Tag Archives: Reporting

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

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

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

Grime and Punishment: Why Best Practices Matter (Part II)

Posted on April 21, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

Yesterday we looked at CLI’s (Central Line Infections), a type of infection that results from the use of a Central line, the needle and flexible tube used to insert an intravenous drip bag. CLI’s are extremely dangerous and expensive, infecting … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Improvement, Continuous or Not, Learning and Development, Uncategorized | Tagged Best Practices, change, Healthcare, Hospitals, Improve, Measure, Metrics, Quantify, Reporting, Track | 2 Comments

Tail Of The Dancing Rat: Exposing Services to User Scrutiny

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

Metrics are all around us, all the time. In fact, some of them are pervasive we forget that they’re metrics. 20 or 30 years ago, if you were in the mood for something to eat you might go to your … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Improvement, Continuous or Not, Unique Ideas | Tagged change, Improve, Measure, outsource, Reporting | Leave a comment

When Outsourcing Is Mature…

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

In the last post we talked about where outsourcing is headed for firms that have reached a “mature” stage. That is to say, if you operate out of one or more lower cost locations, all of which passed their “training” … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Expectations and Rewards, Unique Ideas | Tagged change, Improve, Measure, Metrics, outsource, Projects, Quantify, Reporting, transform | Leave a comment

What To Expect in 2011 Outsourcing…

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

Without getting too philosophical about it, what’s next depends on what’s already happened at your firm. Since every firm is in a different place, from those who are just dipping their toes for the first time to those who have … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Improvement, Continuous or Not | Tagged change, Cost, Improve, Measure, Metrics, outsource, Predict, Productivity, Quantify, Reporting, Track, transform | Leave a comment