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Organisational Mechanics

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Was My M.B.A. A Waste of Time?

30 October, 2017 by James Lawther 3 Comments

Thought Experiment

Collaboration For my sins I have an M.B.A.  I am a child of the ’70’s.  By the time I hit the ’90’s an M.B.A. was the qualification to have if you were intent on pursuing a corporate career. The course taught me all about the parts of big business.  I learnt about: Finance and accounting […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: best practice, collaboration, communication, culture, systems thinking

Changing the Rules

16 October, 2017 by James Lawther 2 Comments

All organisations have rules We have rules about expenses and rules about systems access.  There are rules about promotions and rules about mobile phones.  Still more rules about budgets and rules about supplier gifts. Organisations have hundreds of rules.  These rules, explicit or not, define the way our organisations work. The problem with rules If […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: command and control, systems thinking

Variation or Standardisation?

4 October, 2017 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Standardisation

Standard work The process guys will tell you that you should standardise and reduce variation. Variation is a bad thing. The customer experience guys will tell you every interaction is different.  No customer is the same. Variation is a good thing. Which camp is right? The case for allowing variation Some situations call for a […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: service design, standardisation, variation, video

Management Cardboard

11 September, 2017 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Management Cardboard

Management control Rather longer ago than I care to admit, I worked for an FMCG company.  I worked in R&D, and developed new frozen food products for a living. There were two things we worried about: The contents – the product that customers pay for, the fish finger or ice cream. The container – the […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: bureaucracy, command and control, complexity, waste

Tool Hire

1 September, 2017 by James Lawther 3 Comments

tool hire

There are lots of tools out there I don’t mean that in a derogatory way.  I mean process improvement tools: 5S, control charts, swim lanes… those sort of tools. There are also lots of people who know how to use those tools. It is easy to recruit staff who can bring a toolbox stuffed with approaches […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: beliefs, lean thinking, six sigma, training

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