Process Improvement Archives

Do You Design Against Demand?

5 March, 2013 by James Lawther 5 Comments

Here is a very simple 2 step improvement idea for you: Understand the customer demands that are placed on your organisation Design your infrastructure and processes to meet those demands. Or, to put it a little less managerially, find out why your customers call you, then work out the best way to give them what […]

Rearranging the Deck Chairs

23 February, 2013 by James Lawther 4 Comments

There is an old adage that form follows function. In his book “The Leader’s Handbook: Making Things Happen, Getting Things Done” (which is great and you should buy it) Peter Scholtes builds on that idea. He shows how the different parts of an organisation interact, one level following and supporting the next: One level follows […]

The Childish Games Managers Play

15 February, 2013 by James Lawther 4 Comments

There is a game called Chinese Whispers, I am sure you have played it. All you do is line a group of people up and ask them to whisper a message from one to another along the chain. Each time it is repeated the message morphs; progressively degrading the further it gets from its source. […]

Caution: Management by Hippopotamus

6 February, 2013 by James Lawther 2 Comments

There is a HiPPO in the room. It is big, loud, ugly and everybody is doing what it wants. The HiPPO is the Highest Paid Persons Opinion. You can spot HiPPO’s quite easily, they are expressed forcefully, everybody nods and agrees with them and they are always the last thing said. A HiPPO is a […]

Good, Better, Best Practice

19 January, 2013 by Bill Flury 4 Comments

This is a guest post by Bill Flury A good idea We were discussing how we could get started with the business of process improvement. Somebody said: “Hey! I’ve got a great idea! The Quality folks are always telling us that we should lookout for better ways to do things. Let’s hold a series of […]