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Organisational Mechanics

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Are You Doing What’s Important?

9 March, 2013 by James Lawther 3 Comments

Busy

All organisations are full of work, stuff that needs to get done. That work is divided into two nice neat categories: 1. Customer work Work done for customers (for the sake of argument people who pay). That type of work includes: Capturing order details X-raying broken arms Cleaning hotel rooms Sometimes we call it front line work. […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: bureaucracy, customer focus, gemba, systems thinking

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 […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: customer requirements, economies of scale, efficiency versus effectiveness, form follows function, Olympics, service design, video

Make the Message Clear!

1 March, 2013 by James Lawther 8 Comments

We are getting grief at work, we aren’t dispatching van drivers quickly enough. (The first bit of that statement is true, we are always getting grief at work, the second bit is made up to protect the innocent, but you will get the point). My boss is jumping up and down about our dispatch rate […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: clarity, communication, data is not information, data presentation

Rearranging the Deck Chairs

23 February, 2013 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Iceberg

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 […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: reorganisation, systems thinking

Gordon Ramsay, Darcey Bussell and Your Next Re-Org

19 February, 2013 by James Lawther 7 Comments

When we are faced with a problem, maybe a new competitor, a cost challenge, a product launch or simply a new job, we marshal our forces to deal with it. We reform our departments Shuffle our management teams Hire the right talent Politely ask those who aren’t performing to the standard we expect to leave. […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: form follows function, redundancy, reorganisation, tampering, teamwork, trust, video, wasted intellect

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