How to Keep your Sh*t Together when Everything is on Fire
There’s a reason there is a business use for the term “firefighting.” In complex environments (ones with lots of dependencies) with tight timelines and customers waiting, things that are either late already or threatening to become overdue quickly become “fires” that need action to be “put out.”
Ignoring these things leads to the fire growing out of control as the manufacturing organization fails to meet the needs of its internal and external customers. Instead of heat, the fires generate noise (emails, chat messages, being pulled aside in hallways and having meetings added to your calendar) that won’t stop until the fires are out.
A constant flow of orders means a constant flow of opportunities for things to go wrong and start fires.
Before we jump to “how-to-keep-your-sh*t-together”, I want to share two real stories of times when things were on fire for me in a biotech manufacturing environment.
Story One: COVID-19 Changed our Jobs Overnight
Setting the Stage
I was an Associate Scientist on the QC team. In the first days of March 2020, I was traveling in the Bay area training an In-Vitro Diagnostics QC team how to run immunoassays.
I made it onto my flight home just days before San Francisco went into quarantine.
When I arrived back at the office, managers and our health and safety coordinator were scrambling. We had two employees on my team who had gone 100% remote overnight due to health concerns to avoid catching the uncharacterized COVID-19 virus. As a lab-based team, that meant we were immediately down two people. Manufacturing and QC testing orders were coming as fast as ever.
To add to the excitement, rapidly changing guidelines for safe working indicated we needed to begin social distancing at work. Our lab space was tiny but had 8 bench spaces for workers. We were often on top of each other during busy times, so much so that we sometimes called out like kitchen workers “Corner!” when moving fast to avoid collisions.
I went to the lab and measured out the space. To be truly conforming, we would need to reduce the number of testers in lab to THREE. From eight. Overnight.
Finding a Solution
My immediate concern was now not the physical arrangement of the space or even the two remote workers. It was scheduling.
Lab time was the new bottleneck, and for us to produce at the same speed (or faster – we were scaling rapidly, so we always needed to be able to do more), we would need to optimize around it.
The three testers would need to do the lab work of eight.
I sketched out an alternate workflow using task switching between lab and remote workers, did some math, drafted an Excel template, created a Trello board, checked in with my manager, and then called a team meeting.
Bringing the Team On Board
I threw it out there that things were extreme, and that we were going to have to change in an extreme way to match.
I threw out my proposal – that we break up our workflow into steps based on whether they were in-lab or virtual, and schedule them out ahead of time so it was clear who was passing things back and forth and who needed to do what and when – and the team took it in.
It would mean they didn’t get to analyze their own data, didn’t get to plan their own experiments. All non-lab tasks that could be done on the computer could be done by the remote workers. Hands in the lab would be busy from start to finish of each shift. The disconnected workflow would impact their development as scientists, and they knew it, but the team trusted me and so they heard me out.
Also, we’d have to structure our hours, breaking the day into morning and afternoon lab shifts. We had never had structure like this before. It was a massive, immediate, and brutal change.
With some humor, and a reminder that we were doing this for our safety and to ensure scientists could continue on with their missions – because even with a pandemic happening they needed to keep receiving our test kits - the team came on board.
Implementation
That week amidst the regular flow of orders, failed QC tests needing evaluation, and troubleshooting of my job, I built and rolled out our first production schedule and work tracking document. The first iteration scheduling 80 batches with 3-5 tasks each (about 320 tasks) took me 18 hours to finish.
It was a beast.
But the team made it through the first week and stuck to the schedule. What’s more - with only three testers in lab we managed to complete a higher number of assays than we had the week previous with six in lab.
We were on fire in a good way. My manager was exuberant about the scheduling process. And I was exhausted.
Optimization and Rebalance
The scheduling had to continue, but I couldn’t work 18-hour Fridays forever. I needed help to optimize the solution, because we didn’t know how long the pandemic would keep us in this workflow. I reached out to supply chain and someone volunteered to teach me Excel Power Query.
It took a few weeks carrying the initial process while we reworked the spreadsheet, but adding power queries to our scheduling tool allowed us to speed things along.
We could now handle scheduling for up to 180 batches in ~4 hours, and after the dust settled I was able to take some afternoons off to make up for the days I worked super long shifts. I returned to balance.
Story Two: Going too Fast Leads to Mistakes
The Situation
The week prior was calm but slowly ramping up, and then suddenly I realize we are fully on fire.
We’re mid-surge (making 2X our normal production volume) and everyone is already committed to working overtime.
And then the label generation and printing process breaks.
And the labeling robot breaks.
Someone calls out sick.
A glut of products unexpectedly fail QC.
And on top of it all, we’ve realized after collaborating with supply chain that we need to expedite a special order with 800 units in it to deliver on a high-value order for one of our customers.
We are now hand-printing and hand-labeling thousands of tubes with only hours left to deliver on time. Despite the rapid pace we are working, it seems like it’s still going ok. The team is in high spirits, our Teams chat is bursting with memes, and we are knocking batches out left and right.
The Mistake
As the Quality Control (QC) manager, at this late stage I’ve been roving the lab helping as issues arise. I’m also bursting out of the seams of my lab coat because I’m eight months pregnant. It has been a few hours since I had anything to eat or drink, which was probably my first mistake.
At that moment, someone realizes that the 1600 hand-labeled tubes for the expedited order are labeled INCORRECTLY and cannot be shipped without relabeling.
Someone (fun fact: it was me) forgot to include the storage temperature on the tube label that had to have a template made from scratch for it because our report to generate labels automatically wasn’t working.
Processing the Error
Blame it on going too fast, the already high-stress situation, the process for manually generating labels, or the fact that I was eight months pregnant – I went into a room to give a status update to my manager and ended up just openly crying.
Why was I crying?
I felt bad because my team would have to delabel and relabel 1600 tubes of protein (at a rate of about a minute per tube, it would take another 26 hours of our team’s time). Labeling is ergonomically intensive, and we were already doing a lot of it. Delabeling just sucks, period. It’s always work we know we could have avoided.
Being a QC Manager, I was careful not to make a lot of mistakes, so a big one out of the blue rocked me. I realized I needed to be WAY more careful - I felt ashamed I’d let myself speed up so much, I hadn’t eaten or drank anything and I was pregnant so I knew I had a bit of new mom brain going on. The error I made in labeling was a bit of a Dunning Kruger moment for me where I realized I needed to change my assessment of my own abilities for a time and make adjustments to how I was working to avoid further errors.
At that moment I was overwhelmed because I knew we likely would not make the deadline. In addition to the relabeling, I had to file a bunch of new documentation with QA and get it approved before batch release.
My manager handled the situation pretty well. He’d never seen me break before so this was probably a bit surprising, but he seemed to have expected it to happen (my being BIG pregnant might have been a warning that it could happen at any time).
He reassured me it was going to be ok, listened to me, and let me know I was doing a good job. This was just one order, one mistake. Unfortunate for the mistake to happen on this super-high-priority order, but it could have happened to anyone. We were moving very fast right now, and mistakes happen.
He offered to let me stay in the room alone for a few minutes so I could compose myself, which I did. Then I went to the bathroom for a few minutes until I was ready to face my team and take responsibility for my mistake.
The Resolution
When I returned to lab I found my team had already started making the new labels and they were correct. I took a copy to QA to be sure before we barreled forward into relabeling.
In the end we completed the order the next day on Saturday – not on time to go to logistics Friday but we still shipped the order faster than if we had not expedited.
My team gained a heightened awareness for mistakes we could make and their impact in labeling. In a way, I’m glad it was me and not someone else - it showed them that no matter how long you’ve been at it doing QC, everyone can miss mistakes.
We made it through the surge and things tapered off a few months later while I was on maternity leave to a more sustainable pace.
The How-To
Faced with these types of situations where we are moving fast and under pressure to act, we might think we are forced to rely on our instincts.
While that’s often true, it really shouldn’t be.
Before the Fires Start
To avoid falling into reliance on instinct, preparation must happen before the manufacturing plant is “on fire.”
Use the 5 P’s: Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance.
You know your processes. What are the most likely failure points? What can you do to prevent them? And what would you do if they failed?
For example. My last company operated a cloud-based ERP system. If the internet is down, that’s complete shutdown of the “line” unless we have some planned actions that can be taken in the event of internet failure. IT was involved in risk mitigation for the internet outage possibility – we had a failover provider set up so we could switch over to another source if one internet provider had a local outage. (We definitely used it)
Ask “what if” questions ahead of time when the right people are in the room to answer you.
When someone is walking you through a process or a training, this is a great time to think of issues that may arise and ask who is the best person to contact, where to find information for troubleshooting, or what to do in a specific situation. It’s worth the extra few minutes to ask.
Have contact info (phone numbers are faster than email!) for key decision makers and stakeholders within your organization handy.
Make sure you have phone numbers for all of your line reports and know their general preferences for text vs. call and hours when they can be reached (know for example if they won’t have cell service at home, which is a common thing here in my home state of Oregon).
Have your tech with you – either your work laptop, or some way of reaching critical files via your phone if that works for you. You might not expect to work at night, but if the road freezes and you can’t commute in the morning or some equipment pops an alarm in the middle of the night, it’s best to have the tools you need with you to check in on it quickly rather than back at the office.
If taking your “work” home with you feels wrong, you can reinforce your boundaries with yourself by leaving your laptop in your work bag, not planning on completing work at home after hours or giving in to curiosity about new emails since you left the office, and just leaving it for emergencies.
When you Realize Everything is on Fire
Manage emotions
Quick note here: emotions are not a sign of weakness. That’s the old 80’s business mentality that I think we’re all done with by now creeping in. However, there needs to be some intention between what leaders feel and what they show their teams. Emotions you project can change how your team performs, sometimes for the better and sometimes for worse.
Become aware of how your body responds to stress and how it comes out. Do you shake? Do tears well up in your eyes? Do you speak quietly or more loudly than normal? Do you tense up? Do you laugh at inappropriate times? Mitigate these by identifying them and learning to recognize when you’re doing them.
When you feel you are being pushed to the point of stress where you display it physically, take time by yourself in a quiet space before it takes over. This can be 5-10 minutes in your car if there isn’t a place in your office. Let yourself get it out. If you need to, cry. Reset and then head back in, head high and ready to go.
Remember that crying is just something our bodies do to relieve stress. After crying come the same endorphins that come after exercise. So it can really help you get your shit together to just let yourself cry for a moment in a safe place.
Prioritize like a boss
When everything is on fire, it might seem like there is no good way to prioritize. That is unlikely the case. What is #1 for the safety of your team? What is #1 for the business? For your boss? For the customer? Use these to determine the best order of operations. It takes a bit of judgement, but usually erring on the side of safety and the customer you won’t go wrong.
Find balance in perfectionism vs. making mistakes
The right speed and level of detail to work is probably a little faster than you are comfortable, but not too much faster, or you will find yourself in a relabeling situation.
Ask for help
When you’re really up against the wall with capacity constraints, ask other teams for help. The worst they can say is no, and the best is they’ll give you someone who can at least take the lowest level tasks. Does cross-functional cooperation require extra time for training? Of course. And it is worth it - so many times I’ve taken this step and ended up needing the help for much longer than expected. One “flex” person I had on my team ended up staying for nine months and then was hired into a permanent role.
Help your team by managing tension and burnout
If you notice people snapping at each other, not talking to each other, or any other strange drama arising during times of stress, nip that shit in the bud immediately. Take each person involved aside, one by one, in a private space. This can be a 5-minute talk. You can say something like:
“I’ve noticed your communication _________.”
“The impact to our team is ______.”
“I understand we are in a stressful situation and that can make it harder to be ______ with our coworkers.”
“Can you commit to communicating personably?”
Resist the urge to dive into whatever drama is underneath during this short conversation. If needed, it can be further discussed in your regular 1:1 meeting with that person.
Go to the work - especially if you’re the team manager, make sure you’re in the fire with your team helping to free them from as many issues as you can.
If you see someone struggling, take the time to talk to them 1:1
Similar to the managing tension situation, we need to step in when we see people breaking down. Sometimes they need to be given permission to leave the workspace to go collect themselves. If you see people getting to the brink, have the courage to step in and request they take a break. This can go like:
“I’ve noticed you’re looking stressed.”
“I’m worried about you and I’m noticing our team is also worried.”
“Could you take a break and come back after you feel a little better?”
If it’s close to the end of the day you could also ask them if they would like to go home early. It doesn’t matter how much there is to do, if one person is falling apart it will distract the rest of the team. They’ll be more productive knowing you let the person go home. They’ll also understand you care about their stress level and not only hitting targets.
In the Aftermath
Review what you’ve learned and share it with your team and cross-functionally in your organization. You made it out of the crucible.
Record your triumphs! For your future self. The things you accomplish under pressure are especially important to share while job hunting and striving for promotions.
Make time to do the follow-ups for things that were deprioritized.
Are they still important? Or do they now seem like they can be completely eliminated?
If eliminating a task that was deprioritized during a surge period at work, make sure to communicate to your team that you’ve now decided it is not important, and why. Otherwise it may appear that you have just let it fall by the wayside which would be concerning.
Give recognition to those who stepped up.
Say who, what they did, and how it impacted your team, the customer, and the business.
Return to balance and release stress
I cannot emphasize this enough. Both for yourself and your team - take them out for a fun lunch, dinner, or another outing. Make it a special celebration that is different than other celebrations you’ve had. Getting out of the office is beneficial. I’ve noticed it really gets people out of their shells and you can see the stress release.
If you and your team worked extra, see if you can flex and work less than full-time for a bit once the fires are put out. Make sure there is balance overall to avoid burnout.
Let the Water Roll Off and Put Out the Fires
Someone I know once compared manufacturing to “standing in a river” in that the orders are flowing all around you. There is constant pressure from the river.
Another coworker and I talked about this and decided that if we were in a river, we were ducks.
We were ducks floating on the river of orders, and the issues we were solving were beads of water rolling off our feathers.
I found it helpful to visualize sometimes after I’d emerged from a stressful situation. Just another bead of water.
Wherever you are in your work life right now, I hope this article was helpful.
Do you have a particular strategy you use to keep your emotions in check? To find the best solution under pressure? I’d love to hear in the comments.
Thanks for joining me,
