Art

SQDC for Enterprise IT – Cost, Next Steps (3 of 3)

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ April 20, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Cost At once the most and least understood, the Cost section is what everybody focuses on (specifically: cost reduction!) but also what controls our ability to do more project and support work with the resources in Enterprise IT. The sample graph show 13 months – we are including Dec 2012 just to get a decent [...]

SQDC for Enterprise IT – Quality, Delivery (2 of 3)

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ April 14, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Second in a series of posts on presenting a summarized view of Corporate IT using SQDC-style KPIs; in this post, I’ll explain the metrics we use to express Quality and Delivery. Quality I’ve seen a range of KPIs in the Quality column on different manufacturing plants’ SQDC boards, but nothing as consistent as the Safety [...]

SQDC for Enterprise IT – Introduction, Safety (1 of 3)

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ April 11, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

For the last few months at our Executive Staff Meeting, I’ve been presenting a summarized view of what is happening in IT – and stealing ideas from the many Daily Management boards that I’ve seen during my visits to the plants. I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback on the SQDC graphics that I’m using; [...]

A Practical Reason for Moving Beyond Smart Part Numbers

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ March 28, 2013 ⋅ 2 comments

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, [...]

Reading for Understanding – Business

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ January 20, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

You are only as good as what you know, and half of what you know comes from books Truth be told, it’s not an original thought – I heard it many years ago, but it rang true for me personally. I still have many of my old college textbooks – engineering volumes bound in impressive [...]

Four tools to bridge from Raw Productivity to Sustainable Results

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ January 13, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

I’ve noticed a definite trend in the “best practices” wing of the Productivity building; it goes by many names and takes on a few different forms, but the idea is rooted in a few simple concepts: Focus on the Critical Few: Multitasking does not work – plan for doing three things per day, and allocate your time [...]

Tilt-Shift / Timelapse Artistry

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ March 3, 2012 ⋅ Post a comment

Another great example of tilt-shift / time-lapse film making – thanks to Photojojo and It’s Nice That … I like the helicopter rescue at about 1:20, a mini-flashback to a previous video from this guy … … which was featured on the Guggenheim site (what a great site to wander through for inspiration!) Take a [...]

I Hate the Business

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ February 19, 2012 ⋅ One comment

Hmm, not quite … how about I Hate “the Business” More specifically – I really am getting uncomfortable with the whole “IT and the Business” meme: … demonstrating IT alignment with the business … IT’s relationship with the business … IT and the business need to work together / build partnerships … the Project is [...]

How to Draw an Owl

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ November 15, 2011 ⋅ One comment

On Documentation One recent afternoon I found myself in deep conversation with potential consulting partners, holding out for a difficult requirement: “Excellent Documentation”. That’s a tough one to quantify, let alone describe; why hold out for something at once critical and ineffable? Doesn’t every project talk about the importance of providing documentation, yet rarely deliver [...]

Fragmentation of Social Sharing Environments

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ October 22, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Progress requires innovation, success spawns imitation, competition requires differentiation – and after 7+ years of “Web 2.0”, there are multiple sharing environments vying for our attention (and participation). Content Creation Blogging has morphed beyond it’s “personal diary” origins; Blogger, WordPress, and the various CMS platforms have moved to become a long-format publishing platforms that continue [...]

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