Simplifying and streamlining what you do

Lean and Six Sigma in R&D and Service Delivery – opportunities and challenges

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I’ve just finished reading Michael George’s “Lean and Six Sigma for Service”1, a very useful refresher on many of the key concepts of Lean and Six Sigma, as well as a useful perspective on the challenges and opportunities for applying the tools and methodologies in non-manufacturing environments. Learning from books like these is always helpful …

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Intuition revisited – implications for process improvement and Lean Six Sigma (Part 2 of 3 blogs)

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Intuition has an important role in process improvement In a previous blog “The problem with relying on intuition for process improvement and decision making” I emphasized the problems with, rather than the opportunities for intuition. However, as Gary Klein(1) points out, the analytical techniques practiced in Lean Six Sigma also have their shortcomings.  A point also …

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Intuition revisited: how it could be important to a business environment (Part 1 of 3 blogs)

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Intuition does have an important role in business In a previous blog “The problem with relying on intuition for process improvement and decision making” I emphasized the problems with, rather than the opportunities for intuition. One of my blog readers, Deborah Peluso, kindly pointed me to Gary Klein’s 30+ years of work on intuition with the …

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Using consultants with purpose

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Jokes about consultants abound, and, like all good jokes, the experience that provoked them is not hard to discern.  An excellent one-liner, quoted by Parcell and Collison in their book ‘No more consultants’1 is: “Consultants ask to borrow your watch to tell you the time, and then walk off with your watch!”2 As you would …

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Employee engagement – some interesting data and perspectives for Lean and Six Sigma practitioners

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Employee involvement is of course fundamental to the success of any business process improvement initiative: without the close involvement of those who are involved in an organisation’s process, it would be futile to try to identify opportunities for improvement, let alone to try to implement them.  So it was with some interest that I read …

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Business Process Excellence in Pharma, Biotech and Medical Devices – April 2010 – Key Themes

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An integrated approach to Strategy, People, Process, Content and Technology is central to the success of business process improvement. Elisabeth Goodman, Owner and Principal Consultant, RiverRhee Consulting, opened the conference with the importance of these themes in achieving Business Process Excellence (BPE).  She also came back to them in a later presentation (http://slidesha.re/aVhZso) describing the role …

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Achieving more value with less

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As Stephen R. Covey, Bob Whitman and Breck England point out, in their one-hundred-and-ten page “Predictable results in unpredictable times”1: “in bad times, the distractions are more severe than ever… As people get laid off, the survivors have more to do.  The distractions pile up to the sky as the economy grows rougher…” In our …

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High performing organisations: interweaving process improvement, knowledge management and change management.

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Approaches for building strong quality foundations are well documented in the manufacturing industry, but also occur across all business sectors and types of organisation such as flight airlines, the navy, health services, pharmaceutical research & development and education systems. Steven Spear, in ‘Chasing the Rabbit’1 discusses, with examples from the above, how this quality foundation …

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Fake work – a real opportunity to enhance team effectiveness

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‘Fake Work’, by Brent Peterson and Gaylan Nielson is an excellent dissertation on a common cause of frustration and wasted time and effort at work.  According to the authors’ research, 53% of workers believe that they do work that does not count, and 54% feel that their creativity, talent and intelligence is under-used.  Unfortunately fake …

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The problem with relying on intuition for process improvement and decision making.

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In a previous blog “There’s more to decision making than meets the eye… or why we shouldn’t dismiss gut feelings“, inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s book ‘Blink’1, I made a case for the discretionary use of intuition in decision making.  I argued that: There seems to be a particular role for intuition when: a) encountering very …

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