The operational leader of front-line workers is one of the busiest roles in an organisation. Managing your time, and the tasks you will complete and your approach to them is an essential part of your success. Investing in the ‘core’ activities (your operating rhythm): Your operating rhythm. There are key activities that improve your effectiveness as a team manager. There… Read More »Manage YOURSELF FIRST
Introduction High performance for your business is about more than just making the right decisions. It’s about having the right KPIs in place to measure success, and rewarding employees for doing their job well. The key to building high-performing teams isn’t merely having good people on board – it’s understanding how KPIs work, what drives them and how to use… Read More »Building great KPIs
The business impacts from the coronavirus lockdowns represent a huge opportunity for organisations who are willing to adapt and view the challenges in a positive, long-term way.
Interesting observation over the last few days as people dust off their Business Continuity Plans as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. Many are finding how much their organisation has changed since last updated and are simply unable to execute the current plan. For some their challenge has been disciplined regular review of BCPs in busy times. For many others… Read More »Keep dust off your Business Continuity Plans
Interesting observation from a number of people who are working remotely for the first time: Because there are less distractions, they are more focussed and are finally getting to some of the “important, non-urgent” items that they really should have done a long time ago. Remote working certainly impacts productivity – but not necessarily in a negative way.
The current Coronavirus pandemic is cause for concern for many businesses. Pandemic response plans are being established and staff are being prepared for changes to the workplace that may (or may not) be implemented. What will happen to your team’s productivity if health agencies implement biosecurity measures and force your staff to stay at home? The availability of remote IT… Read More »Maintaining productivity in uncertain times
Part 3: Creating the burning platform This is a classic case of implementing one change by focussing on another – create a successful Continuous Improvement culture by focussing on developing Operational Management disciplines. The hard thing is that this needs the commitment, discipline and effort from Senior Managers and Executive. Everyone, especially upper management, will complain that they’re too busy… Read More »CI Programs – the Burning Platform
I often hear people say “I don’t have enough time to do . . . [insert something apparently not important]” But what if that thing IS actually important? Well, the organisation, the customers and the staff all ultimately suffer. My view is that this situation is actually a symptom of poor communication (and poor accountability) from the management chain. This… Read More »“Not Enough Time” is a convenient excuse
Spending time on non-value tasks results in reduced productivity. But given this seems self-evident, why are non-value tasks so prevalent in our workplaces? A not-so-recent article preview here indicates that certain knowledge worker roles can realise a 40% improvement by eliminating non-value tasks from their working day. And while the sample size wasn’t large for this particular article, the observations… Read More »The Wicked Productivity Problem
I recently read an article that proposed a pretty dodgy way to measure Cost Per Transaction (CPT). It proposed an simple alternative to activity-based-costing through some simple extimates and sought to break down the CPT between different transaction types in a Service environment using the following method: Team Managers estimated the % of time their people spend on the varying… Read More »Beware the subjective metric