Earlier this week, I received a great compliment, courtesy of Matt Wrye at the Beyond Lean blog. In a post entitled, “My Continuous Improvement: Outside the Lean Circle” he names a few non-Lean blogs he likes to read, because they give him perspective on things beyond the borders of his core expertise. Matt writes of My [...]
Know what you’re measuring
July 11, 2011 By 2 Comments
I have to confess that I have never before read Eli Goldratt’s The Goal. It was on the list of books I wanted to read once I’d finished my MBA and, now that I’ve got the degree, I’m tending to my long-ignored reading list. While Lean enthusiasts will be highly familiar with Goldratt’s work that [...]
Chart(er)ing the plan for improvement
June 27, 2011 By 4 Comments
Something I have to wonder about the high rate of failure of most process improvement projects – is how many of them are executed according to solid project management principles? All too often, there are tales of failure describing a lack of senior management buy-in, however, that begs the question – if you didn’t have [...]
J.D. Power Rankings – read past the headlines
June 24, 2011 By 4 Comments
A lot in the news today over the 2011 J.D. Power Initial Quality rankings, showing that ford slipped all the way down to #23, Lexus in on the top, and Honda won out in several categories. Those rankings are based on owner-reported problems within the first 90 days of ownership, measured as problems-per-one-hundred. Ford dropped [...]
Time: The ultimate currency
April 18, 2011 By 4 Comments
What is your most important resource? You can resort to the cliche and say that people are your most important resource. You might be a realist who goes to the bottom line and says that financial capital is most important. Perhaps you are partial to knowledge management and believe that it is your organization’s intellectual capital that is most important. Many others say that it is culture.
Fact is, you can always hire more people, make more money, invest in education and training and develop new management styles. The one thing no one, anywhere, at any point in history has ever been able to do is make more Time. [Read more]
Problems, solutions, GPS and Owls
April 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
One of my least favorite experiences occurs every time an organizatioanl outsider hears of a problem, and immediately insists that he/she knows the answer to the problem people within the organization have struggled with for years. Yes, I am aware that a fresh perspective is often the key to “un-sticking” a stagnant group, however, that’s [...]
A Problem Solving joke: The number puzzle
March 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
A friend sent me a joke this week. It was clever, but it also contained a couple of good messages about not letting a problem get in your way, thinking sideways and not letting a someone who’s lost in linear thought get the best of you. [Read more]
Analyze the Variance
February 25, 2011 By 2 Comments
I think one of the weakest areas of project management (other than planning, which is rarely ever done very well) that I’ve encountered is the Variance Analysis. When things are planned and measurements are taken to determine the status of things, there’s often very little attention paid to understanding the root cause of the issue, and even less done to write those things down very well.
I’ve seen tasks overrun, and the explanation written as, “Costs were higher than expected.”
Gee, thanks. You’re telling me, “We overran because we spent too much.” Nice job, Sherlock. Did you come up with that one all by yourself?
How done are you?
February 10, 2011 By 1 Comment
One of the most frustrating things I hear when dealing with project managers is that they are unable to tell if a project is 5%, 25% or 95% complete, due to the ambiguous, ever-changing nature of the task at hand. Apparently, since the work is always changing, it’s impossible to measure it’s status.
What nonsense.
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