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Reducing Complexity

4 May, 2020 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Avoiding Overwhelm In their book Meltdown, Clearfield and Tilcsik show how complicated systems fail.  They discuss nuclear accidents, financial disasters and medical mishaps and show how we can avoid disasters by reducing complexity. The more complex our systems become, the less easy they are to understand. So they become harder to fix when they break. Add […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: accident prevention, aviation, communication, complexity, data is not information, data presentation, error proofing, graphical user interface, less is more

How to Turn a Supertanker

26 August, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Leverage There is a management metaphor that changing the direction of an organisation is a bit like changing the direction of a supertanker.  It can be done, but organisations are big, cumbersome and it takes a lot of time to push them onto another course. A flawed analogy It is a nice analogy, but a […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: complexity, less is more, leverage, systems thinking, test and learn

Less is More

6 February, 2014 by James Lawther 9 Comments

FedEx

All children are artists They can pick up a pen or a crayon and create.  Before you know it they have drawn something beautiful, a flower or a house or a friend.  Simple, clear and elegant. Unfortunately they just don’t know when to stop. The colouring in starts, red felt tips, green pencils, blue crayons, […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: clarity, communication, complexity, lean thinking, less is more

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 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

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