Simplifying and streamlining what you do

Telling stories at work

By Elisabeth Goodman, 4th October 2017 Why tell stories at work? I first heard about the power of using stories at work, in the context of sharing knowledge and building learning and understanding, in the 1990s. David Snowden, who was then a Director at the IBM Institute for Knowledge Management, was a chief exponent of …

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Operational excellence can give you the competitive edge!

By Elisabeth Goodman, 4th September 2017 According to Sadun, Bloom and Van Reenen, writing in the Sept-Oct 2017 issue of Harvard Business Review, a disproportionate amount of emphasis is put on the competitive advantage of strategic planning, to the detriment of operational excellence. What is operational excellence? Their definition of operational excellence, or good management …

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Living in the moment

By Elisabeth Goodman, 29th May 2017 I’m enjoying a delightful few days in the Haut-Languedoc, trying my best to live “in the moment” in accordance with the principles of mindfulness, and meditation, and, inevitably, it has got me reflecting… Living in the present is more rewarding than waiting for gratification from success I passed the …

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Framing your problem so it can be solved..

By Elisabeth Goodman, 22nd February 2017 I had a very enjoyable day yesterday teaching four young people about Lean and Six Sigma as they explored how to improve one of their processes.  I work on the premise that ‘problems are treasures’: the more you find and deal with, the less fire-fighting you will have to do at …

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Appreciative Inquiry – a tool and philosophy for positive change

By Elisabeth Goodman, 5th November 2016 Asking questions sets the tone for what will follow – start from what’s working well It seemed obvious from the moment that our facilitator, Andy Smith (Coaching Leaders), mentioned it at the start of the two day course on Appreciative Inquiry (AI) that I attended this week. The minute you …

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The Kano model for team building – an alternative application for this Lean Sigma tool

By Elisabeth Goodman, 8th November 2015 The Kano model  is traditionally used as a ‘Voice of the Customer’ Lean Sigma tool I had the pleasure of co-presenting a seminar with Carl Halford  recently, for the APM (Association for Project Management) Thames Valley Branch, on behalf of the Enabling Change SIG. The full set of slides and the …

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The Effective Team’s Operational Excellence Workbook

By Elisabeth Goodman, 10th June 2015 This is the third in my series of  “The Effective Team’s ” workbooks and it will be out shortly. THE EFFECTIVE TEAM’S operational excellence WORKBOOK Elisabeth Goodman (author), Nathaniel Spain (illustrator), 2015 – ISBN 978-0-9926323-7-3 This third book in the series focuses on how to achieve operational excellence.  Here is the description from the back …

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De Bono’s thinking course. An essential facilitator’s tool?

By Elisabeth Goodman, 24th January 2015 Edward De Bono’s thinking course One of the aspects of my local library that I particularly enjoy is the way I might serendipitously discover a gem of a book that the staff have either casually or deliberately put on display. One such recent discovery was Edward De Bono’s “Thinking …

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Facilitating operational excellence in and for business change projects

Notes from an APM Midlands Branch seminar by Elisabeth Goodman About 40 people attended this evening seminar in Coventry on 30th January 2014.  The intent was to share a case study based approach of some of my experiences of leading and facilitating operational organisational change projects, and of using Lean and Six Sigma to support …

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Elisabeth Goodman’s 2013 blogging year in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog. Change Management, Lean and Six Sigma, and Knowledge Management continue to be the most popular topics for my readers, with a little Project Management thrown in. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog …

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