We’d all like to be able to wave a magic wand and instantly streamline operations to turn our businesses into lean, mean, efficient machines. Economic pressures and thin margins are causing business owners and managers to step back and re-examine their businesses: Are we operating in the most cost-effective, streamlined way? Why are we wasting time, spinning our wheels?
With so many processes, people, and jobs, the idea of building a lean, efficient organization can be overwhelming. Sometimes its easier to break the big job down into smaller chunks. Think about improving organizational performance by making incremental improvements.
Try starting with just ONE business process. Re-engineering even a single Standardized procedure can deliver a quick payback.
Here’s a great example: One of our Zavanta customers, an IT consultant, took a highly complicated, error-prone data conversion procedure that took several days and people to perform and transformed it into a two-hour push-button procedure that anyone on the team could do.
Considering this data conversion task had to be performed every week, it is easy to see how the time savings would accumulate: week over week, month over month. The annual savings could be the tens of thousands of dollars!
And then there are all the intangible benefits of standardized procedures. Making routine tasks more efficient frees employees up to work on important things such as innovation. Less frustration; priceless. Getting the mundane on auto-pilot clears the mind and improves focus.
So think about your own organization. If you had to identify just one task that is problematic; people are spinning their wheels, lots of errors, what would it be?
Recently an Executive coach we’ve been working with commented about how our Operations Mapping method – linking processes to detailed standard operating procedures, work instructions and policies -- is a perfect fit for improving organizational performance, process improvement and re-engineering applications. We agree. Our clients do too.
Yet, some people resist this idea.
The resistance may be linked to the misconception that standardized procedures are useless paperwork or at best are expensive door stops (if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that… ) (“Bad” SOPs do make good doorstops—especially if they are in white binders!) Thinking about SOPs only in terms of “documenting” and record keeping instead of looking at SOP development as an exercise in examining and understanding how your business works is old-fashioned thinking.
It may also be semantics. We recently worked with a client to develop a "process map" for automating one of their core processes. At the beginning, the client was adamant about not wanting to get into SOPs or procedural "details." They thought they only needed to look at the "Big Picture." However, the high-level process map ended up being very complex because the client kept adding more and more detail as they thought through the processes they needed to make automation decisions.
Surprisingly, it was the discussions about the detailed procedures the client started out not wanting to consider that revealed the fact that some managers had no clue what was really going on! And that was the biggest problem they were facing.
Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are often overlooked as a key element of Process improvement (process re-engineering). Process re-engineering typically needs to go beyond what’s on a high-level process map. And its not always just about process automation. "People-based" operations can be improved through re-engineering too.
Mapping out your “as is” processes and SOPs is the first step in any process improvement initiative because it makes your “people operations” visible. You can’t improve what you can’t see.
To learn more about how you can build accountability in to your organization and streamline operations, see Operations Mapping on the COMPROSE site.
Many have said that by just thinking about how their business “works” and defining the best way of doing things has gone a long way in transforming their organization from a “seat of the pants” culture to one of accountability.
You have to put it in writing. Capturing and communicating standardized procedures, the right actions, and responsibilities (before the next misstep or security breach happens) is the most effective and fair way to make people accountable and minimize some of the push back you may get as you transform your culture.
And we’re not talking about throwing a book of gobbledy-gook at people and just saying "See Ya!" We’re talking about good systems that LINK clearly defined policies and standards to the processes, procedures and work instructions needed to carry them out.
Good systems are continually refined and perfected with employee input on how to improve them. Everyone understands how the business works at EVERY level and what their role is.
As one of our customers tells her staff: If you’ve followed the procedure “you’re off the hook.”
To learn more about how you can build accountability in to your organization and streamline operations, see Operations Mapping.
That’s a core principle of Sam Silverstein’s methodology and book: “No More Excuses – The Five Accountabilities for Personal and Organizational Growth.” “We are accountable to do the right things consistently.” Sam goes on to explain: “The problem is many managers are great at the strategic level but don’t define the right things that need to be done weekly, daily.”
As we mentioned in our previous post, we run into this all of the time in organizations we work with. Accountability starts at the top but has to trickle down to all levels. As Sam points out, the pathway to accountability is giving people responsibility and authority. So exactly HOW do you do that?
Well, the answer is yet another incentive for taking the time to develop good systems -- writing clear policies and standard operating procedures (SOPs).
Accountability is based on being clear about what you expect and giving employees a road map (defining the right actions) for how to achieve the expected result, repeatedly, consistently. Its not fair to expect someone to always do the right thing if they don’t know what the right thing is. Figuring it out on their own is not a strategy. Telling them once may not “stick.”
Micro-managing each and every person that comes and goes isn’t effective and you don’t have time. The way to build a culture of accountability is through good systems and procedures. Sam Silverstein talks about this in another YouTube video: Create Procedures and Systems for Streamlined Growth
The concept of "accountability" is certainly getting a lot of press right now-- the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, the financial crisis, lax border security. Someone has to be “held accountable.”
What about your organization? Is yours a “culture of accountability?” If not, why not? In the next several blog posts we’ll point you to expert advice on the topic as well as share some success strategies we’ve heard about from our customers.
Fostering accountability has to be one of the biggest organization challenges out there. For 20+ years we’ve heard comments like these from managers frustrated with how to get their employees to be accountable. “Why don’t my employees know what to do without me always telling them?" “Why don’t they ‘get it’?” Well, in many situations it's management that doesn’t “get it”.
When it comes to creating a culture of accountability, the difficulty may start with peoples’ perception of accountability. Something bad happens, someone steps up and says “I take full responsibility, I’m sorry.” Okay… then what? It's not about placing blame and saying "Sorry." Organizations who truly understand accountability, strive to avoid this scene entirely by intentionally standardizing operations and promoting a culture that could prevent misstep from happening in the first place!
Sam Silverstein, an internationally renowned business speaker and thought leader on accountability, provides insights that we think really hit home on an organizational as well as personal level. Sam gives an overview during his appearance on Donny Deutsch’s “The Big Idea.”
Check it out.
To learn a proven approach you can use to build accountability into your organization and streamline operations, see COMPROSE's Operations Mapping.
Streamlining operations, improving organizational performance, and standardized procedures are 3 critical and interlocking components of success in every organization. But as we have talked about in many posts, the real key is getting good people and good systems to work together. If the wheels on your car are out of alignment, you are in for a bumpy ride and might even end up in a ditch. It's the same thing if your people and your systems are out of alignment.
In his book, Less: Accomplishing More by Doing Less, Marc Lesser makes the point well:
"ORGANIZATIONAL ALIGNMENT: Organizations are in alignment when each person on the team or in the organization understands the larger mission and how his or her actions are connected to it. Organizations are out of alignment when individuals don’t fully understand and embrace the mission, goals, and objectives and don’t see how their particular activity influences and contributes to the organization."
The Company Procedures Manual delivers many benefits, but not enough people recognize its power as a strategic management process. Writing policies and procedures down and sharing standard best practices serves to align your organization. Not only does everyone know what to do, everyone knows why they are doing it.
As you are doing your strategic organization planning, take a look at the alignment between people and systems. If it's not in sync, developing and sharing clear standard operating procedures is the fastest way to get the wheels realigned.
By writing policies and procedures that clearly explain your unique business system you can guarantee that your employees understand their roles and responsibilities and are working on the right tasks. This is the very core of COMPROSE's Operations Mapping approach and Zavanta software.
For more perspective on this topic see these previous posts:
How do you keep your employees operating efficiently and error free? What is the most important factor for reducing task errors and improving organizational performance? Is it employee training methods, effective work instructions, or strategic management processes? These are organization challenges and questions that operations executives and corporate training managers struggle with on a daily basis. Where should you invest your efforts for maximum results?
Watch this short video to learn about some interesting scientific research showing the impact clear, standard operating procedures (SOPs) can have on employee performance and error reduction.
The implication for organizations wanting to improve organizational performance and reduce errors is clear. As simple as it may seem, the most effective technique is to streamline systems and procedures. Corporate training methods and common strategic management processes, such as reward versus reprimand, did not achieve the anywhere near the positive results that simply defining a clear, efficient standard operating procedure did.
The answer depends on your situation and business need. There are tons of corporate policy and procedure examples on the web as well as many companies that sell pre-written company procedure manuals. However, most are Employee Manuals, not Operations Manuals and there is a difference. (See Previous Post: How are Employee Manuals and Operations Manuals Different ) Most pre-written content is focused on policy, not procedure. So if you’re looking for a basic Employee Manual focused on HR issues, or you need help identifying the kind of topics you should address as you develop your own policies, these products may be helpful. Most are very affordable. Boilerplate manuals and standards guides often contain useful subject matter information, but can rarely be used “as is” for running an operation — especially at the tactical level.
At COMPROSE, we focus on Operations Manuals (Standard Operating Procedures) that provide step by step details on how to complete work. For example, when A happens do B, when C happens do D and so on. Think about your own organization. How many processes and tasks are unique to your company? Probably most of them — that’s what makes you better than your competitors! Bank Operations is a good example. All Banks have certain basic processes such as Commerical Lending, New Accounts, or Wealth Management. At a high-level there are process commonalities across organizations. But once you get past the big picture, there’s quite a bit of variation from bank to bank.
Boilerplate manuals cannot capture your unique operational flow or how your organization actually “works.” Boilerplate manuals don’t contain all the tips, tricks, and best practices of your star performers. So, if you’re looking for a “magic bullet” that you can just buy off-the-shelf to run your operation and keep your employees trained on “how to” tasks, you’ll be disappointed. That just doesn’t exist.
Pre-written “boilerplate” material may give you topic ideas or industry-specific policy information. But, for real operations results we recommend following a systematic approach to identify your processes and begin breaking them down into manageable chunks (procedures and tasks). Our Operations Mapping is a proven, systematic technique. Our Zavanta software is a specialized tool for writing policies and procedures fast and effectively transferring know-how out of your experts’ heads.
As we began in our previous post, 5 Ways to Finally Get Your Procedure Manuals Done, often organizations really want to develop standard operating procedures and improve their operations manuals, but their goal never gets past the “good intentions” stage. There doesn’t seem to be enough time or resources to complete the entire project.
Well, divide and conquer is a tried-and-true strategy for accomplishing almost any big task. You know the saying “many hands make light work.” If you want to get your policies and procedures project off to a fast completion so you can start improving organizational performance and streamlining operations instead of just wishing you could, start by spreading the work around. Recruit Subject Matter Experts throughout your organization and have each of them write up the processes, procedures and work instructions that apply to their individual areas or job functions. Then have a smaller group of managers and editors review the first drafts and edit them into final form. In this way, the entire project can get completedin less time with less disruption.
Expanding on the points from our previous post, 5 Ways to Finally Get Your Procedure Manuals Done, if you have been wanting to develop standard operating procedures and improved operations manuals for your organization, but keep getting bogged down, maybe you are trying to take on too much at once.
Many organizations want to review all their corporate processes and update all their employee and operations manuals in one giant comprehensive project. However, trying to do everything all at once is overwhelming and quickly leads to analysis paralysis—aka lots of talk and no visible results.
In working with hundreds of companies over many years, one big difference we see between organizations that succeed at streamlining and organizations that get off track is the size of the first step! The most successful organizations focus on taking quick ACTION by starting with one area as a pilot project.
It might seem counter-intuitive, but one of the best strategies to achieve your big goals of standardizing operations and improving organizational performance is Start small!
Break the comprehensive project into manageable chunks. Pick one key task or operating process to start. Capture the specific policies, procedures, work instructions and job descriptions that apply to that one area, focusing on writing policies and procedures that employees will actually use. Then publish that subset of content so people can start using it and giving you feedback
When one area is done, tackle the next process on the list until you have covered all areas in the organization. By starting in one contained area you not only get a “quick benefit,” but you also learn as you go, and maintain momentum.
The COMPROSE Operations Mapping approach is designed specifically to help organizations break their operating procedures down into clear, modular systems. To learn more, check out our educational webinars.
As Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” but corporate manuals come in all shapes and sizes under all kinds of names: Employee Policy Manual, Company Procedures Manual, Employee Manual, Corporate Training Manual, Policy and Procedure Manual, Operations Manual, etc., etc., etc.
Does the name make a difference?
Yes! Although all manuals share a common goal of laying out consistent standards, streamlining systems, and standardizing operations within a company, their content, structure and purpose vary dramatically from type to type. The difference between “Employee” manuals and “Operations" manuals in particular is worth a closer examination.
Employee Manuals cover basic employment rules and policies, such as hours of work, vacation and holiday policies, non-discrimination policies, overtime policies and so on. Most organizations have some sort of general employee manual or handbook blessed by the corporate lawyers and handed out by HR during new employee orientation.
Operations Manuals are unique to each organization and cover the specific work systems and procedures of the organizations. Operations typically contain processes, procedures, work instructions and job aids that help employees understand how to complete tasks correctly and in a standard way.
Many organizations have basic employee handbooks, but a large number of organizaions lack any kind of Operations Manuals and pay the price for this through inefficiencies, lowered productivity and higher costs. For more on why that is, see previous post Standardizing Operations Helps You Work Faster and Eliminate Waste.
Experts are becoming increasingly worried about the upcoming Flu Season. What happens if the H1N1 virus really does become a pandemic? Banking and Financial Services will be impacted along with schools, government and the economy at large. What if half your workforce calls in sick?
This quote in particular from business continuity experts Harry Rhulen points out why having your detailed business "system" clearly documented is absolutely critical to managing emergency situations like a Swine Flu Pandemic could pose:
"What any organization needs to do, if they would like to have a truly implementable, actionable communicable illness plan, is they need to do an analysis of how their business works. What products come into their business? What happens when they are there? What goes out?" -- Harry Rhulen, Bank Info Security, July 31, 2009
Capturing your organizations detailed business systems--including processes, procedures and work instructions-- is not just about checking a box to satisfy the compliance officer, or even just about improving operational performance under normal conditions.
Standardizing operations and streamlining business processes are the things that will allow you keep operating effectively when nothing is normal. H1N1 virus or not, now is the time to get your business systems in order so whatever happens your organization will remain operational.
How well do you LISTEN to customers and employees when they complain that written instructions in your company procedure manuals and employee manuals are hard to understand or missing important steps?
It's human nature to get defensive when criticized. The knee jerk reaction to complaints is usually to stop listening and start explaining, excusing, or dismissing the criticism. That's a BIG mistake if you truly want to streamline operations and overcome organization challenges.
When customers or employees complain about instructions—or lack of instructions—it gives you a wealth of key information for improving your systems. As the old saying goes, "There's gold in them thar hills!"
If they are complaining, they care. They are telling you they need better information. They are telling you where your systems may be broken and in need of repair. They are telling you what they want and need.
Listening carefully is the critical first step, but don't stop there. Dig deeper and EMBRACE complaints as a tool to improve. Find out exactly what it is about the written instructions that is unclear to the complainer and commit to trying to fix it.
You'll be amazed at how doing this one thing can rapidly improve your business systems. Countless of our customers simply started out wanting to improve their written policies and procedures, but, once they began to examine them more closely, they discovered their underlying systems and operating practices were confusing, frustrating or wasteful. Changing their "system" brought major savings and improved bottom line results.
While Flow Charts certainly have proven benefits and many managers and quality experts advocate them, some recent empirical research uncovers some undeniable weaknesses that limit flow charts’ usefulness in practical applications such as corporate training, standardizing daily operations and performance improvement.
Several studies described in the Journal of Information Systems Education[1] and the British Journal of Educational Technology [2] found subjects performed faster and more accurately when using concise text instructions and/or pseudo-code compared to flow charted procedures. Flow charts were found to be particularly ineffective when applied to complicated procedures with much branching.
Researchers published in the ACM Annual Computer Science Conference put it this way: “Although studying a “picture” may be more aesthetically appealing than poring through lines of “textual” code . . . empirical studies have indicated that flowcharts may be no more beneficial than source listings. In fact, they may be a hindrance”[3] According to the same source, another study concluded that procedures written as flowcharts did not increase performance by subjects in identifying procedural faults.
A 2007 study published in the Journal of Information Systems [4], cited weaknesses of flow charting and similar systems diagramming techniques finding them “inadequate for complicated processes.” The study cited weaknesses including employee unfamiliarity with the method and limited usefulness in daily operations. Study authors found that flow charts made it “too easy for the documenter to over-simplify the processes” and found that most flow charts needed “additional narrative” to fully explain the process to users. User feedback stressed the deficiency that flow charts failed to indicate “why something is done”—a critical component in training, compliance and operational settings.
A 2009 study published by the American Accounting Association [5] found that although theory suggested flow charts would make it easier for auditors to create mental models of processes and improve their speed and accuracy, their study found that business process flow charts “did not improve auditors’ ability to identify missing internal controls” which was their primary aim, and in fact client prepared flow charts actually hindered the auditors work.
This research clearly indicates that although graphical representations of procedures (aka flow charts) can certainly aid in understanding and communicating process flows and Big Picture views, in many cases a picture is NOT worth a thousand words. Concise, well-crafted text procedures are often the most effective way to convey how-to instructions.
See our next post for the bottom line verdict on using flow charting when writing policies and procedures and company procedures manuals.
Sources: [1] “Teaching Flowcharting with FlowC,” Journal of Information Systems Education, 15: 1 65-77
[2] Abstract: “Extracting information from flowcharts and contingency statements: the effects of age and practice” British Journal of Educational Technology 22: (2) 84-98.
[3] “Survey of empirical studies of graphical representations for algorithms” Proceedings of the 1988 ACM sixteenth annual conference on Computer Science. ACM Annual Computer Science Conference.
[4] Bradford, Marianne et. al., “System Diagramming Techniques: An Analysis of Methods Used in Accounting Education and Practice” Journal of Informations Systems 21: (Spring 2007) 173-212.
[5] Bierstaker et. al., “Do Client-Prepared Internal Control Documentation and Business Process Flow Charts Help of Hinder and Auditor’s Ability to Identify Missing Controls?” Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory 28: (May 2009) 79-94.
Often the burden of writing policies and procedures, Employee Manuals, and Operations Manuals falls on the shoulders of training or HR departments. But to get the real value of living, breathing systems, the whole organization needs to be involved in creating and maintaining standardized procedures. This can be a challenge, but the results are well worth the effort.
Here are some ways to encourage employee participation in preparing and maintaining effective procedures:
Use experienced employees as subject matter experts and procedure writers
Provide support and guidance for subject matter experts in good techniques for writing policies and procedures so they know what to do
Provide all employees an opportunity to give input on the procedures they use
Implement a system that encourages any user to raise an issue or recommend improvements to an approved procedure
COMPROSE Zavanta software is designed specifically to help Subject Matter Experts “think through” a task so they can capture the right information into effective policies and procedures using a series of input screens. It also provides all the tools necessary to streamline the process of developing and maintaining policy and procedure content. You can learn how other organizations have successfully implemented this strategy at http://www.comprose.com/productsservices/zavantasoftware.html
How many times a day do you and your colleagues stop and interrupt a co-worker or supervisor to ask a question or get help in performing a basic task?
According to a report in Time Magazine, on a typical day, workers are interrupted about 7 times an hour! That’s 56 interruptions a day, and 80% of them are considered trivial. According to a study by Basex Research, interruptions cost the U.S. economy $588 billion a year.
In our own research performing operations consulting to organizations across industries, we have found employees in typical organizations spend an average of 10% of their days consulting with co-workers and supervisors for help performing routine tasks. That amounts to 45 minutes a day spread across a 7.5 hour workday. If you have a 300 employee company with an average composite wage of $20/hr, that time rapidly adds up to a labor cost of $1,080,000 a year!
Organizations who have a clear system of standardized procedures available to employees in easy to access operations manuals can dramatically reduce the cost of interruptions, work stoppages, and lost productivity throughout their companies. When employees can simply look up the answer quickly and reliably, they complete their work more efficiently without interrupting others and that saves the entire organization.
For more ideas on how streamlining your business systems can reduce costs and improve organizational performance, download a copy of COMPROSE’s free e-book, How to Be an Operations SuperHero: 3 Frequently Overlooked Ways to Improve People Performance and Help the Bottom line.
Whether you have an official Operations Manual or not, the people in your organization apply policies and procedures everyday to guide decisions and complete their work. You might ask, Why bother to write down standard operating procedures and policies and make them "official"? Many organizations don't. They operate by "unwritten rules," informal policies and procedures that get passed on—or NOT—by word-of- mouth from employee to employee.
Well you've heard the old joke, an oral contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. Unwritten rules are the same. There's no accountability. There's always somebody who "didn't get the memo." When nothing is written down and standardized, your organization will quickly develop inconsistent and inefficient operations practices that can lead to big problems over time.
How do you keep from undermining your business with unwritten rules? Capture your unique "system" in tangible form that everyone can look at, refer to, and correct when necessary.
This is the very core of COMPROSE's Operations Mapping approach. By writing policies and procedures that clearly explain your unique business system you can guarantee that your employees make better choices on a day-to-day basis to prevent errors, streamline business processes, and succeed at improving organizational performance.
What’s the most important factor in reducing task errors? Employee Skills? Training Methods? or the “System” itself (aka steps used to perform the task)?
An interesting research study carried out by Michael Byrne of Rice University and Elizabeth Davis of the University of Texas overturns many common assumptions about employee training methods and performance improvement. They were interested specifically in why “post-completion” errors are so prevalent. In a post-completion error, a person correctly completes a series of actions but then fails—or forgets—to complete an essential final step. Running a complicated photocopying job but then walking off and leaving the original documents behind in the copier is an example of a post-completion error most of us can relate to.
To investigate this, Byrne and Davis created controlled laboratory studies and compared performance results using two distinct step sequences for completing the same task. They also, examined the relative effectiveness of employee training methods (reprimand, reinstruction, and praise) on correcting post-completion errors. We found the results, published in the journal Human Factors, “Task Structure and Post-completion Error in the Execution of a Routine Procedure” fascinating. They surprised even the researchers.
None of the “motivational manipulations (reprimand, reinstruction, and praise) had a reliable effect on altering task performance (for either task completion time or task accuracy)." The only group that consistently outperformed the others was the one that followed the better procedure in the first place.
When the standard procedure that test subjects followed included the “post completion” step within the logical sequence of the task (rather than as a separate “after task” activity), errors were drastically reduced. The only difference between the test groups was the ORDER of the steps given in the written procedure test subjects followed. Yet, the performance results showed a significant difference in error rate.
The implication for organizations wanting to improve organizational performance and reduce errors is to the most effective technique is to streamline systems and procedures. Changing corporate training methods and varying strategic management processes, such as reward versus reprimand, did not achieve the results that simply defining a clear, efficient procedure did.
nothing will go right if they are not there to supervise
too many crises piled up last time they were away.
Check out the video below Another Day at Snafu Inc --The Office Manager's Day Off to see the havoc that ensued when Everyone DOESN'T know what to do!
Operations Manuals are not just for show. When you provide clear work instructions and policies and procedures available 24/7, your employees can function effectively even while you are at the beach.
The devil is in the details! Improving organizational performance and corporate training effectiveness is often as simple as addressing the practical, everyday tasks that are unique to your office so that anyone can step in and keep things running smoothly.
If you'd like your office to be like The Streamlined Business in the video, visit www.comprose.com to learn more.
No matter how good your corporate training programs and employee training methods, getting employees to apply what they learn is an ongoing challenge. A recent WallStreet Journal Business Insight Report cited the following sobering statistic,
"just 10% to 40% of training is ever used on the job, [and] it is clear that a big chunk of the tens of billions of dollars organizations spend annually on staff development is going down the drain."
It doesn't have to be that way.
Often anxiety and old habits serve to undermine employees ability to apply what they have learned. Supporting employees "post-training" by reinforcing best practices is critical to preventing wasted training dollars. A powerful way to achieve this result is to base training on the foundation of standardized business processes and to provide clear, detailed procedures to employees 24/7. Easy-to-follow business systems provide the necessary "glue" that make corporate training more effective. Clear policies and procedures help employees apply their training better once they return to their day-to-day activities.
You have to put it in writing. Capturing and communicating standardized procedures, the right actions, and responsibilities (before the next misstep or security breach happens) is the most effective and fair way to make people accountable and minimize some of the push back you may get as you transform your culture. 
In his book, Less: Accomplishing More by Doing Less, Marc Lesser makes the point well:
Experts are becoming increasingly worried about the upcoming Flu Season. What happens if the H1N1 virus really does become a pandemic? Banking and Financial Services will be impacted along with schools, government and the economy at large. What if half your workforce calls in sick?
How well do you LISTEN to customers and employees when they complain that written instructions in your company procedure manuals and employee manuals are hard to understand or missing important steps? 
What’s the most important factor in reducing task errors? Employee Skills? Training Methods? or the “System” itself (aka steps used to perform the task)? 
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