Risk Analysis May Lead to Changes

Many project managers view changing course in the middle of a project as the last thing they want to do, but after performing ongoing risk analysis, it may be the best course of action. Project managers use risk analysis to increase the probability of project success. Experienced project managers know to expect unknowns, good ones prepare for the unknown and are able to adjust when they arise.

Risk analysis steps include identifying the risks, developing responses to each known risk, establishing reserves to deal with unknown risk, and continuously reviewing and communicating risk status to the team.

During a recent project a major unknown risk arose in the middle of the project: a manufacturing plant had some serious, previously unknown constraints to the new product line. The welding operation was the constraint, and the team discovered the manual process required too much manpower and floor space to adjust effectively. In essence, the new product did not fit in the operation's "sweet spot" for manufacturing. As this operation was in China, it was growing fast to support local demand, and this export product was going to use up constraining capacity, causing a problem.

The team analyzed options. Floor space could be allocated, people added, and process flow could be adjusted in the new factory, but the local team did not believe this would effectively resolve the capacity constraint. There was another factory where the product could be made on automated equipment for a slightly higher overall cost, with lower transportation cost to offset much of the higher labor cost. The intangible cost of uncertainty tipped the balance toward factory 2, the more local factory, and we made the recommendation to change plants to the project sponsor.

The sponsor was loathe to change plants in mid-course. He felt the change was a major risk, but after careful consideration, agreed to make the change. The project was reconfigured to manage the new product in plant 2, and the adjustments produced an on-time delivery to customers and a successful overall project.

What would have happened if we had left the product in China? We do not know, but we do know the project launched successfully after making the change. Risk analysis is dealing with probabilities and estimates. We only know the results and can document what worked. Effective risk analysis supported a major project re-alignment supporting a successful launch.

Root Cause Analysis, Part 2

Photos from http://www.csititanic.com/.

In an earlier post, I used the 5-why technique to determine the root cause of the RMS Titanic hitting an iceberg: communication error between the watchman and his officer regarding the availability of binoculars. While this is truly a root cause, it doesn't inform us why the Titanic, billed to be "unsinkable," sank in less than three hours once it hit the iceberg. So the next question is, once it hit the iceberg, why 1, why did it sink so quickly?

The answer to this first why unfolds in a new book called "What really sank the Titanic." In it, the authors present results of submarine recon showing the ship sank so quickly due to rivets popping along the six slits opened in the seams on the bow of the Titanic. So the next question, why 2, is why did the rivets pop?

Research indicates that the rivets used were poorer quality than standard, causing an easy fracture path for failure. The research was conducted on many rivet samples retrieved from the shipwreck site. Photomicrographs show the phosphate and sulphate inclusion level in these iron rivets is excessive, leading to a weaker fastening of the ship. You can see this on the scanning electron micrograph, shown below from www.csititanic.com, which shows a long slag inclusion provided a fracture path for this rivet's failure.

So the next question, why 3, is why the poor quality rivets were used?

These lower quality rivets were used because of a scarce supply of top quality rivets. Research on meeting minutes cites repeated references to shortages of "best best" quality rivets. So the next question, why 4, is why there was a scarce supply?

The shipbuilder, Harland & Wolff, was building three ships the size of Titanic at the same time. The Britannic and the Gigantic were ships in the same series as the Titanic, and all three were under construction at the same time. Which begs the final question, why 5, why were they building three huge ships at once?

This was a policy decision made by managers at Harland and Wolff. The basic motivator is the drive for profits which, in this case, trumped the need for quality. So to avoid the sinking of the Titanic, an executive at Harland and Wolff would have had to say, “no, we cannot meet this schedule and build the three ships safely with materials that are currently available, so we must delay one or two of the ships.” This would have allowed proper materials to be used and would have saved 1520 lives.

This analysis shows that most problems are the cause of policy decisions and ineffective management, not workers like watchmen or riveters. It was an officer who didn’t supply the binoculars, it was an executive who specified the wrong rivets rather than changing the schedule.
The root cause of the Titanic's sinking so quickly was an executive decision far removed from the sinking, both in space and time; As Deming said, “The problem is at the top, management is the problem.”

Lean @ Home

We use lean manufacturing principles at work, and they provide huge benefits. Why don't we have a "Lean @ Home" program? What would that look like?

According to the National Bestseller, The Machine that Changed the World, lean principles include

• Teamwork


• Communication


• Efficient use of resources and elimination of waste


• Continuous improvement

Teamwork

A team can take a huge leap forward in performance by simply clearly committing to work toward the common goal. Understanding others’ points of view is sometimes required before moving forward. Sometimes roles must be clarified. At home, teamwork is very important. Working together with the family toward common goals is an important concept. The goals can include financial, educational, spiritual, social, physical fitness, organizing the home, and many others. By agreeing and setting goals, groups living at home move toward success.

Communication

Many problems find their root cause in poor communication. In today's world of high technology, there is no excuse for poor communication. At home, we can use e-mail, voice mail, notes on the fridge, and best but maybe least used: talking face to face. Communication is key to achieving a lean home.

Efficient use of resources and elimination of waste

The objective of a lean system is to identify and eliminate waste. There are seven areas of waste identified in the Toyota Production System:

1. overproduction,


2. waiting,


3. transporting,


4. inappropriate processing,


5. excessive inventory,


6. motion,


7. defects.

Translating this into the home, the wastes become

1. bad habits occupying time,


2. non-useful idle time,


3. commute time,


4. inefficient methods, including wasted energy


5. hoarding,


6. extra steps,


7. errors.

Continuous Improvement

A key hallmark of continuous improvement is having a system in place to root out problems, discovering and solving them before they impose themselves on you. These systems function well in good companies, and they can save your home life from excessive waste.

Tools used in creating lean enterprises can be adjusted to develop lean homes. The effort is underway at our house and I will update this blog with lessons on the journey.

Root Cause Analysis

The RMS Titanic steamed out of Southampton England en route to New York on April 10th of 1912. This luxury liner was billed to be practically unsinkable. It struck an iceberg at 11:40 PM April 14th and sank 2:40 later. 1,520 lives were lost. This wasn’t the largest loss of life in a maritime disaster, but the Titanic still captures our imagination to this day. In fact, a recent book is out discussing the cause of the sinking. The book, called “What really sank the titanic,” is based on research conducted on samples taken from the shipwreck. I provided an earlier look at this issue, discussing how initial problems evolved into a catastrophic loss of life.

In a different angle, I looked at the root cause of the sinking, and found that Dr. W. Edwards Deming was right, yet again, when he said, "The problem is at the top. Management is the problem."

I performed a root cause analysis on the Titanic's sinking. Using the 5-Why approach, here is what I found. There are two branches to explore, first, why did the Titanic strike an iceberg at all, and second, why did it sink from the collision? This Blog entry is about the first question.

· Why 1: Why did the Titanic hit an iceberg?
o Standard operating procedures at that time for ice fields: post watchman and carry on.

· Why 2: Why did the watchman see the iceberg too late? Conditions:
o “Flat calm,” cloudless sky, 31 F. Watchmen looked for the white foam of waves crashing on icebergs' bases. That night, there were no waves.
o Moonless night: difficult to see anything.
o Not ideal conditions to see icebergs, but was the Titanic not to travel in these flat seas?
o Yes, it should be able to steam in these conditions. Since we can’t control the conditions, let’s step back up and ask why the watchmen failed to see the berg until it was too late. Did the watchman have standard tools, like binoculars?

· Why 2/B No. Why didn’t the watchman have binoculars to see in poor conditions?
o He was told they didn’t have them by an officer, even though there were two pair in the bridge.

· Why 3: Why denied?
o The officer didn't know or didn't care enough to find out. In essence, this is poor communication.

· Why 4: Why poor communication?
o If we answer this, we know why the Titanic hit the iceberg: root cause was poor communication between the watchman and the officer.

It could have been that the officer didn't know or didn't care. Either way, we are getting to the root cause. Let's say the officer didn't know...

• Why 5: why didn't the officer know about binoculars on the bridge?



• Poor training, new ship, lack of leadership and awareness... these are the problems, as Deming said, "at the top."

So we see, it wasn't that the watchman did a poor job, it was that he was not supported by the management system. This failure led to the Titanic striking an iceberg on its maiden voyage. Next we'll ask why the ship, described as "practically unsinkable," sank so quickly once it hit.

Profitable Ideas

People wonder if ideas can make money -- yes, there are profits in ideas. Take personal investing, for example. Investing in the right security yields profits. Essentially, we have the equation


Good Idea + Investment = Profit.


There are millions of "good ideas" on how to invest money, and often people hire experts to provide them with investment ideas (stock broker, financial planner, etc.). One problem with this arrangement is that often the expert "hired" really works for a firm who sells investments. Clients wonder, "Who holds sway over this expert, me the client -- or the firm, his employer?" Conflicts of interest occur. For those like me who are self-reliant and don't mind simple online research, I developed a system that generates good investment ideas using free online tools. The method solves the conflict, removing it from clients' worries.


First, I advocate the value investment philosophy proven effective by such icons as Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham. I recommend reading Graham's book, The Intelligent Investor.

Grounded in the knowledge of how value investing works, you can begin searching for profitable ideas. In Graham's day, people pored over printed materials. One beautiful thing about investing today is that there are so many new tools to get results. I use an advanced, free stock screening tool. I use screening parameters I developed based on the value philosophy and generate lists of potential investments. I take those results to information boards, such as Yahoo's finance page for more detailed analysis of companies I like. Once I gain the knowledge of the business and confirm that it is worth the investment, I place the trade myself. I monitor the results and have a target sales price on the up and down side.


This method generates profits from ideas, true idea power. The key is establishing optimal parameters and maximizing your profit. I will share my stock screening parameters soon, a quick "how to" for today's value investor, but am also interested in other views, so comments are encouraged!

Check back soon for links to my course on value investing, how to pick winning investments, which is under revision temporarily.

Effective Meeting Course

Learn to run meetings effectively -- guaranteed. Follow the methods and make your meeting time more productive and be a star. Based on my research and over 20 years experience, this course will provide you with the tools you need to:

• decide if a meeting is necessary and elminate bad ones


• plan effectively for a meeting


• execute an effective meeting


• write an effective report
• effectively run a virtual meeting

In this four-part class you will learn how to shine as a star in meeting effectiveness.

I use Digital Chalk to present my course. Click here to create a new account and register for the course. Complete four sessions, pass the exam with at least 70%, and receive a certificate of completion. Upon completion, you will also receive a .pdf checklist to use for future reference as you plan for effective meetings.

Use your new skills immediately to improve your results, get noticed: a great investment at $59.00. Guarantee: if you pass the class, implement the methods, and are not satisfied with your results, you will receive a full refund.

How to get better ideas... and more of them!

Here is advice from Wired Magazine on how to improve your brainpower.

Takeaways:
- Have a learning plan. Think about what you need to know and focus your efforts on the highest value information that is easiest to learn.

- When memorizing facts, mix them up and set timers to randomly distract you during your memorizing.
- Regular aerobic exercise is vital... even walking works, and practice good breathing.
- Limit caffeine but keep a pretty steady stream of it in small amounts throughout the day
- Figure out and use your learning style, whether it be visual, kinesthetic, listening, or tactile.

Other comments follow the article links below:

Get Smarter: 12 Hacks That Will Amp Up Your Brainpower
1: Distract Yourself -- this is possibly a good approach for memorizing but seems hard to do.
2: Caffeinate With Care -- good advice; one cup of coffee a day followed by small, regular doses
3: Choose Impressive Information -- interesting idea... memorize useful and easy facts
4: Think Positive -- great advice for learners: a virtuous cycle!
5: Do the Right Drugs -- huh?
6: Juice Your IQ Score -- good advice that ties with 3 and 4
7: Know Your Brain -- exactly how does this help?
8: Don't Panic -- right on... how do we not panic? If you do, know your IQ plummets.
9: Embrace Chaos -- mix up things to make them somehow easier to remember.. counter intuitive.
10: Get Visual -- for visual learners, a big YES
11: Exercise Wisely -- breathing and aerobics... the brain uses a disproportionate amount (20%) of the oxygen in your blood, so improving your cardio-vascular system will help your brain.
12: Slow Down -- good advice for improving reading comprehension, but practice at reading quickly does work, so aim for the optimal: 500 wpm according to the article.

Titanic Mistake

This photo of the Titanic under construction comes from the NY Times article describing a recent discovery concerning the sinking of the great ship. The Titanic was designed to be unsinkable, yet it sunk on its maiden voyage. The discovery shows why the Titanic sunk from striking an iceberg, and why it sunk so quickly, taking so many with her.



In the article, reported by William J. Broad, research by Jennifer Hooper McCarty and others shows the cause of the disastrous sinking was faulty rivets located in the bow. A transition from iron rivets to steel rivets was underway in shipbuilding of the times, and steel was the newly preferred, stronger material. Steel rivets were used in the areas designers felt it was most needed, in the main hull, but not in the bow nor stern. Iron rivets were specified, and there were shortages. A lower grade iron rivet was used in the Titanic, as demonstrated in samples recovered from the ship. When compared to standard wrought iron, there is up to three times the inclusions, or trapped slag, in the iron. Inclusions make the steel weaker, providing fracture paths for failure propagation.



How could this be? This was a premium luxury liner of the time and there were cheap rivets? It is a story of a crisis with seeds in decisions far removed from the chilly arctic where the Titanic lays today. In an earlier post, I described a model for a crisis with an adverse outcome:

- An initial problem, often minor in isolation, that goes uncorrected
-A subsequent problem that compounds the effect of the initial problem
- An inept corrective effect
- Disbelief at the accelerating seriousness of the situation
- Generally, an attempt to hide the truth about what is going on while an attempt is made at remediation
- Sudden recognition that the situation is out of control or “in extremis”
- Finally, the ultimate disaster scenario involving significant loss of life, financial resources, or both, and ultimately, the recriminations.

* Initial problem: material shortages. There were three huge ships being built at the same time and materials and labor were in short supply. Iron rivets were substituted for steel and used in the bow.

* Subsequent problem compounding the initial one: the proper iron rivets were not ordered (due to a shortage?) and the ones received had inclusions, weakening them. They came from smaller forge shops not normally used by the shipbuilder.

* Corrective Effect: There was none that we know because the iron rivets were not tested and found to be weaker than required. The Board of Trade stopped inspecting iron rivets at the time, deciding they were a mature technology and the focus went to steel.

* Disbelief at the accelerating seriousness: this had to occur the night the Titanic hit an iceberg. Due to the weaker rivets, the Titanic literally fell apart at the seams in the bow, allowing water to rush in and sinking the ship faster than anyone could respond.

* The final disaster scenario: the sinking of the Titanic with all the loss of life and property associated with it.

Interestingly, denial and recriminations persist to this day. When asked about the research findings, the shipbuilder, "Harland and Wolff, after its long silence, now rejects the charge. 'There was nothing wrong with the materials,' Joris Minne, a company spokesman, said last week. Mr. Minne noted that one of the sister ships, the Olympic, sailed without incident for 24 years, until retirement. (The Britannic sank in 1916 after hitting a mine.)"

The Titanic rests at the bottom of the Atlantic, with six slits in its bow. The slits replace seams once held closed by iron rivets, and the slits stop where the steel rivets hold the seams together still.

Total Productive Maintenance

Many companies implementing lean manufacturing work on improving their equipment uptime. When equipment breaks down or stops, it injects variation into the process causing downstream inventory fluctuations and quality problems. When eliminating variation, eliminating machine downtime is a key step. One way to address equipment down time is through implementing Total Productive Maintenance, or TPM. TPM is a systemic approach to maintenance with the goal of maximizing overall equipment effectiveness, OEE. OEE is the product of availability, quality, and performance. Availability is defined as operating time divided by planned production time. Quality is defined as good pieces divided by total pieces. Performance is defined as the number of total pieces per unit operating time divided by the ideal run rate. OEE is the product of these figures, availability x quality x performance. One of TPM’s objectives is to increase OEE, thus reducing systemic variation in the process.

There are three phases to implementing TPM: the first phase is training people and gathering data, the second phase is to cure breakdowns and micro-stops (equipment stops less than 5 minutes), and the third phase is prevention of future breakdowns. Phase 1 involves collecting data on the current status of equipment uptime or OEE. It also involves training maintenance professionals and equipment operators in TPM philosophy and actions required. The best training results in a change in mindsets among the team. The team comes to realize the importance of the goal of increasing OEE and knows their part in doing so.

Next, the team works to implement curative actions. Here, equipment is brought up to par with new equipment, or better. All major systems are reviewed and upgraded, new or rebuilt components are installed to cure breakdowns. Data is collected on micro stops, and systems are put in place to minimize these small disruptions. This is where TPM makes the most impact, by measuring and addressing micro stops, capacity is uncovered and the manufacturing system performs closer to ideal.

Once downtime is reduced and equipment is running stably, a prevention phase begins. Here 5S activities (workplace organization) are key to maintaining the improvements set in phase 2 of TPM. Maintenance schedules should be established and reviewed periodically to ensure preventive measures are effectively supporting the new OEE. Here, too, effective teams review and revise their maintenance activities to ensure continued improvement.

Implementing the three phases of TPM sounds like a lot of work... or it should. TPM is an investment; it takes time, money, and expertise to implement. It pays dividends in improved quality, better delivery, lower inventory, and reduced need for capital. For the lean enterprise, TPM is a necessity.

Happy E-Day!

Today is E-Day, short for Engineer's-Day, a day of celebration at my Alma mater, the Colorado School of Mines. The fireworks shown are from the 1984 version of E-day, when I was a senior. E-Day goes back to 1927 when Mines held it's first E-Day. The celebration is steeped in tradition and pride, as shown from this quote from the Mines site, referring to the 2000 E-Day brochure: "One thing that has remained the same through E-Days of past, present, and the future, is the weekend starts with the most spectacular fireworks show in the state and ends with seniors graduating a month later to become the best engineers the world has to offer." There were only 65 graduates that year of the first E-Day, and they studied mineral engineering: Metal Mining, Metallurgy, Geology, and Petroleum Engineering.

Mines grew a lot over the years, and now is the leading engineering school for a wide variety of mineral engineering and related disciplines. I have always respected the intellectual rigor of Mines and its students. The depth and breadth of curriculum is impressive by any standard. There has always been a very conservative, traditional air about the school. Now I hear about a new program that was recently announced, a Minor in Humanitarian Engineering. This is surely a new Mines... one that is taking on new challenges this generation feels passionately about. Here, engineering students take design and humanities courses to prepare them to implement improvements or alleviate vulnerabilities in under served communities in the developing world. What a great way to get the best and brightest out there making a true difference.




I proudly graduated in 1984, and to commemorate, I pulled this photo off the Mines website: http://www.mines.edu/. This year, to celebrate E-Day, we're hosting a get-together for any other alumni and their guests here in Western North Carolina. Click here for details. I hope to see many Miners!

Reflections of a Leader... Updated

We live in the Information Age. We have Information Technology, Chief Information Officers, Information Security, Information Systems, and an Information Economy. The economy shifted away from the traditional manufacturing base that made America an industrial powerhouse. I remember as a child, while riding in our Chevrolet, listening to the radio and hearing he jingle: “GM, mark of excellence!” GM had over 50% of the American market for automobiles then, and things were good. Here is what Alfred Sloan, Jr., former leader of GM, said in his book, My Years With General Motors:

“It is clear from the events and ideas I have described that my generation had an opportunity unique in the history of American industry. When we started in business, the automobile was a new product, and the large-scale corporation was a new type of business organization. We knew that the product had a great potential, but I can hardly say that any of us, at the beginning, realized the extent to which the automobile would transform the United States and the world, reshape the entire economy, call new industries into being, and alter the pace and style of everyday life.” -- Alfred Sloan, Jr.

Fast forward to 2008... Let’s do a find & replace on this passage, replacing automobiles with computers, and let’s replace new with monolithic. Perhaps Mr. Jobs or Gates will write this some day:

It is clear from the events and ideas I have described that my generation had an opportunity unique in the history of American industry. When we started in business, the computer was a monolithic product, and the large-scale corporation was a monolithic type of business organization. We knew that the product had a great potential, but I can hardly say that any of us, at the beginning, realized the extent to which the computer would transform the United States and the world, reshape the entire economy, call new industries into being, and alter the pace and style of everyday life.

Today, computers and information play a central role in the economy, in business, in the production of goods and services, including automobiles. While GM led the way to building great wealth through large organizations with huge economies of scale, the computer ushers in an age of building wealth through information exchange. Economies of scale come from mass customization, not mass production. Successful, lean manufacturers know this and know how to use information to their advantage.

Lean manufacturers produce what customers order, not what the forecast says. Raw materials are pulled through the manufacturing operation, and oftentimes the supplier gets paid when the final product is completed. Automated replenishment systems ensure outages are a thing of the past. Often the lean enterprise is the only enterprise left, and American manufacturers have that message. But there is an area of lean manufacturing that remains a big problem for American companies, and it ties to information: it is their designs, they aren't lean.

For designs to be lean, they must support the lean manufacturing system. They must aid in automation, build in fail safe devices and features, provide for quick and easy changeovers (part to part, color to color) by being modular, be designed to an appropriate tolerance, and generate the lowest cost product meeting the design intent. Most American designs have a long way to go before they can meet these criteria, as "lean" is considered "just a plant thing" and not for design.

So as multinational corporate design centers open in China and India, I have a prediction. American designs will go the way of the American production: get lean or get out.

Technolgies for Group Cooperation

Howard Rheingold presents an insightful talk on cooperation at TED.com. He highlights key characteristics of technologies of cooperation and sharing economies:

• easy to use


• open


• self-instructing


• enable connection


• group forming


• leverage self-interests that adds up to more

He shows us a glimpse of the future with powerful handheld devices linking us in powerful groups and discusses the new wealth which will accompany this revolution. Check it out!

Trends: Instapreneur

Wired Magazine has a great article this month on business trends and a fascinating look at instapreneurs. This is a trend to watch, and participate in. The process seems simple: a designer uploads their design to a website such as ponoko, zazzle, or styleshake, and let buyers order the product. An outsourced firm manufactures the product with short lead time (like two weeks) and profits go to the designer.

Is this the beginning of the end of mass production? The long tail of the Internet demand curve allows buyers to specify exactly what they want, in nearly infinite variety, so a nearly infinite variety of products can be produced. Henry Ford invented mass production with the first assembly line... and the Internet is dismantling it in favor of lean, demand-driven operations exploiting information on what the customer wants, supplanting producer-driven marketing on what the producer makes.

Mass production will live on indefinitely, supporting commodity products such as raw materials. However, the future belongs to those who adapt; manufacturers must remember, the information economy doesn't stop at the factory door.

Simply Powerful Meetings: A Quick Overview

View from the Grove Park Inn, Asheville, courtesy of Grove Park Inn.

Simply Powerful Meetings are just that. We plan and execute meetings that matter. Subjects vary depending on your needs but can include

• strategic planning SWOT analysis,


• critical success factor development,


• focused improvement,


• action planning,


• initiatives development,


• matrix analysis

When you need to get a group together, we promise you will achieve far better results with us.

I have a new course on effective meetings... click here and create a new account to check it out!

Cost Reduction

My toolshed contains ways to save money. We analyze cost drivers and exploit them to improve the bottom line.

Cost drivers, from Michael Porter’s work, are listed:
Knowledge
o Discretionary Policy
§ Wages
§ Technology
§ Mix
§ Service level
§ Material specifications
§ HR policies

o Learning
§ Plant layout
§ Schedule improvement
§ Labor efficiency
§ Design changes
§ Increased yield
§ Increased utilization
§ Tailoring raw materials
· Relationships

o Linkages
§ Internal
· Optimize
· Coordinate
· Inventory
§ External
· Channels

o Interrelationships
§ Share savings

o Integration
§ Reduce cost
§ Increase market power
· Macro Issues
o Location
o Institutional factors
o Timing (first to market, mover?)
· Volume
o Scale
o Utilization patterns

Art Imitating Life... Science

Left: painting by Gino Severini, Sea=Dancer, 1914 Source: Peggy Guggenheim Collection

Right: BrainBows: Credit: Jean Livet. Genetically engineering mice so that their brain cells express different combinations of fluorescent colors reveals the brain’s complicated anatomy. In the image round green neurons are interspersed with diffuse support cells called astrocytes. Source: Technology Reveiw

I had the opportunity to visit Venice some years back and fell in love with Sea=Dancer by Severini. This painting spoke to me and I stood in font of it, transfixed for what seemed like hours. Severini, a futurist, painted about dance, dynamism in art. You can imagine movement from his work portrayed here. I wanted to remain in the museum, but my schedule pulled me away. I bought the print and carefully hauled it back across the Atlantic. Neither the print, nor the small facsimile here, do this marvelous painting justice, so if you visit Venice, go to the Guggenheim and see it.

As I read Technology Review the other day, I read about experiments in brain imaging and was once again transfixed by images. An interesting correlation exists to the inner workings of the brain, as shown in the image of brain cells shown on the right, and Sea=Dancer. Severini portrayed a dynamism in Sea=Dancer that we now find, almost a century later, in the brain.

Asheville Retreats

A view of Asheville, NC in March, 2008. Photo by Bob Michel

"You seldom get what you go after unless you know in advance what you want. Indecision has often given an advantage to the other fellow because he did his thinking beforehand." Maurice Switzer

Deciding what he wants for his business is clearly one of the most important things a leader can do. Often the leader is well served having the input of key constituents on strategic matters. When a leadership team begins to stall, it is time to get clear in everyone's minds what is wanted... what is the goal.

I lead teams through excellent corporate events and retreats in Asheville, NC and other locations. I provide a proven framework to work through today's business problems and emerge with effective action plans that teams have developed and buy into. We also provide meeting facilitation training to develop key employees abilities and help transform their work groups. These trained facilitators generate process improvement profit with the team.

I have a new course on effective meetings... click here to create a new account and check it out!

Shadowboards Matter

Tolli and I visited Alcatraz during our California trip last year. The tour was excellent and provided a look at early 5S principles at work. Normally when we apply workplace organization methods we emphasize the importance of "a place for everything and everything in its place" because of efficiency. At Alcatraz, it was a matter of life and death.




Alcatraz inmates were considered the most dangerous of all prisoners and were held in cells most of the day. The exception was at meal time, when any prisoners who weren't in solitary confinement would eat together. There were prisoners who helped in the kitchen. The challenge for the guards was making sure this was done safely. Shadowboards enabled guards to account for every piece of cutlery.


Here you see an example of a shadowboard used in Alcatraz prison to alert guards when inmates had not returned knives.



It is hard to imagine in today's prisons that tools like these might be available to inmates, but at Alcatraz, they found a way to deal with them effectively, by employing a shadowboard.


While today's workplaces are much safer than the Alcatraz of the past, employing best practices, such as workplace organization -- including shadowboards -- sets apart top performing companies.

Responses to economic slowdown

Higher energy prices drive the US economy toward a slowdown. What are businesses doing in response?

In casual conversations over the past week, here is what I've heard:

1. 
   Cut travel costs first, it is the easiest and most logical place to start
   Cut operating costs, outside of personnel; use layoffs as last resort
   Work to retain clients: avoid losing customers as a first defense
   Retrench: bolster your market position by reinforcing your strengths
   Innovate: develop new products and launch them now to offset sluggish sales

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Thomas Alva Edison

What is your experience, your plan, your method to turn this opportunity into profit? Share your comments...

This may seem like a crazy time to start a business, but that's what I'm doing! Businesses need help in this economy... to generate profit from process improvement, to cut costs using virtual meetings, to harvest ideas from teams and employees, or to gain alignment with key constituents. To that end, my business offers solutions to today's toughest business challenges. My website will be up and running soon!

Exporting... where to start in NC?

I attended a session of the Blue Ridge Entrepreneurial Council (BREC) on networking the other night, and I heard about an upcoming program that caught my attention. The North Carolina Department of Commerce is hosting several sessions on how to export to various markets. There will be trade representatives from several countries at the sessions, and local businesses can schedule free meetings with the representatives to ask questions, show their products, and find out what they need to do to begin global trading. Countries to be represented are Germany, Hong Kong, Canada, Mexico, Japan and Korea. Additionally, there will be seminars on how to do trade in various markets. The first session is on trade with China and it will be in Charlotte, March 31st. April first, a seminar on doing business in Canada will be presented in Asheville. See the program information here.

To register or for additional information on any or all of these free Lunch and Learn sessions, please contact:
Katie Newcombe: knewcombe@nccommerce.com or 919-733-7193.

Exporting is an excellent corporate retreat topic: gathering ideas on what to do, and how to do it, can be a great topic of a staff retreat to Asheville.