News agencies across the country have been frothing at the mouth over the possibility of a triple dip recession. I have puzzled over this term for a while now, as headline-friendly economic analysis uses the same old this quarter/last quarter, this year/last year comparatives that drive me nuts. What then, does the UK’s growth rate look like when you put it into time series SPC charts? Continue reading
Tag Archives: thinking
What Poses More Danger To The NHS; Dirty Data Or Dumb Leadership?
Writing blogs on poor management of the NHS is like shooting the proverbial fish in the barrel, but two articles in the papers this weekend have raised the insanity levels higher than ever. The first piece brought forth the startling revelation that Jeremy Hunt wants to criminalise the gaming of targets Continue reading
Little Boxes Pt2 – Jigsaws Are Better
In part one of this blog, I concluded that repairs scheduling is fundamentally flawed. Maintenance companies try to shoehorn irregular shaped jobs into nice, standardised boxes and it leads to appointments being missed and repairs left unfinished. The company wants its’ customers to be compliant and flexible, but customers need the opposite to be true. So how do we fix the system? Continue reading
Run for the hills; it’s Lean and Investors in People!
Two, true tales from the coalface today; Little Miss Lean and Mr IiP. Continue reading
Office Politics
Are you a Manager? Are you reading this in the comfort of your own office? Your very own office? Well done! Having your own office is important; it lets everyone else know that you are important and these things matter to us. Continue reading
Would you like to come back for coffee?
Why would you want to earn a lower margin from a long term customer, when you can have a quick profit from a one-off transaction? The need for short term gain over long term stability is a curse of the target-driven world that we live in and was summed up nicely in a recent post from @STforgirls Continue reading
Cycling, Team GB and Systems Thinking
Watching the British cycling team at London 2012 has been a heart-warming experience. Their success is quite incredible and it made me think about the approach they take to preparing their riders and, bear with me on this, how it echoes the Vanguard Method. Continue reading
Who needs customers?
You probably won’t be surprised to know that the “premium” delivery from my last blog (Premium delivery and the price of stamps) turned out to be anything but. Having stumped up for my AM time-slot, I patiently waited in to sign for an urgently needed laptop. As 12.00 came and went, I began to speculate how late they might be. Continue reading