improvement

When we think about creativity, we tend to think about Research and Development and new product/service innovation.
But, why not consider the creative ways in which you can do the ordinary daily work?  Why not create an environment in which employees at all levels can offer suggestions for improvement?
Not merely suggestion boxes, but quality circles in [...]

When researching how creativity and innovation are managed in the workplace, I found a woman who I thought was one of the best examples of the results of creativity.
This lady was a receptionist in one of the lobbies of a huge semiconductor company.  When I sat in the lobby initially I wondered why she would [...]

Back in the very old days (early 80’s), I was on a team (of 24, I think) that delivered a successful software system on time, on budget, and with every feature the customer had requested.  The schedule had been tight, 18 months from inception to use, as I recall. 
This happened right in the middle of [...]

In a recent project team meeting we were reviewing an Ishikawa diagram and root cause analysis as a means to determine the next appropriate steps on an issue we were addressing as a project team when a forgotten data point was brought forward be me of all people, the project manager.

Technorati Tags: human-factors, improvement, Personal-empowerment

A friend of mine once told me about a technique for keeping track of lessons learned.  She keeps a file labeled “DNDTA.”  That stands for “Do Not Do This Again.” 
The idea is to write a note to yourself describing something you did that would not be such a good idea to do ever again, then [...]

Does your team seem to be allergic to process?  Have you been trying to implement project management best practices and meeting resistance? 
If so, have you addressed your team’s inherent questions, like “How will this make my life better?” and “Is that improvement enough to merit the hassle of changing?”  Have you explained how this will [...]

So what is the result? Today, usually only one team member has spoken directly with a customer, and this understanding isn’t typically captured in written form anyplace to share with the rest of the product development team members. So when a technical tradeoff needs to be made, there is a 50/50 likelihood that the tradeoff [...]

Agile project team values and their embodiment in actual practice are highly subject to personal interpretation on the parts of practitioners, and thus necessarily suffer criticism for its wide-ranging variety of acceptable variations, all claiming to be agile. So a significant percentage of projects that claim to be agile, yet not adopting all of the [...]

Inspection is a Tool for Improvement, Not a Whip
Deming’s third point urges practitioners to design quality into processes, using inspection as an information-gathering tool to do so. In project management, the processes and systems make up a methodology. Does your organization have a consistent methodology, or does everyone run projects their own way?
Inspecting project performance [...]