Complex systems inhabit a “gray world” of partial failures: While a system may continue to operate as a whole, bits and pieces inevitably degrade. Over time, these small failures can add up to a single catastrophic failure, incapacitating the system.

There you are, in the middle of an internal or external audit, and the auditor asks you a question that you are truly not sure about. What do you do?

1. Hit the panic button.
2. Ask the audience for a hint.
3. Phone a friend.

I recently met a good friend who works as a junior member of a cabin crew for a well-known airline. I won’t disclose its name or hers for obvious reasons; you’ll see why as you read on.

When it comes to statistical process control (SPC), it’s easy to get lost in the weeds and forget what you are really trying to accomplish. The whole point is to make better products for the customer.

In recent years the demand for high-accuracy laser data within the infrastructure sector has increased.

We’ve all experienced moments when we feel at a loss for words and wish we had been able to think of the right thing to say. Regardless of how tough the situation and conversation gets, no interaction is ever completely lost.

Earlier this year, Air Academy Associates helped a large multinational client assess its business improvement capabilities.

Remember when you got your first bicycle? You probably started riding it with training wheels. Soon enough the training wheels came off, and then you eventually went looking for hills and jumps.

Every now and then an unexpected encounter with an unknown person can affect your thought processes and make you rethink your own mortality. Such an incident occurred several weeks ago at a Panera Bread store in Chesterfield, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis.

I recently closed the doors of my own consulting company on the prairie in Minnesota and headed back into the wild, wacky, wonderful world of larger consulting groups, joining a group in Northern Virginia.