Liam Frady

A missed deadline often is a symptom of a bigger problem centered around planning, communication, or execution. Regardless of your organization’s industry, whether you’re in software development or manufacturing, delays erode stakeholder confidence and increase costs. As such, the challenge lies in aligning multiple teams with dynamic requirements under tight delivery windows. Scrum, an Agile […]

Few things will send a customer to the competition faster than waiting. Whether it’s a client on hold with customer support, someone waiting on a delivery, or even a patient sitting in a doctor’s office, waiting represents one thing: inefficiency. The modern era is a fast-paced, high-tempo environment, and expectations are shaped by […]

Few industries require the same sort of precision, efficiency, and need for continuous improvement as automotive manufacturing. Building vehicles at any sort of scale is a massive undertaking involving thousands of parts, a network of suppliers, and assembly lines running around the clock. The global market isn’t exactly forgiving when it comes to […]

Manufacturers are facing uncertain economic conditions, which result in a paradoxical problem: costs are rising across the board, but customers haven’t tempered their expectations when it comes to quality, price, and delivery speed. Manufacturers have a fair amount of pressure on them these days, and the usual standbys of cutting corners through the […]

In the rapidly evolving world of cybersecurity, threat detection has become a vital need and a persistent challenge. Companies face a deluge of unrelenting alerts with intrusion detection systems and endpoint monitoring solutions, creating an environment that makes it difficult to distinguish real threats from false positives. False positives act as a drain […]

In today’s enterprise environment, IT security isn’t a technical function. Instead, it is a critical business enabler. That said, some organizations struggle with aligning cybersecurity initiatives with long-term goals. Misallocated resources, fragmented teams, and missed opportunities are just a handful of the symptoms that result from this misalignment. Hoshin Kanri, a structured planning […]

DevSecOps is built around the principles of speed, automation, and iteration, resulting in a flexible security environment. You can take the standard operations done under DevSecOps and create a far more powerful and versatile hybridized approach by implementing tools, principles, and concepts from Six Sigma. While the industry is still focused on shifting […]

Waiting weeks for a simple approval is just one example of how red tape and unnecessary procedures stifle productivity. That isn’t to say that bureaucracy is the bane of all businesses, but being able to cut through the fat and get the work done is vital for maintaining efficiency. Delays cost time, money, […]

If you’re new to the business world, you might see the term Six Sigma bandied about. You’ll see certifications, job postings, and even articles espousing the methodology and ways to make improvements to workflows. That said, if you’re fresh to the concept, it can seem somewhat daunting at first glance. Six Sigma itself […]

Organizational culture is the very foundation of your services, goods, and other outputs. As such, embracing a culture that prides itself on continuous improvement isn’t just a good idea, but a vital one. These are rarely something that springs up naturally as you build a business, but something that has to be encouraged […]

Theory of Constraints vs. Lean: what’s better for optimizing processes and increasing profitability? I’ll admit that these are two wholly distinct and separate methodologies for use in any workplace. That said, you’ll often find some crossover between the two, especially where the notion of process improvement comes into play. Understanding the synergy and more varied […]

Modern cybersecurity practices require speed, something that traditional ways of managing departments like Waterfall won’t accommodate. However, by utilizing Agile sprints and other tools from the methodology, you can set a rapid cadence that is focused on security, stability, and minimizing downtime. Further, you can make it so your security team is constantly […]

We often think of Six Sigma as the domain for manufacturing, goods, services, and so forth. In recent years, we’ve seen a shift in this line of thinking, which sees the methodology being used across some rather interesting industries. Education isn’t what comes to most people’s minds when it comes to the reduction […]

Making use of Hoshin Kanri is one way that businesses can fully align their workflows with long-term strategic goals. This is vital for any organization, as having targets to reach is always going to benefit any company. That said, little gets said when it comes down to how Hoshin Kanri can benefit cross-functional […]

Whether it’s from faulty implementation, the prevalence of waste, or even just shifting priorities, processes can slip out of spec with ease. When you don’t have the means to incrementally improve things, you aren’t left with many options. Sure, you can try to kitbash an ad-hoc solution and hope for the best, but […]

Just because you’ve got a slew of customer complaints doesn’t mean things are hopeless. Obviously, something needs to change in how you’re conducting daily operations. You can take gradual steps toward operational excellence, however. You might already be sticking to methodologies like Lean and Six Sigma, but you just need the right sort […]

Drifting quality isn’t a reason to panic. It is only natural that things drift out of spec without care and consideration placed toward them. If you’re not engaging in good practices, it will happen. Thankfully, you don’t have to let things drift out of spec too far, as you can apply some handy […]

Agile and cybersecurity go together like chocolate and peanut butter. Traditionally, cybersecurity practices are largely reactive, siloed off from the rest of the company. Now, as we’ve seen with recent data breaches and incidents over the last decade, this isn’t the best way of handling things. In reality, the ideal of a cybersecurity […]

Ably handling incident response is what separates great security teams from mediocre ones. We live in a fast-paced world, and digital threats are arising every day. If you stay stagnant, you risk the whole of your organization’s infrastructure. The best security teams are making use of cycles of continuous improvement to prepare for […]

How do you turn upper management’s goals into concrete cybersecurity measures? For all the talk and pageantry, when it comes time to put rubber to the road, you need a plan. While you can certainly align your security team’s planning with your organization’s overall strategic goals, it isn’t quite as straightforward as you […]

Lean and Agile make for a potent combination when considering any cybersecurity operations. When taking a look at these two disparate methodologies, you’d be forgiven for thinking they might be ill-suited for building a culture of security. That said, finding the synergies between the two enables a more resilient, efficient organization that readily […]

How do you keep pace with the rising threat of vulnerabilities in your tech infrastructure? Cybersecurity is still a top concern in businesses around the world, something that is only going to grow in prevalence in the coming years. That said, there isn’t much in place for continually improving your processes when it […]

What does the future of business processes look like? We’ve seen quite a bit of change just over the last 40 years in how business processes are constructed. As technology grows more advanced, we’re due for a new paradigm shift. Radical approaches like BPR are becoming rather common when it comes to designing […]

Hoshin Kanri vs. OKRS is a debate you’ll likely come across when looking at strategic goals in your organization. Ostensibly, both of these frameworks cover a lot of the same ground, but how they let you act upon your long-term goals and strategy is a different matter altogether. It will come down to […]