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Are You Too Clever for Your Own Good?

5 October, 2013 by James Lawther 10 Comments

Locked or Not

I travel a lot with work. It is not glamorous.  I’d love tell you that when I said I was in K.L. I meant Kuala Lumpur, but unfortunately it is far more likely to be Kings Lynn (for those of you who are not from the UK, Kings Lynn is sometimes, albeit unkindly, referred to […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: accident prevention, automation, complexity, East Midlands Trains, human nature, less is more, service design, simplicity

The Multi-Tasking Fallacy

28 November, 2012 by James Lawther 8 Comments

Multitasking

I used to make sweets in a factory for a living.  We obsessed about “set up time”.  The amount of time it takes to switch from one product to another.  Just think about it for a second, every time we switched from making a product with nuts to one without, maybe Snickers to Mars bars […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: complexity, focus, manufacturing, wasted intellect

The Problem With Technology

24 October, 2012 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Alarm Clock

I’m on holiday.  Two weeks in southwest France.  Glorious autumnal weather, misty mornings, bright sunny days and trees with leaves of every shade from burnt copper to liquid gold (very poetic if a little formulaic, sorry). Of course to get here involved a little trauma; no pain no gain.  I had to leave home at […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: complexity, error proofing, form follows function, graphical user interface, interactive voice response, less is more, web site design

Is Less Really More?

18 September, 2012 by James Lawther 2 Comments

My 9-year-old daughter is lovely… Most of the time… But if you really want to see her wind me up, come with us to order a pizza.  She will not make a decision.  How hard can it be? Hawaiian, or Mighty Meaty, or Volcano Supreme?  It isn’t as if she even likes the spicy ones. […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: complexity, customer requirements, less is more

The Easy Way to Manage Complexity

5 May, 2012 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Simplicity Einstein Quote

There are two lines of thought in most businesses; one says: “give the customers what they want, innovate, create new products, give them choice” The other says: “rationalise, focus, strip it back, cut the tail, decomplexify” (not strictly the Queen’s English that one) The irresistible force and the immovable object.  On one hand flexibility drives […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: Amazon, complexity, McDonald's

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