We all want to improve the way that we work. Process improvement (digital or otherwise) doesn’t just happen though, someone has to drive these projects. Whose responsibility should this be? Should we ask our divisions to improve their own processes or do we create a transformation team to do it for them. To start, […]
In the realm of organizational practices, a diverse range of research from esteemed thought leaders is often employed. These insights span strategy development, operations management, financial acumen, risk assessment, process refinement, and adept problem-solving. These conventional management domains are pivotal in crafting robust workflows that steer organizations toward their missions. Yet, within this landscape, there exists […]
In the world of effective leadership, one invaluable skill often goes overlooked—Gemba. While Gemba is often associated with process improvement, its true power lies in its ability to transform leadership communication. In this blog, we’ll explore the critical role of communication in Gemba and provide you with two essential tips to enhance your Gemba skills […]
Effective communication is the lifeblood of any successful organization. It’s not merely a tool for interaction; it’s the very essence of how we navigate challenges, share ideas, and collaborate. Yet, there are pitfalls to be aware of when it comes to communication. The Pitfalls of Communication: Unconscious Communication: Often, we communicate without conscious thought, assuming […]
Why do people get offended by our challenge voice? The challenge voice is one of the voices we most readily recognize; it’s the voice that stimulates our prehistoric brain most easily. It triggers our most primitive reactions – flight, fight, or freeze. Typically, when we are challenged, we know we have been so. When people […]
Why Should you Digitally Transform? Every organisation wants to do more with less while simultaneously increasing the level of service that they deliver to their customers. Given this, seemingly impossible task, winning and losing will almost certainly be determined by an organisation’s ability to leverage technology to improve the way that they work. Digital Transformation […]
Listen in to find out how you can begin your digital transformation journey today. Ishan Sellahewa shares how to align both your digital transformation with your Enterprise Excellence journey. Contact ishan.sellahewa@sapartners.com with any questions
Discover how the Align, Engage, Improve (AEI) system can support your organisation to deploy an effective and engaging Tiered Management System Contact juliette.packham@sapartners.com or keivan.zokaei@sapartners.com with any questions
I’m guessing that, given you’ve taken the time out of your day to read a blog on process management, you understand the importance of having clear and current documented processes. What we all need to remember though is that while process documentation is a necessity, it will do nothing on its own. This is why […]
By Sonja Allen Have you ever considered… How many meetings you have a week? How many of these meetings could be an email? How many of these meetings have few or no results? How many rabbit holes do your meeting conversations go down? How regularly do you talk about what really matters, in a focused […]
Many of the clients that I work with operate out of multiple national and global sites. This then naturally gives rise to the question ‘how do we deal with these geographic variations?’ I doubt I need to explain in too much detail why organisations want to get rid of their variations, there can’t be two […]
Often, when I talk about process management and explain the benefits of having clear processes with detailed work instructions, I’ll get pushback like ‘we hire professionals to do a job, we don’t want to tell them exactly how to do it’. In short, the push back is on how much detail the process needs. The […]
We are 30 years old and we are celebrating just how far we have come.. from our early years as a spin-out from Cardiff University’s Lean Enterprise Research Centre (LERC) our founders Peter Hines & Paul Morris founded a company that now has a global team and offices in the UK, Ireland, Germany, the USA, […]
Driving engagement with Process Management requires more than just telling your people that they must now be process driven. Lets consider the Prosci change management model. This clearly demonstrates the need to manage not just the technical side of change (documenting processes), but also the people side of change to enable a transition from the […]
We all know humans are inherently lazy – we tend to take the path of least resistance. This makes sense; both mental and physical activity takes a lot of energy, something that was scarce at the time when we had to hunt and gather for our next meal. For a more recent example, if you […]
Speaking with Risk Managers, I find that risk management is often performed in Excel. There’ll be a ‘Risk Register’ file, where (generally) the Risk team document an exhaustive list of risks in one column, and in another column treatments/ controls for those risks. This Excel file typically lives in a SharePoint folder, is maintained by […]
Periodically when talking about process management, I’ll be told ’process management isn’t for us, we’re agile’. Is agile a fair excuse to avoid process management? Short answer, in my opinion, absolutely not; in fact an agile environment makes process management more important if anything. Here’s why. Agile and the Agile Trap First, let’s start […]
By MEGAN JAMES, European Business Development Manager I previously shared the S A Partners implementation model for Enterprise Excellence and how to use this to build effective training programmes. In case you missed it, you can find it HERE. I received some great queries specifically about the design of the Leadership element so I wanted […]
Process Management: The Ikea Approach What does Ikea and Process Management have in common? The decentralisation of the build phase. One way in which Ikea is able to offer furniture at a price point below its competition is that, unlike its competitors who pay labourers to assemble their furniture, Ikea makes use […]
When embarking on an improvement journey, organisations too often give into temptation and jump directly to process improvement, either by designing a new, optimised, Lean process, or attempting to immediately create a digitised, automated version of their existing manual process. While this approach of skipping ahead to your desired future state may seem like […]
Well, ok we may be a bit slow starting but I promise you that we have caught up fast. Over the past three years with the impact of COVID19 we have seen a significant shift in the way we all learn, we have become more comfortable with the use of technology in how we develop […]
I came in for a bit of teasing by a work colleague recently over my uneasiness with the term True North. We were working with a leadership community in a large automotive business, and he used the term True North, which brought about an obvious and over exaggerated wince from me which raised a few […]
Too often organisations think that successfully rolling out process management (‘PM’) means simply providing their team members with a process mapping tool, some basic training, and expecting it to just get done. This approach will invariably result in either nothing getting done, or processes being mapped but never followed or updated. While PM might not […]
In our recent webinar on the Future of Lean we explored the need for organisations to embrace digital solutions to enable them to deploy continuous improvement more efficiently. You can watch the webinar here. It is clear that embracing technology will enable organisations to reduce costs, improve productivity and be more flexible. Our work with blue-chip organisations on developing improvement strategies and roadmaps incorporates the adoption of the right technologies to suit the demands of our […]
In this month’s SHINGO Forum we welcomed Seani Devlin, the brilliant and engaging Operational Excellence Lead at Abbvie, Ballytivnan. Seani shared with the group both the site and his personal insights on their Shingo journey. We invited Seani along to the Shingo Forum to talk about his employee engagement; tiered meetings and visual management. Having […]
For me, this is one of the most critical principles within the Shingo Model for leaders to grasp at a core, personal level. The power contained within this principle is, I believe, the source of real cultural change within organizations. Leaders, particularly in the technical and compliance-based environments where I spend a lot of my time, often […]
I’ve been asked to share my experience of lockdown and some “top tips” on virtual training. Three months ago I knew nothing about Zoom, and hadn’t really bothered getting to grips with Microsoft Teams. But then everything changed……! I wouldn’t call myself a complete technophobe, but let’s just say I’m often late to the party […]
Improving the Image and Perception of Maintenance by clearly stating what Maintenance ‘Best Practice’ can bring to the Operational Excellence agenda
What makes an Organisation Great is its ability to manage and motivate its people and leaders, which is where Developing Leadership Skills come into play. There are millions of quotes, thousands of books and hundreds of professors all available to give advice to organisations, or teach us specific techniques. The problem with all this, is […]
Its Effective leadership that makes an organisation Great. It’s the ability to manage and motivate its people at every level of the business. There are millions of quotes, thousands of books and hundreds of professors, all available to give us advice or teach us a specific technique. This approach ends up almost like a cockeril […]
Over the years, Lean has evolved from primarily a tools-based approach to a focus on an end to end systems view and developing people at all levels of an organization. If done correctly, managers enable people on the front lines to be confident enough to change and improve their processes. Focusing on the middle management […]
