Category Archives: Decision Making

Identifying and dealing with key issues

The 4th Sigma: Is It Time to Rethink Six Sigma?

Posted on May 22, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

Over the past few months, I have been using this blog to collect information from different operational managers, especially IT managers because of the wide range of services they run. The subject has been, “How are you dealing with the … Continue reading →

Posted in 4th Sigma, Best Practices, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Improvement, Continuous or Not, Unique Ideas | Tagged change, Hiring, Improve, IT, Measure, Metrics, outsource, Projects, Quality, Quantify, Reporting, Satisfaction, Six Sigma, tips, Track, transform | 5 Comments

100%, Guaranteed On-Time… Sort Of!

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

When I have discussions with my peers about the metrics they collect to run their operations, or at least measure how well their operations perform, the most confused and controversial metric is… On-Time-Delivery (OTD). Many operations feel that they have … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Improvement, Continuous or Not | Tagged change, Improve, Measure, Metrics, On Time Delivery, Projects, Quantify, Reporting, Satisfaction, Track, transform | Leave a comment

Pipe Dreams: Pursuit Of The Right Quality Metric

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

Quality can mean different things, often many things, to any individual. The term “quality”, by itself doesn’t necessarily clearly spell out what you mean. Identifying what quality means (in the context of a specific project) is vital to any improvement … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Improvement, Continuous or Not, Learning and Development | Tagged change, Improve, Measure, Metrics, Quality, Satisfaction, Six Sigma, transform, Voice of the Client | Leave a comment

The Mind Muddle Of Multi-Tasking

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

Multi-Tasking. We’ve all used this term for doing more than one thing at a time. As in, “Look at me Ma… I’m doing the laundry and watching TV… I’m Multi-Tasking!” Most of us have even been told to do more … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Improvement, Continuous or Not, Learning and Development, Unique Ideas | Tagged Efficiency, Improve, Measure, Multi-Task, Quality, Quantify, Staffing, Studies, transform | 2 Comments

Psychics Are Standing By To Install Your Laptop!

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

What do your clients really want from you? Sometimes a client will instruct you to do something, such as editing a document. When you fail to follow their instructions (because it violates a rule, such as English grammar) you can … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Improvement, Continuous or Not, Unique Ideas | Tagged Improve, Measure, Metrics, outsource, Predict, Quality, Satisfaction, secretary, Service Levels, Staffing | Leave a comment

The Truth About Six Sigma (Part II): Too Many Sigma’s Spoils The Service!

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

Where was I? Oh, now I remember! All the talk about Six Sigma… it’s the latest thing, it’s just a bunch of old techniques, it can perform miracles, it can do a lot of damage if you’re not careful. There’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Improvement, Continuous or Not, Unique Ideas | Tagged change, Improve, Measure, Metrics, Predict, Quality, Quantify, Six Sigma | 2 Comments

The Truth About Six Sigma (Part I): Bake it into your Operation!

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

Posted in Best Practices, Decision Making, Learning and Development | Tagged Improve, Measure, Metrics, Projects, Quality, Quantify, Six Sigma, transform | Leave a comment

A Word To The Wise: Talk Isn’t Cheap!

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

When you plan to outsource your services, you must balance many competing needs. You need the best services at the best prices, and vendors need the best profits for their investors. You can leverage the lower cost of an offshore or offsite … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Unique Ideas | Tagged change, Improve, outsource, Quality, Quantify, Staffing | Leave a comment

Outsourcing Agreements: Price Is Just An Outcome

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

If this is your first outsourcing agreement, you’re under a lot of pressure to get it right the first time. Whether you work in the Procurement department or you manage the Business unit, you need to convert the complex parameters … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Unique Ideas | Tagged Build vs. Buy, change, Improve, Measure, outsource, Performance, Price, Quality, Quantify | Leave a comment

Good News, We Have A Customer Complaint!

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

We’ve all had it hammered into us… improve services, eliminate complaints, make the customer happy. We all want to provide a service that makes our clients happy, and never receives a client complaint. If customer satisfaction has been your big … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Improvement, Continuous or Not, Unique Ideas | Tagged complaints, corporations, Improve, Measure, Metrics, Problem Resolution, Reporting, Satisfaction, Story Telling, Track | Leave a comment