse. x

Living in Mina Sidor...

Hello!  Well I am in Sweden.  Malmo again.  In case I was in any doubt of where I actually am, my blog pages have all come up in Swedish, so I'm not EXACTLY sure that this will all come out as planned.  Hee hee - inferring that I plan these little blogs.

I am trying to learn a little Swedish - in my office in Nottingham, my colleagues and I who travel around try to learn a few basics in each language - and there is a tradition of addressing our feathered friends 'my duck.'  So - en Francais, Bonjour mon cunard.  In German, Meine Ente.  So my first Swedish phrase? Ta sa mycket min anka.  Thank you very much my duck. Very important.  One never knows when one will meet an anka waddling down the office corridors.

Today I came across a wonderful phrase - Mina Sidor.  It made me think of Tolkienesque mountain ranges, lit with pink skies and swirling mists.  'The elves of Mina Sidor.'  Do you know what it means? it means 'My Pages.' Yes. Really. Queue lighting strike wiping out the mountainous view.  But I suppose that by writing this blog I am living in My Pages, or Mina Sidor.  Philosophical Mouse that I am.

It's very dark here.  It doesn't get light until about 8.30 in the morning and by 3pm it's getting dark again.  In fact the sun makes a futile effort to lighten the sky to a paler grey, but little else.  And it's cold, as you would expect, but so far no snow so I've not had to stuff my paws into snow boots.  Because of the dark nights, and of course having no friends here this time, except that weird human (I get very odd looks when I'm out with her) I haven't really ventured out.  I went to the Supermarket and bought crackers, a lot of cheese (of course!) and fruit and I log in with my boss, Edie, each evening.  She's very demanding.  Anyway, talking of cheese, it's at least an hour since I had some.  Do enjoy the rest of your evenings.

Godnatt mina ankor

Mouse xx 

Meet Miss Mouse...

Hello.  My name is Mouse.  Miss Millicent Mouser, in full, but Mouse to my friends, who are many. Miss Mouse to others.  I'm not keen on the 'r' part of Mouser.  It makes me sound like some kind of wild, hunting Mouse. Which I am most certainly not.

No, I am a very civilised Mouse.  I live in a proper house, with my boss, Edie, who is five years old.  I am a working Mouse, I have my own business helping important companies do things with computers.  I kind of fell into this work whilst studying cheese - I was engaged in a job, fixing a computer which had been jammed up when the remnants of a cheese sandwich dropped into the controls, and found I had a talent for both fixing the computer and for calming down the silly man who had dropped it in there in the first place.

I now have a very exciting job.  I am working for a global company - grand eh?  And I get to fly to all sorts of places, but especially Sweden.  This sounds very glamorous, but in fact means that I know a lot about Airports, and especially about the kinds of chocolate sold in Duty Free Shops.  It's not all Cheese you know!

So here is where I will share some of my adventures - and there have already been a few.  Last week alone I was in airports in Zurich, Hannover, Brussels and Birmingham.  Would you believe that in Zurich airport, where I was stranded for SIX HOURS, there is no such thing as a Cheese shop?  I thought the Swiss were famous for their cheeses!  

Tomorrow I am off to Malmo, Sweden, via Copenhagen, Denmark.  I'm quite used to this journey now and know all of the best stop offs.

I will keep you posted on my adventures!

With whiskery hugs,

Mouse.