Lesson from Sunday's Dinner

Sunday evening with school friends...We decided to go to a newly opened restaurant rather a restaurant which got a new name only...and to my surprise I had many things to learn there....couldn't stop myself comparing with the IT delivery.

Estimation: We reached @restaurant around 7.15PM. I was not surprised to see crowd over there as food lover Gujarati's couldn't stop themselves getting attracted to a just 2 day old restaurant and on top of that it’s a Sunday. Remind you I was one of them. We asked for a table of 12 to which manager said "You will need to wait for 30 minutes". We assumed that we won’t get even a chance till next 1 hour. Estimated schedule variance of 100%. Similar to IT, there was a schedule variance of 150%. We got our reservation after 1 hour 15 minutes. I should have checked with the manager which estimation technique he used.

Load Testing: Load testing is the process of putting demand on a system or device and measuring its response (courtesy: Wikipedia). In 15 minutes of time we realized that he has not even met the request of food lover whose name was on 1st page and currently he is way beyond page no. 5. And still his estimation to the new food lover on page no. 5 is 30 minutes with limited no. of seats!!! I was surprised to see such a quick response in theory but practically it was a big Zero. I still have a question, was manager thinking of adding additional tables in kitchen area???

Crisis Manager: Situation was on a break-even point and manager had already lost many of its prospective clients. There was an urgency of a crisis management team. In our world, it is SM, Delivery Head and DGM or may be SBU Head with their expert advice and wise words. In restaurant there was an entry of a bald uncle, somewhere in mid 60's, Top to bottom....Man in Black....and that too wearing stylish shirt. Awesome dressing sense, Lets call him Mr. Owner.

Urgent Patch Work: Mr. Owner took control of the situation and suddenly I saw a walky-talky in his and manager's hand. I didn't see that toy earlier in the hands of manager. Lodz of question arises in my mind about manager's role, but let's not dwalve into that. However would like to mention that as per PMI, communication is crucial for manager to be successful. Owner effectively utilized that toy to bring things under control instead of running here and there like manager.

Next, he asked his delivery team (waiters) to offer Cold water to all the food lovers waiting outside the restaurant. Focused on the food lovers who are already part of the list written by Manager and response time (Waiting time) now increased to 1 hour for new food lovers. And the best thing was to get emotionally connected with food lovers who were waiting for their dinner without losing his status quo.

Delivery Time: Mr. Owner was in charge of the situation and he finally gave us a table of 12 after 150% schedule variance. Like IT, delivery was not as per client's requirement (at least my requirement). My expectation was of AC dining hall; however we got a table of 12 right in the corner where people were waiting for their turn to dine and a single fan in 35 degree Celsius. For me it was a Delivery Failure...

With 150% Schedule Variance, 100% mismatch delivery and 0% satisfaction, I learnt a Lesson from Sunday's Dinner.....Eat at home than trying new restaurant in initial days and that too on Sunday...:-)