This blog post is born out of a response to the Named Risk post from Ed Arnold on www.LinkedIn.com. He left the reply below: In my experience, a lot of time/effort is wasted when project owners change. The knowledge gets lost, even if they leave their spreadsheets and power points behind. The answer: a collaborative […]
We addressed the issue of the modular FMEA in a previous blog. We also suggest that the FMEA in its various guises is also a great place to capture lessons learned. In the medical, aerospace, automotive, and food industries, some kind of FMEA is a required document. Since we already must create these documents, why […]
A modular FMEA is a modification of the standard Failure Mode and Effects Analysis tool into meaningful components. For example, we can select “stepper motor” as a component of a typical instrument cluster used in the dashboards of truck and autos. We would then create our FMEA to deal with all issues related specifically the […]
Brainstorming as neologism began with Alex Osborn of the advertising agency BBDO in 1942. His primary concern was creative thinking. In general, classical brainstorming generally follows this pattern: Gather a group of people Decide on a duration and quantity of ideas desired Solicit ideas from group members No editing, snide comments, or insults Collect ideas […]
Over the years, we have heard executive level individuals cry out for cultural change in their organizations without understanding the ramifications of what they are saying. With cultural transformation as usually touted, we are talking about massive levels of upheaval. The upheaval approach can be counterproductive if it does little more than produce a culture […]
The real kaizen is all about the 10,000 things. Maasaki Imai’s description of relentless, creeping quality improvement is apt. It also fits with the comprehensive philosophy of total quality management (TQM). We say “real” kaizen because we have so-called kaizen events that have nothing to do with inexorable cultural change and a whole to do […]
Project managers need to be able to assess product quickly with an intelligible set of quality metrics. In general, we recommend paired metrics; for example, in software development we can look at lines of code versus errors per line to keep both metrics “honest.” In the automotive world we like to see Cpk, which is […]
With the recent brouhaha about working from home at a conspicuous company we decided to contribute to the discussion. We think also that there were probably ways to meet the objectives of this company’s CEO while not fully eroding the work from home idea and irritating some of the employees. We think we have a […]
The term “10,000 things” originates in the Far East and generally connotes the idea of many things. It is not a synonym for “everything.” Regardless, the 10,000 things are what we must consider when we go about making long-lasting change. We frequently see books and other media that promise “transformation,” but we know speedy transformation […]
Many organizations struggle with the development of risk response plans. Often they ignore this important step altogether. The reasons for this are numerous, but mostly involve the desire to avoid tying up scarce project resources in the development of a plan the project hopes to never use. So why don’t organizations out-source this effort? The […]