Breaking Through Buzzword Clutter: Complexity

23 January, 2022
Communication, Knowledge Management, Productivity, Purposeful Innovation
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Complexity means different things to different people in different conversations. Are we trying to simplify a process? Complexity is bad. Understand a supply chain? Complexity is good. Don't buzzword your initiatives with "complexity" until you get a wee bit more specific.

Digital Transformation on the Manufacturing Floor

31 January, 2021
Metrics, Business Value of IT, Supply Chain
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Practical Examples of Value Creation: How will digital transformation create real value for a manufacturing company? Let’s use the factory floor as a testbed ...

Simple Ways to Quickly Build Valuable Digital Experience

Practical thoughts and examples - how to manufacture time and attention, to get hands-on, relevant skills in new technologies

How Operations can Participate in your Digital Transformation

Each functional area in your company needs to understand the skills and strengths that they bring to a Digital Transformation effort; why do they deserve a “seat at the table”? It's time for the folks in Operations to step up - with their depth of experience with Eliminating Waste and Eliminating Complexity, Operations can and should play a critical role. (part of a series)

Digital Business and Internal Operations: Treasure in the Foundation

15 January, 2017
Digital Strategy, ERP
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A great place to start your digital journey - leveraging the skills, knowledge, and understanding of the information and technology that drives your internal operations. This is the first component of a Great Digital Business. (Part of a series)

3D Printing Requires Wildly Different Thinking

Additive Manufacturing faces slow adoption in most industrial companies due to material costs - and the challenge for designers to think differently about what was previously impossible.

First Month with the Surface Pro 3

6 October, 2014
Hands-On
2 Comments

I haven't written one of these hands-on hardware / software evaluation posts for some time - it's not that kind of blog, really - but I've been asked a lot of questions about my Surface Pro 3, and this is an easy way to let many folks know the answers. Also - I am making some interesting discoveries with the new device - some you might not think about at first. Am I surprised by some of these issues? Yes…

Empathy Skills for the Transformational Leader

29 September, 2014
Hands-On, Popular, Purposeful Innovation
1 Comment

A real-life journey of self-discovery that gave me insight to the impact of transformational change to the organization. Get out of your comfort zone once in a while, to have meaningful empathy with the team you are trying to change.

The SMB Business Case for Cloud

Few cloud computing vendors are able to produce a plausible cost model with any level of detail. All of your SMB customers are asking the same question, so why don't you have a simple, clear, canned answer? In the absence of a vendor model, this article will help you quickly work up the big chunks of the opportunity in short order.

Tracking in the Enterprise – Correlation versus Causation

12 August, 2014
Visualization, Hands-On
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We've got the activity captured, and now we have "effectiveness" ratings for the people in the group - how will we put them together and see a relationship? Mechanically, this is a simple XY scatter graph - a standard chart type in both Excel and Google Docs. Let's take a look at a sample data set that illustrates the idea: This is the picture I expected to see: the more you use the system (the X axis), the more results…