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Virtual Sticky Notes

20 June, 2020 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Tools of the Trade I spend a lot of my time with sticky notes in workshops, helping organisations run better.  There are two parts to my job. Working out what needs fixing Persuading people to fix it Part 1: Working out what to fix This bit is straightforward.  You work on the gaps.  People are […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: communication, tools to do the job, workshop

Mental Models and the Long Way to Liverpool

12 June, 2020 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Mental Models We all rely on mental models to guide us through life. They are our maps of reality and we use them to get the best outcomes possible. But where do those models come from and who is to say they are right? A family wedding A few years ago I went to a […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: assumptions, beliefs, communication, human nature, ignorance, learning, mental models

The Art of Managing Complexity

26 May, 2020 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Fire Fighting In the late noughties, Michelle Barton and Kathleen Sutcliffe carried out a study of wildfires in the US.  They were interested in understanding how the firefighters went about managing complexity in their job. The researchers wanted to understand why some fires were well controlled and brought to a swift and happy conclusion, whilst […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: command and control, communication, complexity, culture, gemba, management by wandering around

Reducing Complexity

4 May, 2020 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Avoiding Overwhelm In their book Meltdown, Clearfield and Tilcsik show how complicated systems fail.  They discuss nuclear accidents, financial disasters and medical mishaps and show how we can avoid disasters by reducing complexity. The more complex our systems become, the less easy they are to understand. So they become harder to fix when they break. Add […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: accident prevention, aviation, communication, complexity, data is not information, data presentation, error proofing, graphical user interface, less is more

Preventing Human Error

18 April, 2020 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

The oscar that became a case study in preventing human errors

A Problem with the envelope On February 26th 2017, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held its 89th award ceremony, celebrating the best films of 2016. The ceremony was a case study in preventing human error (or not depending on your perspective). It went swimmingly until the very last award for best picture. Faye Dunaway […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: accident prevention, accountability, blame, clarity, data presentation, error proofing, risk assessment, simplicity

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