Meeting Cascade

Introduction

This Wiki page will help you design a Meeting Cascade to keep score on transforming your organization from current state to future state and achieving your GBU objectives.

1. Principles and definitions

The purpose of the site Meeting Cascade is to support communication on important KPIs: safety, capacity, cost, quality, employee concerns, etc. Communication must be done at the right levels, ensuring that what needs to be done by the right people to get the performance on target. Inputs and Outputs form the puzzle of a plant. The highways of information go both ways allowing you to know the goals at every level, uncover issues directly at the shop floor and to solve them.

Important KPIs are Cascaded down from the Solvay Strategy to the GBU Strategy to GBU Objectives to KPI Targets to achieve the Objectives.

We can't measure and improve everything at once.

A production facility can have separate shift meetings and share with other units in the cross functional daily meeting:

• Owner of the Unit or Workcenter should be responsible for their KPIS related to GBU KPIs
• KPIs for the Unit(s) should be reviewed as part of meeting as designed by Meeting Card
• The Meeting Cascade should include all levels of the organization to promote interaction of shop floor → Supervisor→ Appropriate Management Level for action
• Action should be taken as close to the shop floor as possible

Leadership Team should review cascaded output In Lead team meeting to support actions and problem solving.

2. Meeting Cascade Cookbook

The following steps outline the process for setting up an effective and efficient Meeting Cascade:

2.1. GBU Vision

Start with the GBU’s vision and start working your way down. Remember that safety always comes first (Safety First). Below is an example from the Silica GBU:

2.2. Objectives or Imperatives for GBU

The GBU’s vision needs to be understood in terms of objectives and imperatives. They need to be shared transparently with the entire organization.

2.3. Performance Initiatives

Sites need to design Initiatives to Maintain Current Performance and Improve Future Performance. The sources of these initiatives can be far reaching: customer engagement, quality, industrial excellence, etc.

2.4. Definition of KPIS and Targets

The site then needs to determine the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Targets for Performance tailored to the local needs. These will contain a mix of Group-level, GBU-level and site-level KPIs and targets.

2.5. Define the series of meetings

Select a series of efficient meetings at the right levels and frequencies to review Performance, Drive Actions and Solve Problems that are Affecting the KPIs were trying to sustain and improve. These meetings should be designed for No Redundancy.

An example of a series of cascading meetings is shown below:

The following meetings should be considered:

• Safety
• Quality
• Customer
• Competitiveness/Cost
• Employee Capability/Satisfaction

An example of a possible cascading meeting within a production facility:

2.6. Complete Meeting Cards

Each meeting in the cascade should have its meeting card with an assigned meeting owner accountable for the performance of the meeting and KPIs. Accountability is key to ensure that the agenda and the transparency is maintained. All meetings must have Objectives and KPIS to review.

An example of a meeting card is shown below:

The Meeting Cascade Playbook contains further examples of meeting cards.

2.7. Enable Progress Through an  Action Register

In order to ensure progress, an action register should be set up to manage actions of all meetings (no Action, no progress). Meeting Owners are accountable for progress. Someone should be appointed to own the action register.

2.8. Set up escalation mechanisms

In order to solve them as quickly as possible, ensure there are good mechanisms to escalate issues from the front line to the appropriate level of management. Issues should be solved as close to the problem as possible.

2.9. Ownership by Leadership Team

Ensure that the leadership team owns the performance management system and reviews KPIs and effectiveness of the system in the leadership team meeting. KPIs should be tracked for Sustainability and Progress - Plan Actions to Stay on Course. This can be done through visual management techniques.

3. Conclusion

The key is to be efficient and disciplined. The Performance Cascade can improve communication and results!