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Strategy, Architecture & Problem-Solving

Lean Service Improvement Book

Forthcoming Book on Improving Your Own Service

Some of you may already know, I’m in the process of writing a book on improving your own service. I’m aiming the book at the people who work the process themselves, e.g.: nurses social workers claims adjusters HR/OD staff office managers office administrators hotel staff and their managers and change agents/analysts As you can see,…
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What's the emotional content of your customer journey maps?

What’s the Emotional Content of Your Customer Journey Maps?

I’ve previously discussed the inclusion of a dormant state and a return loop when reflecting on the fact that the Customer Journey Never Ends. You can include a further extension of the customer journey maps by showing proximity or emotional state. Focus on the Emotional State Typical customer journey maps (or diagrams) depict activities and…
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Signs by I Am Fry under by-nd 2.0

The Customer Journey Never Ends

I’m reminded of the phrase “a dog is for life, not just for Christmas”. Similarly, as soon as an organisation starts a relationship with a customer, they’re stuck with that relationship. Many organisations design customer journeys but think from their own perspective rather than that of the customer. That’s a mistake but one that can…
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Cupcake by zigazou75 CC-by-2.0

The Cupcake Strategy – Business Strategy for a Startup Business

Introduction I’m often talking business strategy and how it can apply to any business no matter how new or how small. Strategy should be applied to every business but it’s a shame that the closest many business owners get to it is a business plan for a bank loan. This is even worse when they…
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RNLI Flag by L2F1 (CC BY 2.0)

Positive Persuasion at Work for a Charitable Organisation

Introduction Cialdini’s book on Persuasion is a great introduction to the forces applied on us by others to convince us to change our ways, e.g. buy their product. I see the ideas implemented the more and more I look. Often I think people have stumbled on the ideas, other times I feel that the interaction…
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Be The Customer

Be The Customer

Introduction I really believe in getting customer input, especially before you build you product or service. Lean Six Sigma includes the concept as part of Voice of Customer, Lean Startup and similar methods include the concept within Customer Development. If you work for an existing organisation that currently delivers products/services rather than a start-up, sometimes…
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Introducing the new Questions and Answers

Starting this week, I’ll be answering your questions on Lean and Lean Startup and how they can be applied to the public sector. I’ll also answer questions on wider subjects of business transformation and change management, although I expect most will relate to Lean in public sector and/or Lean Startup in existing organisations. I’m assuming…
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Kanban prototype for an NHS Acute service

Lean Cost Benefit Analysis of a Quick Improvement

Last week, I was provided with the short opportunity to improve a service within an NHS Acute Trust. I had 5 minutes to understand the problem and then I suggested a quick improvement. I’d like to take you through how we arrived at a solution and the resulting lean cost benefit analysis of that solution.…
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Fundamentals of Process Mapping – Introducing Subprocesses Part 4

From what we have seen so far, we’d have 3 separate, but related process models. One for each of the following: Buy a Book Choose a Book Pay for Book Numbering the processes Some of that was getting difficult to describe. The fact that Pay for Book is a process step in one diagram and a whole…
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Fundamentals of Process Mapping – Introducing Subprocesses Part 3

In the previous diagram, I’ve put two crosses, not part of any standard. I’ve used them to highlight what’s wrong with the Choose Book process as depicted above. The second of the crosses is easiest to explain. The process step of Scan Book more properly belongs in the Pay for Book process. We can see it in the Pay For Book process, so…
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