A visit to the Tirupati, home of one of the richest gods, Balaji, is an experience that many million people consider one of the most important spiritual experiences of their life; not once, but many times in a lifetime; they plan in advance or start hunting around for someone to help ease the way in, they pray to the lord that he is kind enough to afford a reasonable ‘darshan’………
So, after a gap of seven years, when we planned a visit, I too was in eager anticipation of my tryst with god and excited. I was pleasantly surprised, at the ease with which I was able to purchase a ticket online, and fairly impressed with the design of the site, as well as the smarts that had gone into creating a reasonably fool-proof system of establishing identity. Well done, IT department, I thought.
As we reached the tollbooth at the base of the hill, and received our toll-receipt, I noticed it had the car number and the time of starting the ascent. My driver for the day, Balaji (yeah I know, ironic), asked us to preserve it carefully till we hit the hilltop. As we drove up, I couldn’t help notice that he was very patient and maintained a steady speed, not rushing to overtake or take advantage of the horsepower of my car.
On reaching the hilltop, our receipt was scanned, and in a large screen visible to all around, it glowed green, and said, Car number KA XXXXX, 43 minutes. Puzzled, I asked Balaji about it. He showed me the adjacent lane, where there was a similar screen, show car number KA YYYY, 37 minutes, glowing red! He explained that the drive is expected to be completed in 45 minutes, with a lower tolerance level of 3 minutes. Anything below indicates over-speeding, and the driver pays a penalty.
Wow! I thought. Simple, effective, no room for manual error or need for individual judgement. Talk of clean, uncomplicated, effective design! The Electronic City Elevated Expressway folks can steal this idea.
Then we reached the spot where the queue for our 0930 – 1030am darshan slot started. Again, I was impressed with the thought that went into the design of the online and offline process. Simple, coordinated, worked well. By now, my admiration for the folks who manage the day to day logistics of Tirupati, had grown. They have one of the toughest jobs in my view; the crowds, the frenzy, and the pressure of volumes, coupled with the subtle challenges of dealing with VIPs………
Considering all this, hats off to the team who is constantly thinking, innovating, and continuously improving the processes involved in moving pilgrims in, through, and out, of the base town and the hill and finally the temple. Over the years, I have observed the innovation, disruptive re-engineering of the underlying processes, and a willingness to constantly change for the better.
However, unfortunately my admiration was short-lived. ……..
Thoughtful design, focus on safety, and crowd management techniques seemed to stop where one entered the serpentine queues; multiple queues merged at the gates of the temple. And the last leg of the darshan – the section between the main door and the door to the sanctum sanctorum, was perfectly created to cause a stampede! Lines merged and grew to a crowd of jostling pilgrims; ladies with babies in their arms and old people were disregarded in the frenzy to make it to the narrow entrance at the other end. Purses and belongings were at risk. I am not sure how we managed to make our way through to enter the main sanctum and suddenly, back into reasonable order, and thankfully, peace so you could experience spiritual rapture for 10 seconds with Balaji!
I was left wondering why the physical barricades that ensured reasonable lines of one or two people were removed, and crowds allowed to form, especially knowing the Indian mindset of ‘me first, if you are smarter, go past!’
What happened to all the design principles and the thoughtfulness, the innovation that was evident thus far? The continuous improvement mindset that had given rise to simple and effective practices and processes seemed to have missed a vital part of the flow! A classic case of what different departments prioritise, with an adverse impact on some key organizational goals, even value.
In the case of Tirupati, it is the critical element of pilgrim safety. The transport and roads department seemed to be doing a stellar job, safety is their priority – obviously not pressured to move a certain number through their roads in a specific time interval. So, they could focus on designing for safety.
Let us take the case of the team/department responsible for the ‘queue management’ and temple premise management (whatever it is called, I can’t for the life of me figure it out) Their single-minded focus and their only priority would be to move people in and out of the premises at the shortest possible time. They measure how long it takes from the start to the end of the queue. So focused are they on this one objective, and they constantly innovate and improve to reduce the time taken for darshan, that safety of people and belongings, probably never entered their mind!
I can’t think of any other reason why anyone would design or allow the design of a flow that was so visibly and evidently unsafe and had a high probability of physical harm; Imagine if there was an accident, a mishap, in the temple, and given what I experienced on a weekday, there is a very high probability of that – what would people focus on? the wonderful work of the transport department? Or the poor job of crowd and queue management – which was a more or equally critical element of the overall design?
The challenge of building a SAFE, HASSLEFREE and SEAMLESS experience of visiting the temple was lost, lost between the myriad departments with diverse objectives, and probably with different levels of passion in the leadership and teams. This is no different from the service delivery efforts within our own organizations
How can an organization avoid harmful misaligned functional silos, with teams having different design philosophy, such disparate mindsets of what constituted excellence? . How do we build alignment, unity of purpose and seamless flows that engage and enchant the customer?
A few that came to my mind:
- Create a conscience keeper, an orchestra conductor, accountable for the big picture and the organization level objectives and values.
If there was an overall owner, someone accountable for the pilgrims’ experience in Tirupati, that team would have identified the gaps. Someone or some team, who puts together the core objectives – safety, speed, even comfort, together, keeping in mind the varying types of people – from 10 day old babies to 100 year old people, who act as the conductors, orchestrating all parts to focus on all objectives without impacting any one of them negatively. A quality or service excellence or a customer experience management team is good for this.
- Measure right across different teams and functions:
If the administration measured both speed and safety (near misses, safety issues) in the queues too, then the team would be forced to focus and build for better safety. Measure right, publicise the performance!
- Build feedback loops – listen to the frontline
The temple had volunteers all over – if there was a way for the volunteers to share what they observed day in and day out, they would have pointed out to the safety issues. One volunteer standing at the entrance actually told me this! He was tired of watching a potential stampede and helpless to do anything about it, because there was no way to share his observation at the right levels.
- Listen to the customer
I know, in a temple it seems weird, but why not? A focus group of pilgrims is a definite possibility; and in a temple like Tirupati where so much thought goes into designing for pilgrims comfort and speed, this additional step will help understand challenges on the ground
- Walk the Gemba!
How many temple administrators would actually go through the temple with the pilgrims in the queues? None! Just like a Regional Manager in a retail chain may not be in the store at the start and end of the day or during peak customer periods. But nothing like personal experience to help identify improvement opportunities and misalignments on the ground.
I welcome all thoughts and suggestions on this. I am fascinated personally by the challenge of organizational silos – all well meaning and hardworking people, unknowingly taking value away!
excellent observations. The Devasthanam authorities should consider these suggestions