What Does Your Customer Need? “Your customer doesn’t want a drill. He wants a hole.” You have no doubt heard that one before. Working through customer requirements is difficult, particularly when customers don’t know what they want. Do Customers Want Cameras? I found a story in an old 1990s textbook (The Leader’s Handbook). It goes […]
The Art of Managing Complexity
Fire Fighting In the late noughties, Michelle Barton and Kathleen Sutcliffe carried out a study of wildfires in the US. They were interested in understanding how the firefighters went about managing complexity in their job. The researchers wanted to understand why some fires were well controlled and brought to a swift and happy conclusion, whilst […]
Short Breaks Will Kill You
Quantitative or Qualitative Analysis? An apocryphal tale… A statistician working for a large organisation was asked to explain why sick pay was increasing. The business had an ageing workforce and sickness levels were rising. He gathered lots of data on lots of things: Working patterns Demographics Employment related illnesses Commuting times Office locations… The list […]
Which Is Most Important, Perception or Performance?
Perceived performance Perception is reality. If you are perceived to be something, you might as well be it because that’s the truth in people’s minds. Steve Young For those who believe that perception is reality, performance isn’t important, but perceived performance is everything. There are three ways to improve perceived performance: 1. Distort the data […]
Walk in My Shoes
In Head Office They think that the people on the shop floor: Can’t see the strategic imperatives Don’t understand the business priorities Don’t use the newly developed tools Aren’t prepared to “own” the running of initiatives Don’t respond to training Are resistant to change Don’t care about performance On the Shop Floor They think that the […]
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