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Have You Killed any Swans Today?

29 June, 2013 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Swans

We live and work within systems, systems that connect things.  One way or another everything is connected. That sounds like psycho-babble, so let me give you an example: Legislation leaves swans starving The In the far north of England on the border with Scotland is the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.  In 1994 the flock of swans […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: devil is in the detail, point optimisation, service design, systems thinking

The Management Secrets Every Primary School Teacher Knows

17 June, 2013 by Bernie Smith 2 Comments

Sticker Chart

This is a guest post. Like most parents of young children I am locked in long-term trench warfare, trying to “encourage” them to go along with all the dull things that me and their mother want them to do. Following the advice of the TV experts, I decided to try using a sticker chart to reward […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: incentives, measurement, monitoring

Can You Make the Right Decisions?

11 June, 2013 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Emergency Room

Decision-making is hard. So hard that we pay people handsomely to be professional decision makers: Doctors Underwriters Bank Managers Tax Inspectors All of them make their living by taking complex ill-defined situations and making decisions. Unfortunately they don’t always decide the same way If you put two professional decision makers in a room at the […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: automation, decisions, error proofing, information technology, logic tree, medicine, pareto principle, problem solving

The Two Reasons why Your M.I. is Always Wrong

8 June, 2013 by James Lawther 7 Comments

Counting steps

My 4-year-old daughter is learning to count.  She is obsessed by it.  She counts everything: 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 5.. 6.. Everywhere we go. Most of all though she counts steps.  Particularly in castles and cathedrals (which is fun) and car parks (which when you are laden with bags full of shopping… that you just […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: data integrity, defects, key performance indicators, measurement

Is Your Boss Really That Stupid?

25 May, 2013 by James Lawther 12 Comments

weigh scales

For the past 40 years my mother has been on a diet. She has a weekly ritual. Every Thursday morning she gets up, visits the bathroom and then, before she has had her customary cup of tea, she weighs herself. Why does she do this? Because she knows full well that she is at her […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: human nature, incentives, measurement, statistics, targets

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