There are a lot of intangible things in life, things that affect the service that you are delivering and the business that you are running. Things that you would love to know, but are frankly just impossible to find out. How about these for a couple of examples: How effective are your managers? How […]
Clear Work Instructions, an Eight Point Plan
When writing work instructions, you get points for clarity, not style. Instead of waxing lyrical about the customer journey and decisive moments, just make your point. Here are eight ways to do that: Use a clear heading to explain the task If you can’t explain the task succinctly what chance do people following the instructions […]
All You Will Ever Need to Know About Analysis
Improving performance isn’t very difficult, it is just about fixing things that don’t work too well. The problem is trying to work out which bit to fix, what is important, where will you get the most bang for your buck. It is easy to fall into a world of analysis paralysis, pain and despair. You […]
The Pandora’s Box of Service Improvement, Dare You Open it?
At the heart of Lean Thinking is a beautifully simple idea, it is that you should only do things that a customer is prepared to pay for. Anything else you do is “waste”. I prefer the word “stupid”. It is harsher and blunter than waste but gets the point over. (I didn’t graduate form a […]
What can 19th Century Cholera Teach us about 6 Sigma?
In 1854 there was an outbreak of Cholera in Central London. Dr John Snow had a theory that the disease was water borne and so plotted the deaths on a street map to see if he could prove the case. He showed that the majority of deaths were happening to people who lived near the […]