Uncommon Sense - Tools to Improve your Work Forever

More than just a tagline or a sales pitch, the Value Proposition Statement is a tool for alignment and clarity, serving as a compass, guiding us towards delivering what our customer truly values.  And if your process isn’t delivering value to the customer?  It should be turned off or redesigned to meet the customer’s needs, PMI Director Consultant Dennis Crommentuijn-Marsh tells us. Tune in for mo...

Direct, indirect, internal, external, regulatory, people who think they’re customers because they have authority, and ironically, customers who don’t even know that they’re customers.  Identifying the true customer(s) of a process from amongst an array of possibilities is key to the effective use of this tool for uncovering improvement opportunities. Join PMI Director Consultant Sean Buckland as h...

How do you know that performance data is accurate?  Are you sure there aren’t, in fact, a series of processes hiding behind your process, distorting your measurement results? Mood's Median Test and ANOVA are statistical tools that will give you confidence in your measures, helping you to focus your improvement work. “I can’t imagine working on an improvement project without them”, PMI Directo...

5 Whys is a great problem-solving tool for improvement projects, and it can also be invaluable in your day-to-day work to understand root causes when things go wrong, as they do from time to time! At first glance, it may seem a simple tool, but as Senior Consultant Damion Albinson says, it’s a lot more powerful than simply asking "Why?".  Listen in as he shares his top tips to make sure...

Ensure a productive and successful partnership with your sponsor and achieve more with your next improvement project. PMI Director Consultant Warren Knight shares his 5 top tips on what you need from your sponsor, plus how to build a strong relationship with them so that together you can achieve your project goals. Want to know more about this topic?  Check out these related resources: On Demand W...

Avoid wasting time on ineffective improvement strategies by using scatter diagrams to visually prove or disprove your theories. PMI Senior Consultant Damion Albinson delves into the fascinating world of this underappreciated improvement tool to reveal why it’s invaluable for investigating variations in output.   But beware – he also warns not to extrapolate beyond the data and stresses the importa...

Do you need to identify potential causes of an undesirable effect or problem?  Then you're in luck because in this episode of PMI's Uncommon Sense podcast, PMI Senior Consultant Damion Albinson talks about the Cause and Effect Diagram. To really get to the bottom of a problem it’s crucial to avoid jumping straight to solution mode, Damion warns us.  Instead, focus on divergent thinking t...

All business improvement is geared around doing a better job for your end customer.  But in reality, so much of what you work on isn’t directly affecting them, so it’s just as important to know your internal customer. In this episode, PMI Senior Consultant Damion Albinson talks about techniques for recognising who your internal customers are, and offers some great advice on how to understand their...

We have an innate ability to manage our personal lives successfully, but as observed by PMI Director Consultant Barry Byrne, we’re sometimes reluctant to apply the same planning approach to our process improvement projects. Join Barry as he talks about the value of good project planning, its impact on the outcomes we’re looking to achieve, and its importance for project success. Listen out for his...

The majority of problems you face in your organisation are likely to be systemic, manifest across multiple parts of the business, and will have a number of root causes.  Therefore, it's essential to build great stakeholder relationships in support of your Process Improvement work. In our latest episode of Uncommon Sense, PMI Director Consultant Barry Byrne provides great insight into thinking...

You’ve done a great job of diagnosing the problem;  you’ve identified the waste, and you’re feeling really enthusiastic about the solution you've designed.  So why not just go for it? In this episode of Uncommon Sense, Director Consultant, Dennis Crommentuijn-Marsh, encourages you not to jump from solution to implementation, but to test first, even when you think you’ve got the right solution...

When Visual Management is done well, it has a simple elegance about it that helps you to understand how to best manage your work. PMI Director Consultant, Sean Buckland, talks about taking the time to work out what really matters, and how you can use Visual Management to see performance at a glance, enabling you to focus on making the day-to-day work well. Feeling inspired?  Here are some helpful...

Join Dennis Crommentuijn-Marsh, Director Consultant and enthusiastic innovator, as he talks about the joy and the fun of using Idea Generation to find solutions to challenges when the answer doesn’t present itself naturally.  Listen now to discover how a structured approach to Idea Generation can often result in a better outcome than you ever thought possible, with enormous benefits for your organ...

We all love Quick Wins.  And in the world of Process Improvement, they help you maintain motivation to get the maximum benefit and return for the work you do.  But how do we define a Quick Win, and how are they different from fixing the overall process? Join PMI Senior Consultant Damion Albinson as he talks about identifying the small changes that can make significant impacts, and how to make sure...

A SIPOC can reveal what you don’t know about your process, as well as gather together what you do.  It’s very much about setting the context for the improvement work you’ll be undertaking, says PMI Director Consultant, Barry Byrne.  So why is creating a SIPOC a step that’s so often skipped? Join us as we take a deep dive into this valuable tool, and discuss why your process needs a SIPOC. Create y...

See for yourself how a process is operated by going to Gemba – ‘the real place’ where the work happens. PMI Director Consultant Dennis Crommentuijn-Marsh has certified scores of Lean Six Sigma projects and can easily recognise those which started with a Gemba Walk.  To the improvement practitioner, it’s a positive enquiry to learn from the experts that run the process, but how do you handle the co...

The starting point for any project-based improvement effort, your Problem Statement should be a concise description of the issue to be solved.  Sounds simple, right?  But using this fundamental tool correctly is a common stumbling block amongst practitioners, PMI Senior Consultant Damion Albinson tells us.   So set your project up for success from the very start; join us as Damion shares real exam...

Waste identification and elimination is a life’s work, but collate where your customer sees the value into a single visualisation of your end-to-end process, and you’ll have an extremely powerful tool to help you get started. Join PMI Director Consultant Barry Byrne, self-confessed super fan of the Value Stream Map, as he talks about the benefits of being able to see how your work works across fun...

PDSA – Plan, Do, Study, Act – the iterative four-stage thinking model for delivering change. Contrary to common sense, this robust framework actually begins with ‘Study’, PMI Senior Consultant Damion Albinson reminds us.  Study the situation and involve the people who operate the process to generate hypotheses with the potential for improvement.  However, the sometimes uncomfortable truth is that...

The dogged pursuit of finding and eliminating the eight deadly wastes from your processes – it’s the classic Lean theory, with a proven track record for success. So the statement posed by PMI Senior Consultant Damion Albinson – “taking out waste may not make you Lean” is contentious at best.  But consider this:  where do your activities fit within the overall program of improvement, and how do you...

Are you seeing so many opportunities for improvement that you just don’t know where to start? Don’t fall into the trap of prioritising projects where people are shouting loudest, or wasting time with complex cost-benefit analysis, PMI Director Consultant Sean Buckland tells us - you need the help of the humble Pareto Chart.  Undervalued by many, this straightforward tool will help you to identify...

It’s the number one tool for understanding how your work works.  And the great news – it can generate success in any organisation, across any sector. Join PMI Director Consultant Barry Byrne as he draws on his extensive experience of helping clients to improve their operations, to talk to you about the value of Process Mapping.  The real win with this tool, he tells us, is the body of knowledge an...