So you’ve selected your business improvement project. You’ve gone an investigated the business function (perhaps done a Gemba walk, or reviewed the issues). You’ve determined that specific areas of the process require further investigation and have decided that you’ll produce some metrics to aid that investigation. So the next step will be for you to […]
Blog
Using Excels WORKDAY.INTL Function for simple excel based project plans.
One of the tasks I often have to do in my working life is to create project plans. For simple plans I often find myself building them in Excel. Now I know before you start that there are more appropriate tools to build project plans – I know that applications like MS Project offer far […]
How can I improve supplier delivery performance?
One of the primary drivers for many businesses own performance is that of its supply chain. Of the two primary drivers for this one is the quality of the product delivered (right first time) and second being the on-time delivery performance of its vendors. The importance of on-time delivery must not be ignored. Late supplier […]
7 steps for better change management
For some, it may be a cliche but change is all around us. In adapting to ever complex environments and challenging markets many businesses are faced with an evolve or die scenario. As a result, and in particular, over the last 30 years, there has been a significant focus not just change management but on […]
Vlookup not working in excel
We absolutely love Excel’s Vlookup formulae. It’s one of those wonderful pieces of spreadsheet wizardry that we return to time and time again. I can’t tell you how many times it’s rescued me from problems. If like me you work with various data sets then it’s more than likely that at some point you will […]
4 steps to overcome your powerpoint fear and 5 ways to build a killer persuasive presentation
Let’s face it, business is a team sport, as such most of us have to either create or give presentations during our working week, for most of us we’ll have to do both. Unless we’ve either got bucket loads of experience or a level of training behind us many of us find building persuasive presentations […]
How To Create a Kanban Board to manage your to do list
In one of our recent posts 6 reasons why you suck at managing your workload we discussed some work productivity ideas. We talked about to-do lists as one of the most powerful tools you can use in workload management, while there’s a plethora of tools available out there, one of the options available that we […]
6 reasons you suck at managing your workload
We all want to work effectively. No one sets out to do a bad job. So why is it that we often find ourselves in a position where we’re struggling with deadlines, we have our boss screaming at us that we’re late with our work and we find the quality of that work dipping? These […]
Beginners guide to change: 10 drivers for transformation
In our last article on the 20/50/30 tool, we discussed the use of the tool in the context of change management. In this article, we will again look at change management but this time we’ll investigate the key drivers behind change in organizations. Change happens in all businesses. Some cope well with it and some […]
Change agents guide to 20/50/30 – or how to ignore your detractors in 2 easy steps
While most of us have heard of the 80/20 rule there is another rule that can also be applied to everyday life. This is the 20/50/30 rule. Whilst the rule has been around for a long time, I first came across it in a financial context (see example here) but it’s also an excellent tool […]