continuous+improvement category archives
Dilbert cannot possibly focus on 25 things. Neither can you!
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Are you starting your change effort with a focus on evolution or on revolution? How does this impact your way of thinking about the change you need to create? How does it impact your thinking about other change efforts?
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Bill Dettmer has a new article on how management tools fit into the Cynefin framework. This builds on ideas I've heard directly from Dave Snowden as well as those discussed elsewhere by people interested in Cynefin as applied to various approaches.
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If change is so constant, why do we take the tried-and-true techniques to change management? Dave Gray suggests something a little different.
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Pay attention to what you are doing. Think beforehand, and then take action. And of course, check that your actions are taking you in the right direction and correct course as needed.
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I attended Kanban training last week and very much enjoyed it. I've used the concept in some consulting engagements, and this training is helping me solidify my understanding and see areas for improvement.
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I read Tom DeMarco's _Slack_. Short review: read the book, even if it is ten years old. Long review: read this entry.
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It is a complete myth to believe that keeping everyone busy will result in success.
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Rather than asking how we do things, we need to learn from how we think about things. That is the way to translate "best practices" from one place to another.
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Riffing off of a great piece by Kevin Jones / vinJones on dealing with the right problems. Might want to check out his other pieces too.
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Reading about Co-Creation makes me think that there are many places where organizations need to stop and listen in order to grow.
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I came across something in my personal life that connects back to my business life. Use experience to get better.
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Pierre Khawand has a simple, short video that looks at interruptions from a slightly different angle. Not multitasking but the results of the effort.
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If you or your business are trying to get more done, focus on the mechanisms for getting things done and getting them done quickly. Don't simply push more into the system.
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A nice interview with Donald Wheeler in Quality Digest reminds us that one size does not fit all.
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Geoffrey Moore talks about reaching your escape velocity in a Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders podcast. I took away another version of the dangers of multitasking - at the team level.
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In your efforts to improve processes and make your organization more like a well-oiled machine, don't forget the people who run the machine. Given the opportunity, it is the people who will be continually making things better.
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Some thoughts about Systems Thinking resources from my perspective from Theory of Constraints and other experiences.
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Some thoughts about recent discussions of Agile and Kanban on the Critical Chain mailing list. There are a lot of useful places where they work together.
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Steve Denning has been talking about his book _Radical Management_ for a while, but something new stood out for me at a talk this week. Continuous improvement.
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Interesting to read Womack and Jones' _Lean Thinking_ and see where there are similarities and differences with Theory of Constraints. I am always learning something new.
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Terminology from Womack and Jones book _Lean Thinking_ has me thinking and wondering. And it gives me reason to create a very brief glossary.
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Practice makes progress, not pefection. Keep taking action to move you toward your goal - don't wait until you think one set of actions will get you there. Besides, your idea of perfect is going to change.
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I have heard a number of references to the "Rules of OPT" by people in the Theory of Constraints community. The Rules of OPT are a familiar set of guidelines and principles, rather than a process to follow. Here they are.
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Change projects affect people just like an ever-increasing load on a spring will eventually deform and break the spring. With too much load, the change projects eventually deform and break as well.
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I've been growing interested in how to use Kanban in the context of knowledge work and projects, so I took a quick scan through _Kanban Made Simple_ by John M. Gross and Kenneth R. McInnis.
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Tim Kastelle has a nice piece on "The Problem with Metrics." There is a lot to the story of metrics and measures, but the key is to measure the right things. And more importantly, stop measuring the wrong things - those measures will drive the wrong behaviors.
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Theory of Constraints and Lean should not be thought of as "in contention" with one another, despite what some people say.
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Do you want to do things well, or do the right things? The difference between efficiency and effectiveness is exactly this difference.
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How many times to you or a colleague have a brilliant insight that will solve the world's problems? Does that insight go anywhere, or does it sit on the pile of other insights? Or you try to do something with it but run into roadblocks that make the idea harder harder to implement. Welcome to the half-baked idea.
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These Lessons From the Knee of the Master: Battle-Tested Tips for ECM Success are formally about Enterprise Content Management, they apply to nearly any type of change implementation.
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I've come across a nice article by Bob Sproull that describes how he has combined Theory of Constraints with Six Sigma and Lean to create what he calls the Ultimate Improvement Cycle, Maximizing Profits Through the Integration of Lean, Six Sigma and Theory of Constraints. Sproull is not the only one to talk about this, and there are a few pointers in the end notes of the article.
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So often in business operations, the focus is on removing variability or eliminating waste or load leveling. But how often do you hear about these projects and wonder whether it actually does anything for the bottom line. I could write about why that is, but what has tickled me today is the idea that variability and "waste" can actually be helpful.
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Pointers to a couple case studies on process improvement from MIT and focusing on a division of Ford Motor Complany.
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A week ago, the Sunday Boston Globe carried a piece on Eugene Litvak's work on helping hospitals improve. Flow is the key.
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A colleague forwarded a copy of "Manage a Living system, Not a Ledger" by H. Thomas Johnson. It is a great discussion of why traditional financial measures, while required for accounting reporting, are terrible for internal decision making.
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There are plenty of things I do individually and that I see in business that make things better. But there seem to be just as many, if not more, that are merely a change without any obvious benefit.
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Some good writing advice from Derek Lowe and some thoughts on LEAN-that-isn't from Mark Graban.
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Tom Davenport has an interesting claim and discussion of Why Six Sigma is on the Downslope for business process improvement. He lists five big problems, and then there is the discussion of what to do next.
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Jon Miller suggests there are problems with problem statements in Top 10 Problems with Problem Statements.
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Scott Selhorst gives a basic education in "The Difference Between Correlation and Causality."
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Is multitasking a good idea or not? Let's define it and clarify what it is that bothers me about working on multiple tasks at once.
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Kent Greenes writes "Learning fast to stay relevant in a flat world." It's a nice, brief description of the Lessons Learned process as practiced by the Army and as described in Learning to Fly. I also like the link Kent makes to the importance of learning and reflection.
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The December 2005 Business 2.0 has an article about Dell's newest manufacturing facility that may reflect theory of constraints principles: "Dude, You're Getting a Dell--Every Five Seconds."
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Pop quiz: Do you want a bottleneck in your business? Why or why not?
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Michael McLaughlin writes "The Worst Thing About Best Practices." In isolation, I absolutely agree with McLaughlin. However, if they are part of an intelligent process, such as he suggests at the end of the article, best practices can be quite helpful.
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[Discovered this unpublished draft from last September] Fortune: A Big Maker of Tiny Batches about Rockwell-Collins' operations: The virtual factory has had an unexpected effect on productivity. When a product arrives from another plant, it gets a fresh look. Besides a natural attitude of "anything they can do, we can do...
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Tom Collins at Knowledge Aforethought had some interesting thoughts about "best practices" two weeks ago. Here's the last paragraph of the article: Knowledge Aforethought: "Best-yet" practices - DO NOT RE-FREEZE If we "re-froze" the prior experience into the organizational "best practices" would anyone even look for the newer, better solutions? His...
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It looks like Jakob Nielsen gets lost in the same hole many others do when using statistics to drive a point.
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John Parkinson, Chief Technologist for the Americas for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, spoke at the KMPro Chicago meeting last night on the topic of The Real Time Enterprise.
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