Building quality involves cost. You spend efforts and energy on preventing the errors (prevention cost) and then checking your work (appraisal cost). These are positive costs, or rather investments that ensure that you get it right the first time. The cost of rework when you or customer identifies a LOT of defects(internal/external failure costs) is […]
It pains to see teams where people work on a common goal but don’t get along well with each other. We work in teams and knowing how to get along well with others is extremely crucial. So how do you get along well with others and establish required comfort? Here are 10 broad pointers that […]
Friday is a great day to share links to some of the best thinking out there. I am fortunate to a part of a wonderful leadership/management community who so generously share their ideas, insights and knowledge. So, here are 5 posts that I totally enjoyed reading in the last week, and I am sure you […]
A lot of companies have the phrase “delighting our customers” in their well-crafted mission statements and quality policies. I see “customer delight” as a cherry, with the cake being “solving their problems and meeting the expectations” – so when we say “cherry on top of the cake”, the cake has to be right. Customers don’t […]
You can measure almost anything in your business, but if those metrics don’t serve a real business objectives, they are just numbers with no real meaning. Measurement is a means to an end, not an end in itself. I have seen extreme cases where organizations either measure so much or they don’t measure anything at […]
Last week, I had a short conversation with one of my colleagues in HR about the all important topic of employee engagement. In an impromptu conversation, we touched upon a very important point: People love (and remember) stories, not facts. We loved it when our grandparents wrapped important life lessons in form of stories. Vivid […]
In world of quality and management, W. Edwards Deming is widely famous for “Deming’s 14 points” and “Seven Deadly Diseases”. One of these deadly disease according to Deming is “Running a company on visible figures alone”. Whether manufacturing or knowledge industry, primary goal of business is to generate value. However, in knowledge world, where the […]
I have believed that most good things in life are either free or inexpensive. A good walk, a great hug, a few moments spent together, a long drive, a free lecture, time spent with friends and so on. I write this because over the weekend, I experienced some of these. Monsoon is at its best. […]
Sure, as a project manager / business leader, you: Completed the project in given time frame. Within the budget. With minimum schedule deviation. Utilized your resources optimally. Filled up all the required templates. Did retrospective. Celebrated completion. Shared statistical reports with the top management. But did you: Think about “value” (remember 102%) you will deliver? […]