The Role of Middle Management – What they need for success.
Middle management is often considered the place where change dies. This is because middle management has direct influence over the specific daily, weekly, and monthly tasks that occur in operations. This influence is paramount in either adopting a new practice, technology, and role change or ignoring the desired change and moving on with daily jobs. […]
The Change Agent’s Role in Supporting Top Management
Years ago, I toured a Caterpillar manufacturing plant. It was a very cool tour. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend it! The guide took us to the front of two lines that were next to each other and showed us their Gemba board and associated performance metrics. One line consistently outperformed, while […]
Sustained Improvement is not by Chance
Sustainability of change and/or continuous improvement is a topic that comes up often. Leaders often worry that after our work is complete the changes will disappear as people revert back to old habits. Process engineers and change leaders desperately want the organization to change, but feel that with every step forward there are a few […]
Our Vision for 2024
Happy New Year! In my last newsletter I reflected on the end of 2023. With its official end it is clear which goals Chalmers St. achieved and which goals we missed. On the whole, I am proud to say that we exceeded our revenue goal and we are on track with our 5 year roadmap. […]
Retrospective is Powerful!
They say that hindsight is 20/20. Retrospective is powerful! This is true in part because in retrospect we can take our time and think carefully without emotion. When we are in the moment we often act with less care. I have a practice every week where I reflect on the activities of the week, the […]
The Importance of Leader Standard Work
The great thing about practicing continuous improvement is that it is a field that is evolving and changing. Just when I think I have read and learned all there is to know, something new (or at least new to me) drops on my desk. This year I started practicing Leader Standard Work (LSW) with my […]
CI MM Live
Upcoming Event: April, 25th at Noon CST We welcome Dennis Jackson who will share his insights on the overuse of Excel, and when it is the most appropriate tool and situations where other solutions are preferable. REGISTER NOW! Become a change management expert with personalized coaching. Don’t just learn theory—get hands-on experience and practical guidance […]
Judgement and Experience Will Always Matter
While at Motorola we stretched the bounds of Six Sigma. We took the techniques into sales and marketing; at one point I even worked with our lobbyists in Washington DC. I recall talking to a marketing executive who was working on his Black Belt, he explained how they had set up a designed experiment between […]
Processes That Rarely Repeat
Some processes do not repeat enough to quickly know the impact of the changes that you make to them. Think about sales processes, financial reporting processes, engineering processes, or new product launch processes. You may only get one chance per month to take a measurement. Given the iterative nature of implementing improvements, this can pose […]
Statistics is NOT Math!
“Statistics is not math!” This is a statement that was made to me very often by an engineering leader back when I worked at Motorola. I was brought into an acquired company to teach them how we used quality tools. We were troubleshooting a product issue and trying different solutions. I would compute some basic […]