Content By Akhilesh Gulati

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By: Akhilesh Gulati

Barry was excited about the journey he was to embark on. He had just contracted a professional organization in his industry that would help his company implement lean practices. These professionals understood Barry’s challenges: “Making it” isn’t easy in U.S. manufacturing, especially with increasing demand for lower prices, higher quality, and just-in-time delivery.

The lean journey set off with a management briefing, a quick assessment, and the direction to move forward was established. Management trained the work force in lean concepts and held kaizen events. Conferences were attended to network with peers and customers, and learn how others were handling challenges in this industry.

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By: Akhilesh Gulati

Starting from scratch, Gil had slowly built a small business and was running it quite successfully. He was a professional at heart: He gained the confidence of customers and prospects, met their expectations, negotiated better prices, and provided personalized service. Life was good. Things were settling in. And then the tide turned.

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Initially, customers’ issues centered around unfair prices (or perceived value), or an occasional slip in quality. More recently, complaints reflected a lack of client interactions via technology (e.g., outdated web presence, no social media). The comfortable days of getting by and resting on his laurels were gone. Gil started seeing a decline in business and realized that he had become complacent. Customers started rejecting the status quo. Something had to be done.

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By: Akhilesh Gulati

An optimist would say a glass is half-full, while a pessimist would say it’s half-empty. Someone with a mind for physics would say, “The volume of this cylinder is equally composed of a colorless, odorless liquid and a colorless, odorless gas. Thus, the cylinder is neither full nor empty.”

With most things, we tend to think our way is the only way. That’s not to say there aren’t other ways, but we assume that what we’re thinking is what everyone is thinking, unless we consciously stop and acknowledge that there might be a different way of viewing the same thing. This is especially true with people who have witnessed an accident or crime. No two statements are identical, even though the witnesses all saw the same thing. It’s a matter of perspective.

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By: Akhilesh Gulati

The IT department of a school district supported itself by providing application development, database maintenance, training, and other services to its internal clients, although no money exchanged hands. The school’s outreach unit, which provided training and education to local organizations, also maintained its own profit and loss statement but was having issues with invoicing. Somehow the invoiced amount always seemed to be different from the quoted amount, which meant manual corrections, delays in receivables, and most important, unhappy clients.

As one of the more experienced analysts, Joel was brought in to resolve this issue expeditiously. He quickly identified an anomaly, which led him to assume data corruption as the culprit. He dove right in analyzing data, working backward from the output data, looking for patterns. Not finding anything, he delved deeper and discovered tiny data issues surfacing randomly, and he failed to detect a pattern that would point to a root cause. None of the data defects he found affected the invoices uniformly. A supposedly quick IT project was turning out to be a nightmare, and the outreach unit was getting anxious at the number of hours it would have to pay the IT department.

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By: Akhilesh Gulati

Given the current dynamic business environment, there is a tremendous need for operational agility and the ability to quickly respond to changing market forces. Time to value (TtV) is an important metric that can be used to manage such environmental conditions. It can drive the development of methods enabling the rapid realization of delivering business value as soon as possible.

Within a market, simply being the best in TtV might not be enough; a distinct increase in value over the competition is also required. Two examples in the world of technology prove this point. Apple’s Newton was one of the first serious handwriting-recognition platforms, but its performance failed to convince users of its value. On the other hand, iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player on the market, but it was the first one that could store your entire library, and buy and load music easily and legally. It not only provided value from a user’s point of view but it also cut the TtV because customers “got it” very quickly.

To not only gain but also retain competitive advantage, both value, as perceived by the customer, and TtV, when realized by the customer, are required.

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By: Akhilesh Gulati

You check into a high-end hotel for an exorbitant fee. You are tired, thirsty, and you want a drink of water. Either you find no water or the bottled water costs an additional $5.50. You see a coffee pot and complimentary coffee or tea, but you don’t want to drink something hot; you want water. Coffee is free; water is not. Reluctantly, you open the bottle of water and wonder why the hotel would nickel and dime a customer who’s paying hundreds to stay overnight. Hotels are in the hospitality industry, but they just don’t get it!

This same lack of understanding occurs in food oriented scenarios. Back at the high-end hotel, breakfast is included with the room. What is served? Danish rolls. Who wants sweets and likely a glucose crash when you need to be on the ball for your meeting? How about something healthy that will sustain the body until the next meal?

What about lunch? Yes, serving many people quickly and with a nice presentation is important, but the nutritional content of the food isn’t a priority. Pasta is commonly served because it’s filling and cheap, but it fails at boosting brain power.

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By: Akhilesh Gulati

The city of Austin, Texas, wanted to be listed as one of the top five places to live in the United States. Explaining that vision to the various municipal departments wasn’t difficult. Managers set about benchmarking from previous years, looking at the numbers, and deciding where they should take the big steps to improve performance, such as with emergency-response time.

One of the areas that needed improving was infant mortality; data pointed to several root causes such as illegal immigration, measles, and infant diarrhea. Elaborate plans were made to address the causes. These included educating medical personnel and the agencies that interact with parents who, for fear of deportation or who prefer home remedies, didn’t go to clinics. Inoculations were planned, and educational pamphlets were prepared. Compliance audits were also scheduled.

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By: Akhilesh Gulati

Lights, camera, action! Sound familiar? Given the continuous release of movies, we are all familiar with this phrase. But what does this have to do with the quality profession or strategy?

“Lights” make more visible the area to be captured on film. “Camera” indicates the readiness of the equipment or personnel to begin recording. These steps essentially create the framework within which the action is to take place; it provides a clear boundary within which the actors are to limit their movements and keep the background (or context) in perspective. And of course, there’s “action” toward the end result. “Lights, camera, action” eventually lead to a deliverable that the producer expected.

How does this differ from the many continuous improvement initiatives currently experienced in the business environment? For example, Six Sigma’s define, measure, analyze, improve, control (DMAIC) starts by defining the problem—or throwing light on the issue to be addressed. Clarifying the problem helps the project team gather the necessary data to measure and analyze to ensure they are “focused” on the correct issue. The “action” occurs during the improve and control modes.

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By: Akhilesh Gulati

When you try to improve your athletic abilities (e.g., playing tennis, swimming), how do you go about it? There are quite a few options, including observing how those who are best-in-class perform. When we learn from others, we gain from their insights without having to endure the mistakes they may have gone through to reach their expertise. The same tactic works for teams trying to improve their collective skill sets. Why should businesses be any different?

According to Webster’s, to improve means “to enhance in value or quality; make better.” Improvement implies changing the way something is normally done so as to make the outcome better.

To improve, athletes can try multiple approaches, including:
• Learning from what others before them have done
• Investing in a coach who can guide them and build on their strengths

Likewise, organizations can do the same by:
• Investing in individual employees by encouraging them to go “outside” and bring back what they learn from others
• Investing in an outside resource to transfer knowledge, with the ultimate goal of achieving independent competence in the skill

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By: Akhilesh Gulati

In part one of this article, I described a rapid strategic planning session for fire-service response time, and included a comment from one of the planners that he’d like to “see a fire station on every corner.” This was a terrific starting point because of the visual it presented.

Discussion about this possible solution for quick response brought further insight into the recommendation, without anyone judging or blaming, and allowed the group to explore the suggestion’s intent. The goal was to be able to get to the place of fire within a specified response time and eliminate the fire before it got out of control. Had more time been allowed, this insight and associated understanding would have set the stage for creating solutions that addressed discrepancies between the current reality and the desired ideal state. Creating a visual, whether mental, verbal, or physical, takes time and effort, but once the intent is clear, one can move to the next steps.