Alliance Reports

What does strategic planning have to do with jazz? Listen to my new article to find out!

If Abe Lincoln had been a marketing manager today, well, the US would be a whole lot worse off. But if he were, he might say “You can please some of your customers all of the time, and all of your customers some of the time, but if you try to please all of your customers all of the time, you will please no one.” What is a company to make of that?

“Big Data” is big right now. It offers the promise of turning vast amounts of data into profits. Often, however, this promise is not fulfilled, because in order to reap the benefits of big data, you first have to know what the right data is. And that is a question that no AI can yet answer.

Joseph Heller’s dark satire Catch-22 proposes the term for problems that inherently prevent their own solutions. Creating good metrics can be seen as a Catch-22: Good metrics take time to create, but until you have good metrics there is no time to create them. How true is this and is there a way to break this cycle?

I lived in Western Europe for a year after college when I was a Watson Fellow. Adapting to new cultures and mores was difficult, but I was surprised at how much more difficult it was returning to my own country afterwards. As we near the milestone in the US of 50% with at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, it is time to think about how to begin the transition back to the workplace. I think companies are going to find out that it is much more difficult than just “getting back to normal.” I can offer some things from quality and management to help out.

You’ve seen the situation – a manager makes the same mistakes over and over, an executive reads a book or article and decides to implement it at their organization. Why do they fail when they try to use their own or someone else’s experience? It’s because experience alone teaches nothing.

Even a small business is pretty complicated. I have heard some people say that business is so complicated that no one can really understand or control one. While the former might be true, you don’t need to understand everything about a business to manage it. And it can be understood by watching flocks of birds.

Most businesses know the importance of using metrics to manage, but a lot of them struggle with creating metrics that actually fulfill their purpose. How do they go wrong, and how is hiring an external consultant to tell you the “right” metrics like getting an organ transplant that fails?

One thing I run into at many clients is that they don’t differentiate between metrics for a project and metrics used in management. How does confusing the two reduce your effectiveness and how can you fix it?

Have you ever wondered how statistics can make a manager's job easier? Explore how managers can use statistical process control to support process improvement.

Creating and translating metrics to every level of a business is essential to get and stay competitive. But don’t be overwhelmed and think that you have to get everything up and running all at once. As a wise man is misquoted to say, “Anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed.”

What is supplier quality assurance, and how did it almost put a client of mine out of business?

One thing is clear from how we help our clients generate their metrics - where the value is generated. The answer might surprise you!

Does your business need a hero to save it? Maybe this is a bad sign...

Millennials (and others) have been asking for more options to work from home, and now reluctant businesses have had to grant that wish. How does this new paradigm affect managing?

If you are finding you have some time in between trying to keep everyone safe and sane, it might be an opportunity to start looking at how you manage and for ways to improve it for when things get back to something more normal.

What can your business learn from the pandemic? Maybe in addition to how to stay healthy, something that will help for the next, inevitable, unpredictable event?

If you had a new client offer you $1 million revenue, should you take it? Or is there a price in saying “Yes”?

In the past few blogs, I have been building a model to understand and improve employee empowerment and engagement Is there something even beyond those? Listen on to find out!

As I described in the last blog, we can measure and improve empowerment using a simple model and some data analysis. If, however, we define “employee empowerment” as when an employee has everything they need to do their job, it is a pretty low bar. Is there something above employee empowerment that we can work towards? Something we might call “engagement?” Read on to find out!

Empowering employees sounds great, but is there a way to measure empowerment and actually take actions as a manager to improve it? Listen to the blog and see what the power of data can do for you!

If you want to engage your employees, first you need to empower them. But what does that even mean? In this blog I will give you a basic definition and set the stage to measure and improve it with data, so listen on!

Has someone ever told you, "Your employees are not engaged," or "I don't feel empowered"? Would you know what to do about it? Listen to the first part of the answer now!

As part of the Business Performance Excellence (BPE) process, we help clients create and align metrics from the top of the organization on down to the individual contributor. These metrics can then be used to lead via a strategic plan and manage the day to day operations. I often get asked, “Can we use these metrics in performance evaluation?” Listen to find out the answer!

This is part one of how to use the tool hoshin in strategic planning. We will set the stage with some definitions, examine how strategic plans fail, and talk about the optimum time horizon for a strategic plan.

How can does a #business create an integrated set of #metrics? Our new video shows how to use the concept of #hoshinkanri to make sure everyone is measuring the right #management metrics that align with what the organization is trying to do.

This episode provides a high-level overview of a process to help a business or organization align its employees by creating an integrated set of metrics.