Bob Williams

Urgency is a two-face

May 21st, 2011 | Leave a comment | Tags: , , , ,

What’s the goal of your organization? Do this. Ask executives in your business what the goal of the business is. Is it to make market leading products and services? Is it to make and serve customers? Or is it really to make money?

Eliyahu M. Goldratt writes in his book “The Goal” that the goal of the organization “is to increase net profit, while simultaneously increasing both ROI and cash flow, and that’s the equivalent of saying the goal is to make money.”

The business may be about making a particular product or service. But the root goal is to supply money to its stakeholders and employees.

Is there an …Continue reading >>

Bob Williams

Are you hiding behind the process?

May 1st, 2011 | One comment | Tags: , ,

Some people depend on the process for making results. I was involved in a situation recently where a software defect was found after the production release. A team member was quick to analyze the situation and indicated that the team had not followed all the steps in the process. They stated that this resulted in increased risk and was the root cause of the defect.

Don’t be afraid to fail. It appeared to me that their behavior was driven from a fear of failure which often results in blame. If we work in environments that place blame for failures then how do we expect people to learn and correct mistakes? …Continue reading >>

Bob Williams

Beware Bloated Processes

July 8th, 2010 | Leave a comment | Tags: , ,

We’ve all been there. Something goes wrong and as a follow-up we look for the root cause and how to prevent it from happening again. More times than not, we solve this procedure by adding another step to an existing process. It’s almost automatic and we don’t think twice about amending a process because we are doing this in the name of quality.

STOP.

Let’s take a minute to think a little about this.

Adding process steps can have lasting consequences. Sometimes it ends up for the good and sometimes for the worse. Process designers, stakeholders, and managers should consider the full costs before taking action.

Potential Benefits of Adding …Continue reading >>