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I’d Rather Gnaw my own Leg Off

10 October, 2011 by James Lawther 6 Comments

Effective Meetings

I have just sat through the most boring, least effective meeting of my life.  If I could have gnawed my own leg off to escape it I would have gladly done so. Unfortunately that wasn’t an option, it was interminable: It wasn’t clear what we were there for: was it to update us? Was it so we made […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: communication, effective meetings, purpose

Process Noise and Coffee Sticks

8 October, 2011 by James Lawther 6 Comments

I would like you to do something for me, next time you are in Starbucks go and steal twenty of those sticks that they have for stirring coffee.  Go on I dare you, be a little dangerous. Next I want you to snap them all in half using your two bare hands. Finally I want […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: key performance indicators, process control, process noise, six sigma, statistical process control

Error Proofing

3 October, 2011 by James Lawther 3 Comments

Error Proofing

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 […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: error proofing

The Five “Whys?”

29 September, 2011 by James Lawther 5 Comments

Five Whys?

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 […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: continuous improvement, root cause analysis

Swim Lanes

27 September, 2011 by James Lawther 5 Comments

Swim Lanes

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 […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: process mapping, template

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