OK so we’re a little late for January’s update but hey we’ve had a busy month (haven’t you with dry-anuary or whatever it’s called?
January is typically a slow month where we’re all recovering from the debauchery of the Christmas period (too much food and too many parties!) and then regretting it and trying to make amends with a bunch of new years resolution that usually crash and burn by midway through the month!
Luckily there’s a load of good stuff going on out there in business land and as usual for our monthly round-up we’ve picked 5 pearls out for you to enjoy!
1/ First off go check out Kieran Walshe’s article – What works in the NHS. I always find improvement articles about healthcare fascinating and Keiran’s piece is a great example – especially the view of project management’s role in its deployment. There’s genius in the section that discusses how we should”Ask people on the ground about what’s going on and you often get a very different picture from the one you hear in the steering group reviews”. There’s much to be learned there!
2/ Industry week had a great piece on change. Change can be challenging, let’s get that straight but using the appropriate tools for the right reasons can be a huge stumbling block. Let’s face it we all love tools and sometimes they can get int he way of what’s actually required – (just because the tools there doesn’t mean ti should be used!! As Dan Markovitz states “Organizations may have finally let go their obsession with lean tools, but I’m seeing it replaced by an obsession with paraphernalia: kaizen submission cards, A3 forms, visual management boards, 5S checklists, and the like.” If you’re into change – it’s a great read.
3/ Rhymer Rigby had an excellent piece in the Times on – why things fail Failure happens, I guess when we’ve got professional pride at stake (and in most cases careers) it’s not something we want visible but companies have a great deal to learn from failure, and incorporating lessons learned into operating systems and processes. It’s a tough one but businesses really need to embrace failure if they are to succeed int he long run.
4/ Think peer pessure doesnt happen? Go check out Investor demands. This is an eyewatering account of how investors hold the power. The article states “A coalition of 80 investors representing $6.5 trillion in assets under management sent letters to five major quick-serve restaurant groups today demanding an explanation for how they will de-risk their meat and dairy supply chains by March 2019,” What’s interesting about the article isn’t necessarily the topic (although of course, it is) what I found really rivetting is the power of stakeholders. lest we forget in our organizations that the power is not just within the company but ignore outside influencers at your peril.
5/ Our content
So we’ve released a few articles recently that of course, we’d love you to check out from our SWOT analysis definition with examples to how to create a SIPOC in Excel, and if you’re interested in running change projects we’d love for you to check out our take on 5 key challenges of continuous improvement.
Ok, there you have it! Found some interesting content in January that you’d like to share with our readership? Fire up those comments below, we’d love to hear from you!!