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How Long Does CI Take?

How long does CI take? That's a good question, particularly if you split continuous improvement into two parts; the thinking part and the doing part. If you have this clear distinction and you are short on time then fifteen minutes of CI thinking can take you a long way on its own. I know when some of my clients are getting bogged down with their day-to-day work that even just a few minutes of thinking and decision making still moves them forward. They don't ever 'lose a week' by adopting this basic strategy.

Better, Faster, Now!

My new book ' Better Faster Now! ' is currently available for free on Amazon. If you are looking to reduce confusion in your business and shorten your business' lead times then this book can help.

The Definite End of a Project

A project that I have been involved with came to an end this week. It is part of an ongoing, larger, piece of work and I got some surprised looks when I said that it was completed. This is something that I do experience once in a while, it seems that many people don't actually end their projects. The surprise came from me declaring that the project was finished. Most of this organisation's project don't conclude, they fade. There is no definite end point.

Fine Tuning (MRP) Work To Lists

The other day I got into a good conversation about trying to get the last pieces of the shop floor performance puzzle put in place. Utilisation and efficiency are up, but the on time delivery performance is just lagging a little bit behind. We had done some good work at the management level of the business with regards to the MRP system and now the production team had decided it was time that they had to put their mark onto the system too.

Your Team Might Be OK With The Changes

When it comes to making changes it can sometimes be difficult to engage certain members of our team. Falling into the trap of doing it all yourself is not the answer though. I remember one particular client who felt uncomfortable with communicating what the changes were going to be with his team. When they had gone home he would then go out onto the shop floor and make the required changes.

Take Those Blinkers Off!

During a recent root cause problem solving workshop I was running I had three people who were fixated on 'the answer'. This fixation was causing friction with other departments and it was clear from speaking to them that they didn't have all the answers.

Sunrise Book Now Available On iPad

My book 'Sunrise Meetings' has now made its way onto the other e-reader devices (including iPad, Nook and Kobo). If you are looking for some ideas on how to make your business run in a more systematic and clockwork fashion then this book is well worth a read. Click here for the PDF version . Click here for the Kindle version . Click here for other formats (including iPad) . Over the next couple of weeks it will also appear in iTunes / iBooks and the other online shopping sites for e-books. Giles Johnston Author of 'Business Process Re-Engineering', a practical plan to improve business performance.

Are You Open To New Ideas?

I sat in a really good meeting the other day. Ideas were flowing and the team taking part in the workshop were really getting into the swing of things. Apart from one person. The people taking part in the workshop ran different departments within the business. As one person explored an idea two of the other four would build on the idea, developing how it could work for their departments too. The other person however didn't seem to respond in the same way and I was curious as to what they would take away from the workshop.

The Skip of Change

At the weekend my home computer's hard drive told me that it was 'bad'. As I have sufficient backup methods in place I was able to swap over the hard disks and be up an running a few hours later. However, when I came to reinstall some of the software I chose not to install all of it. Over the last few years I have introduced other pieces of software and made my computer life more complicated than it needed to be. So, I took the opportunity to simplify and this is just the same as continuous improvement in the workplace.

Share The Action Plan Workload

Do you ever keep your improvement action plans to yourself? If you don't then I salute you and you can stop reading here. If on the other hand you tend to keep them for just your own enjoyment please read on.

Are We Making It Too Complex?

During a meeting last week I found myself getting stuck with the team I was working with. We were discussing some process re-engineering that I was doing for them, trying to get five different business arms to fall in line with each other. Whilst presenting my proposal on the way forward there were a number of comments made telling me about how complex the problem really was and that I hadn't allowed for these additional complexities. Before I could respond other members of the team were offering suggestions as to how we could cope with these variations.

Because We've Always Done It That Way.....(!)

I was working with a new client the other day for the first time. If there was a sound track to our first session it would have had the lyrics 'because we've always done it that way...'. Although I am a big fan of 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' I am less of a fan of 'we'll put up with the results even if they're bad'.

It Might Not Be That Bad

When a change project looms on the horizon it may look pretty daunting. It may look like something of a big deal to handle and that alone may put people off. It may of course be a lot simpler and a lot faster / simpler to implement than originally thought.