When we look at a business we can see that the building blocks present are pretty much the same as in our rivals. We all have people, computers, knowledge and equipment. How we put these resources together to form our business makes all of the difference. If you think of the building blocks that children play with you can see the issue quite plainly. Some of the configurations are more interesting, prettier and more fun than others. When you look at businesses that are doing well they fundamentally have the same kinds of resources, but what they do with them creates a different effect to the other options they have available. Are the resources in your business configured as the most effective option, or do they lack the punch that is needed to make the business really take off? Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

Agility is the ability to move between different forms of production or service delivery - allowing you to change your business outputs in a dynamic marketplace. Lean is the approach of removing wasteful actities from your business operations to allow your workforce (both office and production) to spend more time on work that the customer will pay for (aka value adding activity). As they are two separate approaches you can be both agile and lean at the same time. A lot of companies in industry are in positions that are more polar in this respect - i.e. very lean but with low levels of flexibility (and not agile) or highly agile with large amounts of spare resource (so not very lean). Developing agile systems and driving out the waste in the system is one way to become agile and lean. Consideration of supply chains that allow resources to be turned on and off may allow a company to create different products that vary greatly - allowing the output to be both lean and agile, and then

When clients complain of having too much work to do, and too many distractions getting in the way of them doing the work I ask the following question. "How much of your activity is spent on pro-active work?" Many times it is the distractions that turn into big chunks of time that cause the problems and a simple realisation can change this situation. Does the activity being undertaken help you to get where you are going to? If the answer is 'no' then let's move on. Find a way to bring the conversation to a close. Find a way to avoid getting dragged into other people's responsibilities. Find a way to get back onto proactive work. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

Many people find that they have certain times in the day when they are better at doing certain things. Some times of the day are better for thinking, some for doing and some for talking. My clients who get the most done (in a period of time) understand when these times of the day are and allocate their work activities to these slots. If the afternoon is the best time to have meetings, then this is when they are scheduled for. This leaves the morning free to do their strategic work and report writing. From my observations people usually have similar times of the day for doing things, but we never discuss it openly. Could it be that by having this chat with our teams we could find better ways to organise our working days and get more done in the same amount of time? Think about your own situation and when you feel at your best for doing certain things. Then consider rolling this idea out once you have changed the structure of your day. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For Whe

When options are put forward to a business by eager people working within them many of the ideas don't see an implementation. In my experience many of these ideas are thrown out because the organisation is not ready for them. Not that the organisation realises this - it's just another one of those things that 'we can't do at the moment'. Some ideas are put to management teams that need an environment one or two steps higher than the organisation's currrent status. If you are faced with ideas that cannot be implemented in the near future take a moment or two to work out what gaps need to be bridged in order to see a situation that can accomodate these ideas. In many cases it is only by working backwards that we can see the way forward. As we identify the steps that we would need to take to reach an objective we gain clarity of a route that can develop and improve the organisation. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smarts

Whilst feeding some ducks with the end of a loaf of bread the seagulls descended. They frantically flapped their wings as they tried to catch the bread I was throwing for the ducks. After about half a minute I noticed that they were in a formation that moved together as the bread was thrown, with amazing coordination. This made me think about some of the organisations that I had observed over the years. Departments that don't get on with other departments. Departments that don't understand the other departments. Departments that don't consider the other departments. Organisations that have departments like these struggle and if they tried to get in the same formation as the seagulls would have bumped their wings within seconds and crashed into the water! What are the relationships like between departments in your business - do they help deliver projects, products and services in an effective and efficient manner? Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When R

Many people have looked at the kaizen approach with disdain if they have experienced badly run improvement schemes at their place of work, but they are missing a trick if they do not consider the benefits of taking small steps. When a large project or programme of improvement is broken down into the tiniest steps you find that the consumption of these steps becomes easier and easier. A certain level of discomfort is removed and then progress can start to be made. This discomfort is often generated when large objectives are placed on the organisation - "how on Earth are we going to improve that much?" is a common thought - and then procrastination sets in. If you find that your organisation is starting to struggle to make progress with improvement projects and it feels like you are going round in circles then consider breaking the start of the project down into really small chunks. Let the people in the organisation complete the tiny chunks of work and then give them m

Sitting in a recent meeting it took me quite some time to realise that there was no agenda available. The meeting was fairly charged and so the lack of agenda went unnoticed until the half time break. Although the meeting had got many items out into the open for discussion we were no closer to discussing the important item that we had gathered to resolve. The Chair announced an agenda for the second half of the meeting (after some prompting) and a resolution was achieved in a far easier and efficient manner. How many meetings do you go to that don't have an agenda? How much better would they be if there was one? Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' http://www.smartspeed.co.uk/

When we tackle the wastes present in a business we often take a view that we need to eradicate them all. All at once! Whilst this is an admirable approach a number of clients have found that by taking one waste at a time they have achieved far greater results. Taking one waste category at a time (such as waiting) we found that people were far better able to locate and recognise the wastes, focussed activity rather than a shotgun approach to this activity. Next time you are waste walking through your business consider breaking the activity up into various aspects, or assign various members of your team to spot the individual wastes. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' http://www.smartspeed.co.uk/

When the end of a project is coming up it is useful to reflect on the planned end point. Many projects get to a specified completion point and the learning that has taken place over the course of the project has not been re-invested and the plan has not been revised. By changing the end point by even the smallest amount you can end up with a far more effective project. Whether this is converting all of the learning into new policies and procedures or communicating with other project teams about what you discovered reviewing the end point can have significant benefits. Look at the current planned end point and ask yourself "is this still the right end point, or do I want something different now?" Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' http://www.smartspeed.co.uk/

Sitting in meetings watching the people sitting around the table becoming increasingly bored leads me to wonder.... 'If we had a timekeeper and agreed time slots would the meeting run in a tighter fashion?' There are some great ideas available for improving meeting performance - such as Edward de Bono's 'Six Thinking Hats' but it is rarely used in organisations. Someone once asked me if I spent any of my time dealing with business fundamentals - and my answer was yes, a lot of time. Surely running effective meetings in an efficient manner is a business fundamental, something that should invigorate the team whilst creating solutions and making decisions that would otherwise not be made - not something that wastes peoples time. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk