Reflection – Learning Launch

Period End Closing Calendar Standardization in Asia Market

Challenge   I am a member of my organization’s Record to Report (R2R) general ledger department or also  known as R2R GL and my challenge is to improve the workflow activities and projects) within  department in order to make every activity to be efficiently and effectively so we can save more  time and focus on other project for development purpose. In this department, we have one  activity named as Period End Closing Calendar (PEC Calendar) which used for closing activities  time schedule so each department can know when is the deadline time for each activity. The  purpose of this project is to standardize layout, format, and description activities for Period End  Closing Calendar (PEC Calendar) in all Asia market.    The project scope includes R2R GL team which consist of 3 employees (analyst, senior analyst,  and supervisor), as well as R2R Fixed asset department, with whom we work closely. The project  should not exceed 2 months period and the solution should include an even distribution of  working hours amongst the team members. The goals are to uncover what our GL team and also  other team which work closely with us consider to be ineffective or problematic with regard to  the layout, description list of Period End Closing Calendar (PEC Calendar).    Selection  Our team has already gone through several checking on the old version of PEC Calendar that we  usually used and took a look on which are lacking and still not standardized so can cause  confusion to other team who use this PEC calendar. After those checking, we’ve already figured  out what need to be updated and standardized, so our team are ready to try the learning launch  tool. Broadly speaking, the learning launch is an experiment meant to quickly test an idea and  prototype.    Application     For our first learning launch, we focused on the structure and layout of Period End Closing  Calendar (PEC Calendar) for each market in Asia. Thus we need to collect data of PEC calendar  from each market then summarize all of PEC to one file. From this summary file, we found out  many of those activities are similar to one another which is quite not so efficient and not effective.    For our second learning launch, in particular, we wanted to see if we could structure our task  code, task description, and who the person responsible with to be standardized for all of Asia  market. We try to combine some of activities which similar one another in some markets to  summarize them in one new standardize activity so no need to have a lot of line activities in PEC  calendar schedule. Our project team went through around two weeks to summary those similar  activities.  Next, we confirmed to each market whether we can structure those activities into one  line activity which can be described the same meaning. This crosscheck with each market  happened around one week timeframe to complete before we decided the final draft. We

expected to produce a document with a clear description of our new properly and effectively PEC  calendar schedule.  For our third learning launch, we also focus on confirming the list of activities on PEC calendar  that already standardized to other team such as R2R Fixed Asset team. Since some of those  activities mostly related with fixed asset team so we need to confirm if they are already agree  with the new standardization that we try to propose. The review from R2R Fixed Asset team  required around one week timeframe, then the PEC calendar sent back to our team for some  revises and ask for final confirmation to Fixed Asset team.    After the draft for standardization PEC calendar ready, we conducted a socialization to all senior  analyst which handled Asia market. On this step, we want to share the latest version of  standardization PEC calendar to all of the senior which is responsible as the person in charge who  make this period end closing calendar for each market. From this presentation, we explained  about what the background is, how we do the standardization, and what we improve by doing  this. Our team also ask the senior analysts to recheck once again the latest version of PEC  calendar and give feedback to us if there anything to be added or revised to be adapted according  to each market situation. We give them one week time for checking and rereview and we’ll get  back to them after three days time doing the revision. In case there are some new activities or  changes, feel free for other department or PIC from each market to contact us through mail.    Insight   By applying the learning launch tool, our team identified that our assumptions to standardize  naming convention and template for Period End Closing calendar in Asia market has been  successfully implemented. Person in charge for each market find this standardization project to  be useful and more effective and efficient. This approach died improve our workload and save  more time because we have one Period End Closing Standard which already standardized so all  Asia market can use same code task and description and don’t cause any confusion to affiliate  and other department. Our actual results were slightly different from what we anticipated, since  sometimes still there are some revision from other team, while our team was open to any  improvement to make the PEC calendar easier to use. Moving forward, our team will review all  of suggestions and try to make it better or expand the same standardization approach for other  market outside Asia.    Approach  Given that our team has already gone through several design thinking tools and we found it the  learning launch is the appropriate tool. As mentioned, our team needs to review the insight  gained from our current project and using this insight into future launch designs. Future launch  designs should reflect insight gained, progress made, and come to a better version workflow.

