Expert Interview: Gary Cokins on the Problems Solved by Effective EPM
In the past, the best leaders and executives had the best answers. That is no longer the case.
Modeling Data as a Caveman
A wise man once told me,“There are no automated processes. There are only manual processes that can be automated.”
Experiment More and Prosper
In many environments, it seems that we’ve routinized creativity in leading and managing key activities and developing talent right into oblivion. It’s death (or at least plodding slow performance) by routine.
Reading Emotions in a Call Center
Check out this video of Steve Jobs talking about the origins of the iPad. The text that appears as Jobs talks is how a computer program developed by a firm called Beyond Verbal is interpreting Jobs’ emotion. That is, the program is judging whether Jobs is feeling fatigue or nostalgia based not on what is…
Happy 100th Birthday, Ford Assembly Line!
When Henry Ford began making cars in the early 1900s, “state-of-the-art” manufacturing meant car bodies delivered by horse-drawn carriage, with teams of workers assembling automobiles atop sawhorses. The teams would rotate from one station to another, doing their part to bring the vehicle together. Parts deliveries were timed, but often ran late causing pile-ups of workers vying for space and delays in production. Fortunately for the future of industry, these archaic practices came to an end Oct. 7, 1913. …
Big Data is In Fashion
Big data is, of course, one of the business world’s most in vogue buzz words. It may even be having an impact on how various industries function. Case in point, today’s Wall Street Journal reports that several firms are selling data and services to fashion brands and retailers (Fashion Industry Meets Big Data, Sep 9).
The Great Process Debate: Business vs. IT
So we’ve all probably heard the questions, either from direct or indirect customers, either straightforwardly or in a round-about way. Who’s making us do this? How is this benefiting my team? Is BPM even applicable to this project? Is BPM an IT or a Business methodology?
If you’re not a direct practitioner of BPM within an organization, then it is often hard to understand the value of the methodology. I’ve even been a part of projects within which the team members felt that BPM was being imposed upon them, almost as an administrative task or check-the-box, stifling their progress and affecting their timelines.
Who’s making us do this? The BPM bullet had to have been shot from one side or the other…IT or the Business; because of course this couldn’t benefit both, and their priorities are rarely aligned.
BPM Scope Creep
Jaisunder Venkat posted a clever blog on scope creep recently which got me thinking. I have been burned by scope creep in the past, so I am very careful to emphasize this issue when quoting/starting any new project. Scope creep can get you in many ways. As a sales guy/project manager, I gather some detailed…
How to Reward People the Right Things in BPM
If you have a reward model in your organization, take a few minutes and evaluate how many of items that it has for evaluation actually helps your customer to succeed? How many of them support you in improving business processes so that they will produce better results? I bet not many… What should those reward models be based on then? Here are few ideas on that:
Kaizen As Charity
A few weeks ago we posted a video of how Toyota engineers helped a New York City food bank optimize how it packs boxes of food to be distributed to families still displaced from Hurricane Sandy. Now the New York Times has a more detailed story of how Toyota Production System Support Center has worked with various parts of The Food Bank for New York City (In Lieu of Money, Toyota Donates Efficiency to New York Charity, Jul 26). It turns out that packing boxes is only one project out of many.
One of the more interesting projects is speeding up how quickly clients can be seated for dinner at a Harlem soup kitchen.