Structured Process Improvement for Unstructured Processes

Have you ever waded into a process improvement project that had trouble finding a place to start? Consider, for example, a strategic sales team (for RevCo, famous maker of Widgets), working their established product families to generate breakout new customers and revenues. They've implemented a CRM system, but are having problems getting adoption and seeing benefits. The difficulty, of course, is that they have not changed their marketing strategies, and can't see beyond "automating our current process" as a measure…

Where does Innovation come from?

7 July, 2013
People Management, Purposeful Innovation
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Like most organizations, we are talking a lot internally about Innovation - the Great Ideas that will transform the company and deliver top-line revenue and high-value earnings growth. The trick, of course, if figuring out how to make that Innovation happen - as if you could plan it out in advance, on schedule to make your quarter-end. It's not that easy - but then again, maybe it's not that hard. Check out this video from Steven Johnson - another terrific…

PacMan at MoMA – Interaction Design

One of the benefits of ditching cable and going to internet streaming TV is that I'm watching more TED talks for a mental stretch break. True, I'm missing half of the Stanley Cup playoffs, but I catch stuff like this from Paola Antonelli, on bringing video games to New York's Museum of Modern Art ... [ted id=1752] It caught my attention because it's all about the importance of Design, and specifically Interaction Design. Antonelli moved from architecture to a focus…

SQDC for Enterprise IT – Cost, Next Steps

First in a series of posts on presenting a summarized view of Corporate IT using SQDC-style KPIs - a Lean Management-inspired way of speaking in a language your Manufacturing Operations teams will understand.

SQDC for Enterprise IT – Quality, Delivery

One of a series of posts on presenting a summarized view of Corporate IT using SQDC-style KPIs - a Lean Management-inspired way of speaking in a language your Manufacturing Operations teams will understand.

SQDC for Enterprise IT – Introduction, Safety

First in a series of posts on presenting a summarized view of Corporate IT using SQDC-style KPIs - a Lean Management-inspired way of speaking in a language your Manufacturing Operations teams will understand.

A Practical Reason for Moving Beyond Smart Part Numbers

During a process review session this week, I got involved in a terrific conversation about Smart Part Numbers. You know what I'm talking about - those cryptic SKU identifiers so popular with the folks in the warehouse, on the shop floor, in production planning. There is logic and structure to the characters and the numbers, structure that codes identification and classification details onto those bin labels. We are having problems with item WC1-644-A019910 Oh, that's because the trim press is…

Suburban Robots that Monitor Reality (The Internet of Things)

13 March, 2013
Internet of Things, Purposeful Innovation
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Another month, another presentation - something I am trying to do more of this year, somewhat to the detriment of my blog post frequency. However, I may have one or two new posts to put together based on the content of this deck. Here's a link to the slides I am presenting this week (Thursday 14 Mar 2013) in Rolling Meadows, IL and next week (Thursday 21 Mar 2013) in Chicago. The title is The Internet of Things - part…

IT Strategy for the Fast Twitch Crowd

This evening (Monday, 11 Feb 2013) , I did a presentation on Developing IT Strategy in a "Consumer IT" Environment - an expansion on some of the ideas that I have written about previously. I’ve posted my slides here – I realize that they do not “stand on their own”, and need some explanation, but if you weren’t in attendance and are interested in hearing more, let me know in the comments - happy to review with anyone interested. Developing IT Strategy that Connects…

Ten Bucks in Ten Minutes

6 February, 2013
Out of the Box
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I really do like networking events - group meetings with other with other IT professionals, discussing topics of common interest, with a reasonable amount of vendor / consultant-sponsored gentle selling, and/or some solid job networking with fellow techs looking for their next successful step along the career path. However, I admit to a wee bit of boredom with buzzword-laden presentations or war stories focused on project successes that mean so much to you (but nothing to me). We are all…