Lather Rinse Repeat

LATHER RINSE AND REPEAT

Lather, Rinse and Repeat(LRR). Pretty straight forward instructions. Hard to mess up. Or is it? If you follow these instructions, when do you stop?

The phrase has come to be indicative of two things; a) a way of pointing out instructions, if taken literally, would never end (or would continue at least until you run out of shampoo), or b) "a sarcastic metaphor for following instructions without critical thought". The author Benjamin Cheever wrote about these words in his book "The Plagiarist" (SPOILER ALERT - in the book, a marketing executive becomes an overnight legend by simply adding the word REPEAT to the instructions. Of course, sales of shampoo skyrocket)

The point is this, this is a process and the process has not changed or been updated in a long while.

Are you sure it's a process?

Yep. Here is how I know.

The base statement of "Wash Hair" does not cover the steps needed to complete the activity. LRR fulfills the steps. LRR is not a procedure as the activities do not provide instruction on how to complete the steps.

So what's the problem?

The biggest issue with the process is "Do I really need to repeat"? What happens if I don't? Maybe my hair doesn't have the body promised? Maybe my hair is not sleek and shinny? Oh, perish the thought! My reality is I lather and rinse once. The only time that changes is if I have been doing an activities (painting, exercise) that cause me to feel my hair to need another cycle.

So the point is?

a) It's a simple process. Not complicated. Do we work to make ITSM process as simple as possible? My experience shows that we, as IT people, tend to grab Visio, graph every possibility without question, and produce a monster swim lane diagram. Do we add complexity because the customer requires it or because we have these cools systems which do cool things?

b) Do we spend time looking at how to make a process better? Lauren Goldstine takes on the need for LRR in a 1999 article entitled "Lather, Rinse, Repeat: Hygiene Tip or Marketing Ploy" In her article, Ms. Goldstine indicates that Repeat is probably no longer necessary due to the advances in shampoo tech, yet most shampoo bottles you look at will have the process. 

Now to be fair to the shampoo companies, having Repeat on the bottle may help drive sales, thus the reason for no change. I am highly suspect of this reason simply because I don't buy shampoo based on the process. I buy shampoo based on a) does it help make my hair look good? b) can I afford it? and c) do I have a coupon?

 I'm also willing to bet the shampoo companies have done research to know what the preference of the consumer is. There is also the possibility the companies have looked into the change and decided it is cost prohibitive. I don't know how much it cost to print Repeat on a bottle or how much it costs to stop printing Repeat. Regardless, do we have plans to review our ITSM processes and to adjust based on our customers' needs?

c) Are our processes designed to help our customers or help IT? LRR is clearly aimed at the end user. One buys shampoo for many reasons, but the process is almost universal. You know what to do when you are ready to use shampoo. You can execute the process with little training and/or thought. Can customers say the same about IT processes? It is always interesting to ask  why we (IT) do something. It's shocking how many times the reason focuses on making things better for IT not for customers.

At the end of the day, does this really matter?

You bet it does. The tide is turning quickly for IT. The business wants to know why IT has spent all that money and what value did the business get. What better way to show the value than to show how IT improved business outcomes. The business is treating IT line a partner and IT needs to reciprocate.