The history of commerce is littered with organizations that have erred in big and varied ways. There were Wang’s strategic errors, GM’s stifling bureaucracy and short-sightedness, Digital’s burdensome overhead, Enron’s dishonesty, AIG’s recklessness, and… more recently, there are Toyota’s troubles, which many believe are troubling in an entirely new way (see related article).
But there has been more than enough said and written about all of these situations and miscues - so, the question is, what lessons have we learned? We look forward to your thoughts!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Sources of Good Ideas
Where will your organization find its next series of best ideas?
Many organizations find good ideas by studying their own work - when a team goes after an area of waste, they are careful to document their findings about additional areas of waste, as it's a good idea to make a habit of capturing the improvement opportunities that become visible. (Check out our handy 8 Step Methodology Project Guide, where teams can capture these ideas as they arise).
But in addition to collecting these insights, step back and do some Imagineering: what would the business look like if everything were right? When people start to answer this question in detail, some major areas of waste are bound to surface.
You might also peruse Bill Conway’s list of likely opportunities from his best selling book Winning the War on Waste (Pages 73-74). Some of these are:
- Identify reasons for back orders and begin to eliminate them
- Reduce average wait times at check-out counters, on telephones
- Reduce aveage response time to customer inquiries
- Reduce make-ready time for a critical process
- Reduce invoice pricing errors
- Reduce time between shipment and invoicing
- Reduce time between customer payment and application of cash
- Identify reasons for late delivery and begin to eliminate them
- Reduce volume of hazardous waste
- Reduce time for sales people spent on travel, meetings, reports
- Reduce the amount of time spent in meetings and increase the value
Many organizations find good ideas by studying their own work - when a team goes after an area of waste, they are careful to document their findings about additional areas of waste, as it's a good idea to make a habit of capturing the improvement opportunities that become visible. (Check out our handy 8 Step Methodology Project Guide, where teams can capture these ideas as they arise).
But in addition to collecting these insights, step back and do some Imagineering: what would the business look like if everything were right? When people start to answer this question in detail, some major areas of waste are bound to surface.
You might also peruse Bill Conway’s list of likely opportunities from his best selling book Winning the War on Waste (Pages 73-74). Some of these are:
- Identify reasons for back orders and begin to eliminate them
- Reduce average wait times at check-out counters, on telephones
- Reduce aveage response time to customer inquiries
- Reduce make-ready time for a critical process
- Reduce invoice pricing errors
- Reduce time between shipment and invoicing
- Reduce time between customer payment and application of cash
- Identify reasons for late delivery and begin to eliminate them
- Reduce volume of hazardous waste
- Reduce time for sales people spent on travel, meetings, reports
- Reduce the amount of time spent in meetings and increase the value
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