All 13 entries tagged Mbe

The Big and not so red Button

Once more an incalculable amount of time has passed between my blog entries. (Well, not exactly incalculable, if you've spotted the date of my last entry). The reason? Work, work and more work. Removing time consumed by the return of swine flu to my household, and time to recover from term 1 exhaustion halved my holiday time, so all remaining time was allocated to either paid work or assignments, leaving little time for internet activities such as blogging.

But enough about how time is such a hard thing to come by and onto the min topic of my blog. My recently submitted PMA. Its seems that every time a PMA is finished, the joy of pushing that big and not so red button is immense. Not only does it signify that the completion of hours and hours of effort, but it is also a button that makes you reflect about everything you've learnt throughout the module and PMA work as you quickly think over everything you just submitted wondering wht else you could have done.

For me, my lasted submission was that of my Six Sigma project. My chosen quastion: Improving the design of a paper air plane. Up till now, I have never once though how much thought and effort could be put into something so simple as making paper airplanes. From the early stages of designing my taguchi experiment to undertake, to making the planes and analysing the results, every step of the way made me think about what I'm doing, why, and how. Why choose an angled wing? why change the wing size? why include noise factors? How should I test them? How do I ensure accuracy? How do I interpret the results? What do the signal response tables show? There was so much to consider at every stage, I never would have guessed that so much could be learnt from n exercise so simple at a first glance.

After pressing that Big submit button I realised that I had learnt more than I expected during this PMA, and that practical approach of this topic meant not only was I able to learn about six sigma tools, but actually putting some of them into use made me understand them. Never have I ever spent so much time on paper air planes, and never hve I ever expected to learn so much from them.

: 10 Jan 2011 13:43 |  Tags: Air Business Excellence Mangement Mbe Paper Plane Pma Sigma Six Submission Taguchi |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Welcoming the World of Six Sigma

Well, I have to admit that my entries of late have been sparse. Infact, sparse is most probably an understatement. There is a very good reason for this though. Long days of study mixed with the occasional even longer day of necessary paid work has left me with little time for blogging. This has, however, given me time to gather my thoughts about the past few days.

We have recently started our module of PIUSS, or Process Improvement using Six Sigma for my few readers who aren't familiar with MBE acronyms.

The question we started with is "what is six sigma?". Our introduction to the topic, compounded with some excellent elearning exercises run by PMI (Project Management Institute) answered this for us. While at thge beginning, the idea of six sigma as a tool for improvement seemed quite vague, our understanding developed through the excercises and we quickly became aware that rather than a set method of process improvement, six sigma provided a toolbox (a rather large one at that) from which a variety of tool could be used within a structured systematic approach to improving a process that is suited to the organisation. In terms of six sigma, improvement is encapsulated by the ideas of reducing variation within a process and thus stabilising the process, and reducing costs of the process. The elearning excercises put all this into perspective by demonstrating six sigma implementation within a set example, showing the various stages of the improvement cycle (DMAIC) and the tools used for each step. We were introduced to project charters, SIPOC charts, SPC charts, histograms, fishbone diagrams, and many many more.

Putting our knew found knowledge to the test, the week so far comprised of the simple enough exercise of the creation of a process to build mecano airplanes. 14 stages of the process, 7 operators, 1 plane, lead time of above 5 minutes per plane. Simple production line. But could we improve this? Time for bring in Six Sigma. The next day I can only describe as chaotic semi organised fun! Despite the tools and processes being fresh in our minds, it became apparent that introducing improvement even in such a "simple" process was a challenge. Our first challenge was a lack of direction. Despite being part of a group of strong willed and intelligent people, nobody jumped forward as leader. In part i think this was down to using the terminology of "leader". To me it seemed nobody wanted to take this title that can be seen to infer a higher hierarchal importance than other team members. Despite this problem, we trudged on. Facing challenges of communication after splitting into 2 teams to address seperate problems,  challenges of time management with too long spent idly discussing, and challanges of bad organisation in test runs. Despite all this, when the time came we managed to demonstrate an improvement on the original process! For me this showed that the tools of six sigma can be very affected, even in situation where many challenges are faced and the process of improvement does not run smoothly. This exercise also made it apparent that the socio-emotional links within the team are crucial. Solving these psychological problems of team integration and communication would have given a vastly improved results.

Moral of this story for me: People. People are vital to any process. Ensuring an environment in which socio-emotional barriers to an improvement process are minised will greatly increase its chances of success.

: 17 Nov 2010 17:59 |  Tags: Business Excellence Mangement Mbe Sigma Six |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

CIOL

As I was driving home from work today I started thinking. Thinking intellectual thoughts after a 13.5 hour shift may be a crazy idea, but i actually did!

My thoughts started off with wondering how much the place I work could be improved by providing adequate training to staff, and not have a constant influx of new agency workers who will largely only work there once or twice. This stream of thought led me onto thinking back on my reading about organisational learning, and then the literature i'm currently going through about continuous improvement and this is what tonights blopic is (blog topic. yes, i know blopic isn't actually a word, but I like it) Hence the blog title ciol (Continuous Improvement & Organisational Learning)

When considering organisational learning, the literature we covered in our group went through alot about  instigating cultural change, ways to incorporate learning into an organisation, the systems that would be needed, the methods by which learning can be accomplished. Some literary sources also went into details about what learning should be undertaken.

Looking into continuous improvement, I've read lots about the implementation of continuous improvement in an organisation. Seeing area of improvement within a process or systems, defining what is to be improved, finding a solution, implementing the change and analysing the results.

But where do we learn from or find methods of improving a system? Models that are related to management mention a variety of factors within the system. Its seems to me that learning and finding improvements can come from any factor that makes up the system of the organisation. These include, but are not limited to the people, processes, environment (including customers, competitors, suppliers and society) and results. But where is the line drawn for sources of learning?

When considering the environment, do organisations that are about to undergo a change take into account the actions of competitors and their resulting successes or failures from a similar change... Definitely. Taking this further, can an organisation learn from the actions of firms of the past, or do the differentiated conditions of seperate time spans makes nulify similarities of situation? Consider a firm seeking means to improve a process in a country where industrialisation is underway. Can this firm look at past firms from countries that have already industrialised when implementing change? Or does the difference in eras mean that methods learnt from past firms actions would be irrelevant in todays world? How far in the past can you look into before knowledge and methods of improvements become too outdated to be put into use? On his blog, one of my colleagues even talked about some ideas within excellence models that have been mentioned in ancient philosophy. Should we... or can we even go back that far when considering sources that will be learnt from? Does it depend on the firm, or is there a cut off point for useful information. Where do we draw the line, if we can even say a line should be drawn? This may be something that the more I read, the more I will gather snippets of information about. But then again, in my reading I haven't seen much that strays from "what" and "how" to learn/improve, into the realms of "when to learn from".

If anyone has any thoughts about this, or has come across an interesting book/journal/whatever please share!

: 06 Nov 2010 23:42 |  Tags: Business Continuous Excellence Improvement Learning Mangement Mbe Organisation |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Apathy and Lathargy

" It's what makes you 'That Guy' "

This line from a film came into my mind yesterday. Some of you may recognise it, some of you may not. Its from a the latest of the Die Hard film.

This came to my mind from the apathy I witnessed last night in a very unexpected place. It was my first engagement representing my course as SSLC rep and turning up at the meeting I expected everyone to be eager to take responsibility and get involved. It seems that wasn't exactly the case. While people did want to contribute to the discussions at hand, the responsibilities of chair and secretary were not sought after. In fact, it seemed these positions were appointed by virtue of myself, and one other, taking the roles despite our already staggering number of responsibilities because nobody else would. This brings me onto the quote. What makes an individual that guy. The willingness to do what is necessary, regardless of the challenges involved, the absense of apathy to get involved, and the lack of lathargy to make it happen. That is what makes you that guy! These traits are ones that I am proud to say I have readily observed in all my colleagues on MBE. If something needs doing, there are always individuals that will take the task head on. Being "that guy" demonstrates the qualities needed to take on the challenge of leadership and be one of the people shaping the future. I believe that everybody I know on MBE, had they been there would have done the same, taken the responsibility to do what is needed. Being surrounded by people who are all "that guy" definitely makes for a fun working environment.

: 04 Nov 2010 11:57 |  Tags: Apathy Business Excellence Lathargy Mangement Mbe SSLC |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Epic

ep·ic  [ep-ik] –adjective Also, ep·i·cal.

1. Of, constituting, having to do with, or suggestive of a literary epic: an epic poem.
2. Surpassing the usual or ordinary, particularly in scope or size
3. Heroic and impressive in quality:

This one little word sums up my last week in more ways than one, and because of this my entry today will be an epic (in literary terms) because a quick post will not do the week justice. For me, the CBE module was indeed impressive in quality and surpassed the usual (comparing module standards of my academic life to date) far beyond my expectations. It wasn't until the final few days that it hit me how much we, as a class, have actually learned directly and passively during the previous weeks.

I'll give some examples. Our last seminar, a few questions on leadership lead into a heated and very much indepth discussion about leadership styles, morales, values. What is considered an effective style of leadership is a good question. Does the authority of an autocratic leader having absolute control motivate? Is a leader that leads by example better for morale? Is a democratic approach allowing input from everyone a better way to create an environment of high efficiency and creativity? Or can a more laissez-faire approach provide individuals with the drive to achieve by empowering them and giving them greater responsibility? Personally, i don't believe a leader should be restricted to any of these styles. I think what makes a leader is the ability to adapt, to be flexible and knowledgable enough to see the best approach any situation may require and to behave accordingly. No two situations are the same and a leader must be able to adapt as required.

But what role do values and morales play? Can a leader be "corrupted". We debated this to great extent, with opinions often at polar opposits to each other. On the one hand, it was argued that the only way to proceed in life is through a steadfast resolve to never succomb to moraly dubious actions to maintain ones dignity. That the ends will never justify the means. While on the other hand it was argued that sometimes corruption is a way of life, that the only method to achieve any end is through actions that may be considered questionable. This stream of thought considered that sometimes the ends do indeed justify the means. Personally, I sided with the latter. While the ideology that the ends never justify the means is the epitome of ideologies in a perfect world, I think that the flawed nature of our world means that the this cannot always be applied. I believe situations do exist whereby what people may consider a questionable action such as accepting or offering bribery is indeed the only option to achieve a desired result. For example, in a country where bribery is common place, an individual may desire to build a hospital that will improve social welfare, but the political system means that to be granted permissions a bribe must be offered. For me, not doing everything in my power to ensure the permissions are granted would mean a failing of my values, the ends here would justify the means. This is a very tricky topic however, does this put an individual on the path to complete corruption, or would such an assumption be a cruel stereotype that all individuals do no have the morale fibre to know when they will be going against what they believe in. For me, such actions will not guarentee the complete corruption of an individual.

Now, moving on to something different. Learning. How much have we been learning? The last presentations of the week enlightened me to the extent that which I have personally leart from my personal reading, and from my colleagues. I did not think I was as knowledgable about this presentation as the previous ones, I felt in some way unprepared. But once I started talking, it all made sense. As questions were asked at the end, I was able to participate in answering these question in an informed manner! For me, this showed that we have learnt far more this week that we are actually aware of and filled me with confidence that in the coming weeks, I will be able to apply this knowledge to my PMA.

As for the end of the week, once again, epic. The first MBE social gathering went off smoothly and I was amazed with the turnout. Seeing everybody together and enjoying themselves demonstrated the comradery present within our course. It made me thankful to be part of such a dynamic group that works so well together. We are all on this journey to excellence together.

: 01 Nov 2010 11:11 |  Tags: Business Cbe Corruption Excellence Leadership Mangement Mbe Morale Social Value |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Profound Knowledge… in daily life?

Demings idea of Profound knowledge involves 4 factors relating to knowledge.

1. Appreciation of a system

2. Knowledge about variation

3. Theory of knowledge

4. Knowledge of psychology

How do these fit into daily life though? Do they all even apply to any aspect of our daily living? Well, for me this is a purely subjective matter. Everyone may interpret if and how these do factors come up during our to day lives. Well, for my view on this I will not start at the beginning, but conversly start at number 4. I believe this is the easiest aspect of profound knowledge to apply to our daily lives. Knowledge of psychology... Think about it... Is this not present in how we interact with everybody we speak to? We behave in a manner fitting to the company we are in. In other words, we act appropriately. This implies we have enough knowledge of (or at least an intuitive understanding of) the psychology of those around us to behave appropriately.

Now moving onto point 3. Theory of Knowledge. For me, this applies to our understanding of what constitutes knowledge. How we learn and our methods in acquiring knowledge. In essance our knowledge of the most efficient way to learn for ourselves.

As for point 2, for me this relates to individuals having awareness that things change. An example in my life, traffic. I know that if I leave my house at 7:50am to get to uni, with average traffic I can arrive, park and be in the IMC by approximately 8:40. But I know that this can vary. If for example, there is no traffic, I can be at uni by 8:20. However it may be that traffic is above the norm, which could delay me by up to an hour as has happened in the past meaning I arrive at 9:40 and am late for everything! My knowledge of this variation means that I can plan ahead and leave earlier, avoiding possible traffic problems and guaranteeing my timely arrival! Knowledge of variation for me is definitely a useful concept.

Finally, I get to point 1. Why did I leave this till last? Simple. My understanding of how this may fit into daily life is more vague than the other points. Appreciation of a system. In relation to our day to day lives, for me this implies knowledge about how any system we deal with works. For example, the library. I know that system and understand the process by which I use it. I enter, search for a books, find it, check it out. I know this system. Again, using sports facilities. I know that to go climbing I need to only go to reception, check in, and climb. I have knowledge on how this system works and can make use of it effectively. While this is my interpretation of the day to day relavance of point 1, I believe that the idea itself is much more complex than this and that my interpretation of it has somewhat oversimplified the ideas behind it...

What say you all? Am I the only one who struggles to see a deeper meaning of appreciation of knowledge in day to day living? Or can anyone shed some light and possibly a deeper understanding of this concept in daily life?

: 27 Oct 2010 23:47 |  Tags: Business Cbe Deming Excellence Knowledge Mangement Mbe Profound |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The path to excellence…

We all agree Excellence is a fairly good target for any organisation to be aiming for. During the last few weeks we have also gone over methods on how an organisation can work towards achieving this concept of excellence. When it comes to what excellence actually is, the EFQM handbook of 2010 tells us that excellence is achieved through good results in people, customers and societies perceptions on the organisation, performance is those criteris as well as key performance indicators of the organisation itself. These perceptions and performance indicators encompass a large variety of factors that are quite easily found via this EFQM handbook, or any literature that discusses the model to any degree of depth. But how can these methods actually be monitored?

The performace indicators manifest themselves in the form of quantitave data. In most modern business environments, quantitative data is relatively easy to access. IT systems record data regarding nearly all aspects of quantitative information on a daily basic. To monitor and make sense of this information, this information can be aggregated, analysed and presented in a way that details the progress of performance indicators. Data could be represented in tabular form, graphically, or any other means that an organisation finds appropriate and effective to monitor performance.

Qualitive data become a trickier issue when it comes to monitor performance. Qualitative data, such as consumer perspectives on the organisation, or employee satisfaction, must be gathered in a social survey of some sort. The means by which the survey is delivered and collected is variable, but the requirement of a survey is essential to gather such data. Once this is collected, interpreting vast amounts of such data and compiling it into a form that easily displays performance in these areas is also another matter that must be considered. Depending on the amount of information gathered in such a survey, simple graphical representation of information (for example, if a pie chart) becomes a more complex issue that in my opinion, cannot be faced until you actually have the information and can evaluate the most effective and informative way of analysing it.

: 27 Oct 2010 22:32 |  Tags: Business Cbe Excellence Mangement Mbe Monitor Progress |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Putting Organisational Learning into practice…

Hi all!

I have been absent from blogging for awhile. Simple reason. Lots of work to get on with. I'll have a more detailed look over my last weeks learning and studies soon, but for now... Organisational Learning. The topic of our seminar on monday, as well as our first presentation. Organisational Learning is a vast topic that many consider difficult to define. Going into its exact definition is a discussion in its own right, but for now our main concern in how we use is in practice. My interpretation from various bits of literature is that the concept comes down to firms putting in place systems to allow learning to take place within the organisation to promote innovation and organisational evolution.Putting organisation learning into practice to become a Learning Organisation requires the organisation in question to ensure certain practices are in place the cultivate, promote and develop the culture of learning. Various processes are mentioned in different sources of literature, but in my opinion come down to a few basic steps required. In a very simplified manner, I believe the following provide the basic foundation of the processes needed to be put in place...

Step 1:
Leadership and Management needs to cultivate a culture of learning within the organisation that will create an organisation wide will for learning.

Step 2:
Ensure the structure and strategy to be put in place is feasible. This should include input from employees, financial viability, flexibility of stucture to facilitate multilevel learning.

Step 3:
Ensure resources are available to facilitate learning and that effective intra organisational communication is present.

Step 4:
Put in place feedback mechanisms that will allows the learning to occure from feedback provided by customers, suppliers, and delivery or services and information.

Step 5:
Reinforcement by management of the culture of learning within the environment.

: 24 Oct 2010 18:43 |  Tags: Business Cbe Excellence Learning Mangement Mbe Organisation Seminar |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Breakthrough

You know how at times, you read and read and read to try and figure out the link between certain elements of various theories but can't see it. Then suddenly, you find an article that clears it all up an puts it in perspective. Well, that happened to me today.

For awhile I was struggling to see how the idea of selection bias fit into Demings idea of profound knowledge then in one article, it all became clear. Don't you just love it when you get the "EUREKA!" moment.

And now for something completely different. We had our first seminar today, and one of the topic we talked about was the podcast of an interview with Vineet Nayar, the CEO of HCL technologies. In this interview, he talked about the failure of university degree courses around the world to provide graduates with real skillsapplicable in the work place. This results in graduates who are essentially unemployable, so any firm that does take them on has to provide extensive retraining in order for the graduate to have any of the skills and abilities required by the position. This was a topic that really struck a cord with me. From first hand experience, I completely agree with his view of the education provided in degree courses. My undergraduate degree was in European Economics with French. A fascinating course in many respects that involved a broad range of theoretical and legislative studies about economics and trade, as well as lots of statistical analysis techinques. How these studies could be employed in a working environment however, i have no idea. While the course provided an understanding of economics on a macro and micro level, both domestically and internationally, how this knowledge is put into application in a business sense was not covered. The results of this ws that the only chance I had of emplyability was a graduate scheme, in which I would be heavily retrained in order to be able to perform the functions needed. This was the case with nearly every other person who graduated alongside me, and naturally, in the recession we graduated right into the middle of our "unemployability" was not very useful. I had thought this train of thought was just my own, but to hear it coming from somebody in such a prestigous position somehow eases my mind and affirms that starting my MSc was infact the right choice.

: 15 Oct 2010 16:36 |  Tags: Business Creating Employability Eureka Excellence Graduate Knowledge Mangement Mbe Nayar Profound Realisation Vineet |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Deming vs Drucker

Follow-up to Inspiring from MKN Chronicles

So far in my reading it seems to be that every management theory i've come accross can trace its routes back to one of the two contrasting ideas belonging to either Deming or Drucker.

From Deming's work arose the EFQM model. This model which was developed from the Deming circle and the importance of continuous self improvement emphasises the importance of all the enablers of an organisation to achieve the desired results. With this model, success isn't solely based on performance and that for the proccesses which achieve results to work efficiently, cooperation is needed to effectively coordinate all the enablers.

The contrasting view of Drucker, who coined the term Management by Objectives, placed heavy emphasis on target setting to harmonize the efforts of the organisation towards a specific goal. As this theory developed, Performance Management was born. Despite seemingly integrating the workforce into the target setting process, this method still relies heavily on the idea of setting objectives and reviewing performance against them.

I have also come accross the balanced scorecard strategy. While my reading into this is more limited that the previous methods I have mentioned it seems to me that this strategy has similarities to Performance Management with its reliance on metric data to assess the business. And while it does try to include other factors into how it assesses performance by including aspects such as customer opinion, it does seem to be more heavily focussed on the financial aspects. I have to read further into this strategy to fully understand it, but at the moment my first impressions are that it has many parallels with the ideas of Performance Management, and in a loose way has some rootes in the ideas of Drucker.

Both the Deming view and Drucker view (as well as their derivatives) have certain benefits, both have certain drawbacks, but until I have gained a more thorough understanding of them I shall not be delving into the critiques just yet. For now, I have many unanswered questions, many books at my side in which I hope some answers, and a few days of extensive reading.

: 13 Oct 2010 17:02 |  Tags: Balanced Business Cbe Cycle Deming Drucker Excellence Mangement Mbe Objectives Pdca Scorecard |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem