Blog | The Squawk Point

Error Proofing

3 October, 2011 by James Lawther 3 Comments

Error proofing is making things “easy to get right and difficult to get wrong”. It is a small but very powerful idea. Improving customer service is easy, all you have to do is: Find out what your customer is unhappy about Work out what the cause of that unhappiness is Fix that cause In labour […]

The Five “Whys?”

29 September, 2011 by James Lawther 5 Comments

I have an eight year old daughter, she is verging on perfect (well I am her Dad). Unfortunately there are a number of bits where she is not so verging on perfect. One of those is her constant questions, why why why why why?. As the saying goes “It does my head in”. This is […]

Swim Lanes

27 September, 2011 by James Lawther 5 Comments

From time to time, people ask me what is the best way to draw a process map. (Maybe they, or I, should get out more.) A better question is why are you drawing a process map? So that you can agree what the process is So you can communicate a process So you can spot […]

Continental Management Reviews

24 September, 2011 by James Lawther 2 Comments

I hate driving on the continent. It’s hard work. It isn’t just the fact that foreigners will insist on driving on the wrong side of the road (though that doesn’t help), the real problem is that I am constantly bombarded with information that I don’t quite understand: road signs, billboards, lane markings, traffic lights… and […]

Why E-mail is Like Oil

20 September, 2011 by Robby Slaughter Leave a Comment

Let’s be brutal here: you’re probably buried in e-mail. And like crude oil, e-mail can be a sticky, annoying substance that’s practically impossible to clean. We need e-mail to get things done, but it seems like an endless, yucky mess. The funny thing about oil is that while spilling a little bit is a problem […]