Tag Archives: Quantify

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

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

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

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

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 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