Tag Archives: change

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

Variations On A Theme: Why Do I Need All This Math?

Posted on May 18, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

When you read about the different quality systems out there, you quickly hit the wall when they start throwing statistics at you. Once you move into the heavy math, the interesting idea start to look like a very complicated and … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Improvement, Continuous or Not | Tagged change, Improve, Measure, Metrics, Predict, Projects, Quantify, Reporting, Six Sigma, 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 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

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

Is Quality Control A Waste of Time?

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

If we roll back the clock just a bit, the support services provided by most large corporations lacked any formal quality control. You had people who were dedicated to performing a function, but there wasn’t formal training or process controls. … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Decision Making, Improvement, Continuous or Not, Learning and Development, Unique Ideas | Tagged change, Errors, Improve, Lean Sigma, Measure, Metrics, QC, Quality, Quantify, Reporting, Six Sigma, transform | 1 Comment

Outsourcing Analysis Part III: Building Your Toolkit

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

For the last two blogs we have been building a tool to help you evaluate your current sourcing decisions, in other words where your staff resides and how they are employed (employees, temps, outsourced, etc.) to perform your business functions. … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Improvement, Continuous or Not, Uncategorized, Unique Ideas | Tagged Build vs. Buy, change, Hiring, Improve, Measure, outsource, Staffing, transform | Leave a comment

Outsourcing Analysis Part II: That’s My Core?

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

In our last Blog we talked about how we source for a function, which is to say the process of deciding (and executing) the “how and where” a function is performed. In the last few years the movement has been … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Improvement, Continuous or Not, Uncategorized, Unique Ideas | Tagged Build vs. Buy, change, corporations, Hiring, Improve, Measure, outsource, Sourcing | 1 Comment

Outsourcing Analysis Part I: How Far Out Do You Outsource?

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

Everyone talks about Outsourcing, but much of the time the talk seems to treat all Outsourcing as the same, with teh assumption that all projects end up with everyone working in a call center in India. Outsourcing predates India and predates “offshoring”. In fact, on of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Uncategorized, Unique Ideas | Tagged Build vs. Buy, change, outsource, Quantify, Reporting, Track, transform | Leave a comment