Categories
Improvement

Zero Tolerance and the 1%

​Reading the Friday morning blog of the rather excellent Ed Reid  this morning on how many small improvements can make a big difference I was struck that it resonated with part of my talk at the NHS event Cloud2 hosted in Manchester the day before. As with Ed’s comments, I referenced the Olympic 1% improvements approach, but I also asked delegates to think about New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s Zero Tolerance programme. While Giuliani was focused on crime, mine was on the legion tiny business ‘crimes’ we allow to go unaddressed: the little delays in processes, bad habits, tolerated poor practice or slightly broken systems and the tendency of not fixing small things when you find them. All the many, many inefficiencies that not only mount up and erode business efficiency, but also create a culture for staff where larger inefficiencies are tolerated and where your team doesn’t believe things can be changed for the better because not even the little things get attended to.

This is not just in the wider context of business, but equally true in SharePoint development and acceptance of almost good enough implementations. It is so very easy, near the end of the development cycle, to leave the little things unfinished or to fail to optimise applications and the UI for the actual user (rather than the developer’s idea of what is OK for a user).

Every now and then I have a rant about people (our developer team and end users alike) not filling in things like the Description field in sites, libraries etc. in their SharePoint portals. Inconsistent metadata, variable navigation, different UI and branding, variant naming conventions, governance rules, spelling mistakes ands typos. Things that just don’t quite work correctly. It’s details like this that can make all the difference to the user experience, search, etc. Their absence or inappropriate content can stop a site feeling professional or polished and actively niggle users whenever they interact with a site of process.

The irony, of course, is that the minor things are often so easy and quick to fix, and mostly by team members themselves, if only you ask and give them the freedom to do so.

Accepting these minor transgressions become the ‘gateway drug’ to bigger cultural and business problems. But being seen to have a Zero Tolerance to little issues, of fixing the 1% problems, tends to reap massive rewards for much less effort and cost than mounting another big improvement project.

I recognise that the Pareto Rule applies, and that the last little things can take a while to fix, but not if you get everyone involved to actively help. We should properly finish what we started.

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By Simon

Simon Hudson is an entrepreneur and health sector specialist. He formed Cloud2 in 2008 following a rich career in the international medical device industry and the IT industry. Simon’s background encompasses quality assurance, medical device development, international training, business intelligence and international marketing and health related information and technology.

Simon’s career has spanned both the UK and the international health industry, with roles that have included quality system auditing, medical device development, international training (advanced wound management) and international marketing. In 2000 he co-founded a software-based Clinical Outcomes measurement start-up in the US. Upon joining ioko in 2004 he created the Carelink division and, as General Manager, drove it to become a multi-million pound business in its own right.
In 2008, Simon founded Cloud2 in response to a need for a new way of delivering successful projects based on Microsoft SharePoint. This created the first commercial ‘Intranet in a Box’ solution and kickstarted a new industry. He exited that business in 2019, which has continued to grow as a leading provider of Power BI and analytics solutions.

In 2016, he co-founded Kinata Ltd. to enable effective Advice and Guidance in the NHS and is currently guiding the business beyond its NHS roots to address needs in Her Majesty’s Prisons and in Australasia.

In 2021, Simon founded Novia Works Ltd.

In 2021 he was invited to become Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Hull.

In 2022 he was recognised as a Microsoft MVP.

In 2025 he founded Sustainable Ferriby CIC, a community energy not-for-profit to develop energy generation, energy & carbon reduction, and broader sustainability & NetZero projects in the West Hull villages.

Simon has had articles and editorials published in a variety of technology, knowledge management, clinical benchmarking and health journals, including being a regular contributor to PC Pro, as well as a presenter at conferences. He publishes a blog on areas of interest at noviaworks.co.uk. He is a co-facilitator of the M365 North User Group. He is a lead author and facilitator on the Maturity Model for Microsoft 365. He is the author of two patents relating to medical devices. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Physical Science and a PGCE in Physics and Chemistry from the University of Hull.

Simon is passionate about rather too many things, including science, music (he plays guitar and octave mandola), skiing, classic cars, narrowboats, the health sector, sustainability, information technology and, by no means least, his family.

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