Treating the unexpected as normal

In project plans have you noticed the constant state of change? But of course you have!

Made me wonder about that – the chip that is advertised at one speed and actually when tested runs either faster or slower – enough for a data sheet change. The product that has to be rapidly re-engineered due to a design issue….and I am sure you can fill in the blank…

That is why it is necessary to have regular review points in the project plan. Unless these are done you may find yourself in a fire-fighting mode as the designer that has been quietly trying to fix the issue suddenly shares the information about the problem and neatly lops 8 – 12 weeks of your already critical project timeline. (more…)

Disaster Recovery.

Industrial disaster strikes - ever been there? I have……

Disaster can take a number of forms…late delivery, key personnel absence; shortage of materials, total failure of product due to soldering….any number of events can be termed “disaster” by the team.

I have worked on projects which ranged in scope of disaster recovery from pulling “all nighters” in order to recover a project, through all weekend working by a team of mechanical fabricators (to meet year end shipments where the product was not to drawing) – in one event, I was called at 10pm on a Friday night by a project manager from Solectron to say that the “fix” one of the manufacturing engineers had “engineered” into a product was not working – and that production was stopped, and so the Monday shipping targets for year end would not be met – 30 minutes later I was on his line in Milpitas in a white coat re-engineering the “fix” and by mid-night the line was back up and running – I stayed until 6 am and the end of quarter shipments went out as scheduled. (more…)

Whose data is this anyway?

You may think as you prepare your spreadsheets and reports that you are doing a fantastic job…….we all do….8-)

Sit back though and imagine a scenario where the data is being viewed by someone that has never seen it before……

I have seen confusion in manufacturing schedules where the product is grouped by equipment type, instead of manufacturing start/required finish dates where the only thing needed was to data sort the sheet by date and not equipment type.

I have heard explanations by the authors which generally take the form of something like “It’s obvious – if you just take a look at cell Z123 that’s exactly what I was asking for” (more…)

Disaster Planning

It’s a funny thing how life continues again and again to give us pause for thought.

In industry, we know that the unemployment rate is going up. The valley seems to be weathering the storm and the financial press is full of speculation that there will be more jobs created next year – me? – Personally after the last year of roller coaster rides in the housing and financial market – I do not believe that anyone can predict what will happen next month let alone next year on just about anything from the price of gas to the price of a pound of rice.

As an example I had a very interesting time a few weeks back. (more…)

The Endless Journey-Becoming the Kind of Leader You Admire

The process of becoming a great leader is a perpetual quest. It is an endless journey of self-discovery. Just like going to church, you can never be “done”. There will be successes along the way, but no failures, only feedback from which you can choose to learn and grow. Sometimes the challenges you face will seem too enormous for you, but you will benefit more from the difficult parts of your travels than the easy roads. When Nelson Mandela was asked what changed about him during years in prison he said he matured in prison. In my experience, age definitely helps improve leadership wisdom, especially since it brings more patience! (more…)

Leadership for a Tiny Planet

When I worked at HP/Agilent back in the 1990’s we focused mostly on the US market and a bit on Europe. Now my friends who still work there are making frequent visits to India, China and Poland, markets that were too minuscule to warrant any significant R&D budget, and certainly not personal visits more than once in a blue moon. Domestic sales for many international companies now make up a minority of the revenue stream.

These days it’s very humbling to live in the US and watch the changes that are happening on the planet. I find myself musing about the fact that England was the richest and most powerful country in the world in 1900, and that China will soon be the country with the most English-speaking people on earth. (more…)

Leading Orgs - Only Octopi Need Apply

Leading organizations is like leading a swarm of bees. You can’t directly control what’s going on, and the statistics indicate that most organizational leaders aren’t doing a very good job of it. A Harris Poll found that only 15% of people knew their orgs most important goals, over half of employees don’t know what to do to achieve company goals, and less than half of employees’ time was spent working on these goals. What’s more, another big fancy-schmancy research center found that less than 20% of employees feel strongly committed to company goals. (Somehow the math doesn’t quite add up here. Must be some kind of statistical uncertainty in the data. I can’t tell if the 19% who are committed to the goals are the same 15% who know the goals. I hope so, otherwise we could have 15% of people knowing the goals, but not committed to them, and another 19% who are strongly committed to goals that they don’t even know. Ouch, my brain hurts!) (more…)