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Hiding in the Numbers

23 August, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Does your management information come from databases? Do you employ analysts to “mine” the data? It’s amazing, you can slice and dice the data any which way you like; changing reports on a daily basis, creating pages and pages of beautiful graphs, comment and analysis, showing what a great job you are doing. Or, instead […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: accountability, data presentation, fessing up, measurement, video

Need Another Drink

24 March, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

E&J Gallo, the Californian winery has been caught in a scam, a 7 million euro scam. A group of wine producers from the Languedoc region have passed off 18 million bottles of plonk as Pinot Noir.  This has been bottled and sold  under Gallo’s “Red Bicyclette Pinot Noir Single Grape Wine” brand. The fraud came […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: accountability, error proofing, over-processing, process control, video

Dogmatic Ignorance

19 March, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

I had an interesting conversation today with an auditor.  I asked him why auditors don’t see the blindingly obvious, why they don’t dig into problems, why they are so easily hoodwinked, (go on, admit it, you have pulled the wool over an auditors eyes), why they are, frankly, so stupid.  I didn’t put it quite […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: accountability, auditors, communication, dogmatism, ignorance

Excuses, Excuses

23 February, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Are you frustrated by the lack of resources to do your job properly?  Too much to do in too little time?  No people, no budget and no systems to help you?  If only you could just get the enhancement or extra head that you need everything would be OK, wouldn’t it? The problem is that […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: accountability, continuous improvement, Eugène parks his car, information technology, video

Mad Business Rules

16 February, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

There are plenty of examples of mad business rules. According to Sky News, the supermarket chain Asda refused to sell a 44-year-old mother alcohol because she was shopping with her teenage son.  The supermarket chain went on to admit that its tough alcohol sales policy may “seem mad”. It does seem mad, on a number […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: accountability, beliefs, business rules, trust

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