Unleashing Corporate Innovation: Identifying the Constraints
Corporate innovation struggles, and not from a lack of ideas or capital. More often, the constraints are time and attention.
How to Draw an Owl
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 it? Don't most people flip past the pages of detailed work process, going right to the keyboard to bang away, expecting tool tips and intuitive…
Idle Time is a Good Thing for IT
Lots of good conversations recently about managing IT, Finance, and other constrained resources for projects. We have implemented tools to model available time; when trying to understand what new work can get added to the pile, it helps immeasurably when you understand how much time you have available, plus what else has been committed. This has become a powerful process for managing chronically constrained resources - but one side effect is that other folks on the team can find themselves…
Practical Applications of Twitter in Manufacturing?
Over the past few weeks I've had a couple of interesting discussions about the introduction of Twitter to Manufacturing. When someone poses a question like this to me, it throws me for a minor loop, because for very basic, practical reasons, it just doesn't seem to apply. More keyboards & data entry on the floor? Not likely. However, a few months ago I wrote this rather breathless item, expounding on a brainstorm regarding the use of YouTube and Twitter in…
Where to Start? (1 of 2) Process and Procedure
If you need a one-slide, three-bullet, PowerPoint special for describing the basic tactics for "How to Achieve Operational Excellence", try these: Process and Procedures Metrics and Measurements Continuous Improvement The first two are nicely alliterative, but you might consider substituting Standards and Processes as your lead-off if we're talking about an IT, Finance, or Engineering department. Now What? Of course, now you have to generate the details; the "motherhood and apple pie" routine only lasts thru the first meeting. Here's…
Finally! Relevant Applications for YouTube and Twitter in the Enterprise!
If you are involved with manufacturing these days, you've no doubt heard about Lean Manufacturing. I'll not go deep into this area here, but one fascinating (for me) aspect is the thread (in some quarters) that ERP and computer systems are the enemy of Lean. On the whole, I don't disagree - process improvement, kanbans, and attacking muda are typically very physical exercises; roaming the floor, walking through the processes (gemba walks), reorganizing workspaces for flow, designing and simplifying standard…
The Law of Large Numbers – or, why Enterprise Wikis are Fundamentally Challenged
Some will be taken a bit by surprise to read the title of this post; we have implemented a wiki in our group at work, and I have the evangelist role in promoting the tool. Still, a recent "event" brought home the fact that wikis are not the silver bullets that some breathless articles may make them out to be. To be fair, Hickins' article does call out the "law of large numbers", although the idea is buried in the…
Euphemisms, and a career-extending paradox
I use a number of euphemisms all the time, in my conversations with folks, trying to balance complete yet brief communications. A common phrase when trying to show that you've seen a similar situation before is ... "In a previous life ..." (IAPL), as in "In a previous life, we did consolidated financials within the ERP ...". I find it's a bit smoother than citing the bigger company you used to work for (sounds condescending) or the smaller company you…
Components, IT Responsiveness, and the Rosemont Horizon
Technical people are often engineers at heart, and really want to see controlled processes in and around their computer systems. We see source code control, configuration management, and process documentation as ways to manage long term maintenance costs and deliver repeatable, reliable results from our systems. In the realm of ERP systems, this would seem to be a common and well-regarded mind set; however, the businesses supported by these systems often demand information transparency, process flexibility, and quick turnaround of…
Chicken and egg aggravating? Just start somewhere …
Conversations this week with folks in multiple, different organizations I have connections to, about formal change controls. The general rule, especially for the non-public companies, seems to be reasonable levels of process, but not as well documented, automated, and not as rigidly enforced as the more rigorous among us would prefer. It was interesting talking with the groups that were most frustrated; the developers will talk the talk, but find ways to get around the process when crunch time comes…