blog.
Preventing Projects from Going Sideways
Your project is humming along when, without warning, the scope expands. In the consulting world, this may or may not be a good thing. Within organizations, however, scope creep can be a real problem—usually hurting the bottom line.
The secret to controlling scope creep is to control it from day one of the project. This means ensuring that you thoroughly understand the project’s deliverables and carefully tracking that all efforts go into only those deliverables. As soon as you notice work being done outside of the scope, stop the project. Examine why things are off track and work on re-focusing the project.
Customer Service
Organizations exist to serve customers. That's obvious. What may not be as obvious is that organizations in turmoil often forget this fact.
When an organization’s focus shifts from serving their customers to serving their own needs instead, problems arise. For instance, if your staff is exerting great effort to try and get customers to follow the organization’s internal processes, this is a problem. Typically starting in one area of the organization, this problem can permeate like a mushroom cloud throughout the organization. The results can be disastrous.
Turning Efficiency into Power
Time and again, I have spoken about the need for efficient processes and systems to enable employees to do their best. It’s not enough to do something right once and then forget about it. If the process or system isn’t set up to sustain efficient activity in the first place, then waste is (and will be) prevalent.
Accelerating Project Success
Ahh…the project. Who among us has never had to do one? No matter what line of work we’re in, we all have at one time and/or another engaged in projects. Anything from planning an event such as a small dinner gathering to building infrastructure like bridges and highways comes under the purview of a project. But did you know that the success of projects is determined in large part by the amount and quality of project planning?
Workflow as Easy as P-D-S-A
In 1939, Walter Shewhart introduced the concept of “plan-do-check-act” as a scientific process of acquiring knowledge. In the 1980s, Edwards Deming refined the cycle by changing “check” into a “study” process. The cycle is logical and is used to test information before moving to the next step. It can be applied to all types of learning and improvement. It can also be applied to improve your daily workflow. Here’s how…
If Everything's Under Control, You're Going Too Slow
Mario Andretti, retired world champion racing driver, said: “If everything’s under control, you’re going too slow.” In other words, there has to be flexibility in work in order to achieve maximum productivity. When there is little or no flexibility in work, there is a good chance that the work is being micromanaged. In the workplace, this quashes much more than productivity.
How Can "Voice of the Customer" be Used to Improve Organizational Performance?
In Lean Six Sigma, a specific methodology is used to address improvements in an existing process. These improvements are based on “the voice of the customer.” In other words, the organization’s motivation for improving organizational performance is based on what the customer is telling the organization. This makes sense since the organization’s sole purpose is to serve its customers. Without customers, the organization fails to exist.
What are the Top Ways to Improve Team Dynamics on a Project?
If you’re working on a project, you’re most likely working with a team and you know that sometimes there can be conflict within teams. Team dynamics are influenced by both the differences and the similarities that people bring to the team. So how do you improve team dynamics to maximize high performance?
How Can “Bottleneck” Executives Improve Their Personal Workflow?
Have you ever worked for a boss that seemed to be the ‘black hole’ of the organization? You know the one I’m talking about: documents that went into that office, but never came out, preventing you from doing your job. If you’re that boss, listen up. There is a way to improve your personal workflow.
35 Ways to Kill Ideas
I do not know the author of this list, but I found it to be a concise expose on how leaders (or anyone) can stifle innovation. It bears heeding that all ideas are valid ideas and some, if percolated sufficiently, may even lead to ingenious breakthroughs.
Using Internal Resources to Implement Projects
An organization can use its internal resources to implement new projects even if its internal resources are not subject matter experts (or SMEs). Here’s how: have your staff work alongside SMEs to learn how to implement projects in one or more pilot sites. By working alongside SMEs, staff is exposed to detailed implementation procedures which procedures they can apply to other sites as implementation progresses.
Traveling Executives can be Productive
If you’re a busy executive that travels frequently, listen up. Your productivity doesn’t need to suffer just because you’re on the road. And, in fact, travel time is the perfect opportunity for catching up on work. This is the time when you are free of telephone and office interruptions, so there’s really no better time to focus on some of your priorities and increase your productivity. Here are five steps to staying on top of your productivity when you’re traveling.
Project Charter - Why do we need one, anyway?
I’m often asked why one needs a project charter. After all, if we're working on the project (or if the project was our idea), we certainly know what needs to be done, don't we?
While organizations, individuals and project managers may very well know what needs to be done, the project charter is an essential tool that provides purpose and motivation for a team to do its work.
Managing Overnight Success
I recently worked with a client organization that became successful, seemingly overnight. Their dilemma was about how to manage their instant success and continue down a road of high efficiency and productivity.
While instant success is a dilemma that many organizations would love to experience, one of the things that struck me about my client was that they recognized very early the need for effective systems for continuous improvement. This recognition alone speaks volumes about how they will continue to be successful.
From Great to Remarkable
Are you a remarkable leader? If you said “yes,” you’re in the minority. If you said "no," take heart: remarkable leaders are made, not born. Through experience, good and great leaders acquire leadership competencies that propel them to the ranks of remarkable ones. So how do you become a remarkable leader? One word: coaching.
Productivity or Greece?
Productivity is a very complex topic and even among experts it is difficult to exact a prescription to improve productivity. In its simplest form, productivity measures the efficiency of production. It is the ratio of production output to what is required (inputs) to produce the output. In terms of economic growth, governments look at productivity as the product of labour based on the average number of hours each employed person works and the proportion of the entire population that is employed. Labour productivity drives living standards. However, just because a person is employed does not mean that they are productive.