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Blame Culture: More Dangerous Than You’d Think

10 September, 2012 by James Lawther 7 Comments

Blame Culture

In January 2001, 18-year-old Wayne Jowett died whilst receiving treatment for Leukaemia at the Queens Medical Centre, in my home city, Nottingham. The chemotherapy consisted of two drugs: Cytosine, a drug that is injected directly into the spinal fluid and Vincristine, a drug that is injected into the patient’s blood. A tragic accident The doctor […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: accident prevention, blame, error proofing, medicine, swiss cheese model

There is Always a Bottleneck

8 September, 2012 by James Lawther 3 Comments

Airport Check In

All processes have a bottle neck, a rate limiting step.  Something that holds them back.  There is always a bottleneck. Maybe it’s the neck of the bottle: Maybe it’s the speed of the pump: Maybe it’s the width of the falls: Maybe it’s even the lack of rain: But there is always a bottleneck or […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: backlog, bottleneck, queue, waiting

Process Controls or Commandments?

4 September, 2012 by James Lawther 3 Comments

Though Shalt Not Park

The other day I phoned my IT “help” desk.  They were polite, calm and pleasant but totally useless. They wouldn’t do the one thing I asked them to do.  My request wasn’t unreasonable.  In fact the man on the other end of the line agreed with me, it was the obvious way forward.  But.. The […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: beliefs, bureaucracy, process control, work instructions

The Problem With Suggestion Schemes…

31 August, 2012 by James Lawther 5 Comments

Suggestion Box

I decided we required more “family engagement” at home.  We could also have done with some innovation, and my daughters certainly needed a productivity boost so I set up a suggestion scheme.  If you would like to try this I have detailed the implementation activity below: DIY suggestion scheme: Designed suggestion form (name, idea, cost […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: communication, continuous improvement, listening, suggestion schemes

The Best Way to Spend Friday Afternoon

28 August, 2012 by James Lawther 3 Comments

Hack Week

What is important to you at work?  What is the thing that you are really bothered about, the thing that needs fixing?  What is the one issue that you could work on that would really make things better? What is your big idea? If your boss gave you Friday afternoon to do whatever you wanted […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: fedex day, Google, hack day, innovation, twenty percent time, Twitter

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