Building Rapport with Improvement Teams – Step 5
How can we use the same language as our team members to develop rapport and accelerate the team’s success?
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Building Rapport with an Improvement Team Critic – Step 6
Here’s how to handle the critic on your team. It’s simple:
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How To Create a World-Class Quality Improvement Poster
I go to many improvement conferences. Most of the improvement posters are long on text but short on quality tools.
If you’re going to submit an improvement story, use the tools of quality. Here’s how:
https://www.qimacros.com/pdf/How-To-Develop-A-Kick-Butt-Improvement-Poster.pdf
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Agile Software Project Story
Back when I was a software systems analyst for the phone company, my boss asked me to get requirements from one of our users. He thought it would take months to get the report he wanted. I did it in one day by using the right tool for the job. Here’s how:
Agile Electric Guitar Development
In 1931, George Beauchamp combined a guitar with a microphone to create the first electric guitar called the “Frying Pan.” Without it, we wouldn’t have rock-and-roll, country and blues. This is how transitions begin, with a prototype that catapults transition to a new way of doing things.
Isn’t it time to start doing the same thing with Lean Six Sigma? Not amplification, but acceleration?
Agile Scaling Up In Corporations
HBR’s article on Agile At Scale predicts the future of business and Lean Six Sigma. Here’s what I learned:
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Shift from Manufacturing to Supply Chain
The July-August, 2018 Inc. magazine has an article (pg. 22) about manufacturing vs supply chain service jobs. From 1999-2015:
- Manufacturing jobs declined from 12.5 million to 8.2. Supply chain jobs increased from 13.4 million to 20.0.
- Manufacturing salaries climbed only slightly from $54,800 to 59,800 while supply chain jobs rose from $72,600 to $85,200.
With increasing manufacturing automation, more jobs are being created around supporting production than actual production. Something to think about.
Agile Process Innovation
I’ve lived through Business Process Reengineering which often stumbled because it was impossible to take a complex system and “reengineer” it. The only method I’ve found that works consistently is Agile Process Innovation. Here’s how it works:
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Team Communication Costs
People often ask me, how big should an improvement team be? My answer: as small as possible.
In Fred Brooks’ Mythical Man Month, he points out that communication pathways increase in a nonlinear fashion. The formula is simple:
(n2-n)/2
Where n is the number of people on a team.
- 2 people = 1 connection (4-2)/2
- 3 people = 3 connections (9-3)/2
- 4 people = 6 connections (16-4)/2
- 5 people = 10 connections (25-5)/2
- 6 people = 15 connections (36-6)/2
- 7 people = 21 connections (49-7)/2
The bigger the team, the more time is spent on discussion and communication, not progress.
