Month: January 2010

The most famous example of right-to-left planning I can evoke is – That the United States should set as a goal the “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth” by the end of the decade Powerfull stuff, no messing around, but with a budget of $19.6bn you get a […]

We’ve all sent the news of Toyota’s recall problems, including the latest decision to pull the andon as it were and halt production until the defect is sorted out. Suddenly the company, and its venerable Toyota Production System do not appear to be as infallible as it has in the past. Indeed, some analysts are […]

The 5 Whys approach to root cause analysis is by no means new, nor does it originate in Six Sigma. Yet it is often used in the Analyze phase (of DMAIC [Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control]), especially when significant data on the Xs is not available. Most of us have been there – we gather the […]

People may not always agree with what you say or find value in what you offer, but at the end of the day, if only one person walks away with a different question, thought or idea, then you have made a difference.

I am spending January travelling around the country running process workshops. This means lots of travel and time to ponder on the dynamics of the meetings.……. Cross-functional Teams A group of people with different functional expertise who work toward a common goal, it may include people from finance, marketing, operations, research, engineering, and human resources […]

I don’t usually win prizes. In fact, only once has my name been drawn out of the hat. (That was in middle school, when I became the proud owner of a Sony Walkman.) But what’s up for grabs now is a much better prize. Here’s your chance to be entered into a drawing to win […]

“All or nothin’ at all… Half a love never appealed to me If your heart, it never would yield to me Then I’d rather, rather have nothin’ at all.” (Song composed in 1939 by Arther Altman, lyrics by Jack Lawrence – a big hit for Frank Sinatra) I was thinking of these lyrics the other […]

I re-read Ken Miller’s book ” We don’t Make widgets” recently and rediscovered a wonderful resourse for our current times. Now more than ever this is the work that needs to be done.