Last year I received an Email from a student in Mumbai, India, saying how useful the site was; and could I please start writing again! Well, it’s true, it’s been a while, but pleased to say that this week I have published a new article on Business Capability Modelling; and a supporting article on the base […]
So who is the Design Lead on your project ?
As part of establishing a successful business change programme, it is very important to appoint a Design Lead – someone who owns the design. Failure to do so can lead to considerable confusion and a tendency for the void to be filled by the programme or individual project managers. Aside from the issue of whether […]
Standard Work in Lean Services – proceed with caution
Standard Work plays quite a significant role in Lean practice. But in the wrong hands it can do a lot of damage. Standardisation is very appealing, particularly to managers. They tend to like uniformity, a sense of order – doing everything in the same way. It makes their life easier. As an improvement technique, standard […]
Open data and service design
I take a keen interest in all things ‘open’, be it “open source”, “open data” or “open government”. I’ve been directly involved in the opening up of public data in the past and I am particularly keen on the potential of open data to create new services, or help drive the redesign of existing ones. […]
Universal Credit – at least they stopped digging
There has been much speculation in recent months about the health of Universal Credit – one of the largest government change programmes currently on the go. Well, the speculation came to an end last week with the publication of an NAO report, Universal Credit – early progress. Universal Credit was always going to be difficult […]
Putting the thinking back into Lean
Lean has become very popular as an approach towards the design of business operations, from product development through to the provision of goods and services to the end customer. But this has not been without its problems, with many Lean initiatives failing to deliver the expected benefits, or in some cases leaving operations in a […]
Setting meaningful performance targets
Governments and executive boards love their targets. The logic is, set a target and everyone works to achieve the target. If you don’t have a target, there is nothing for people to aim for, they are bound to under achieve; and anyhow, how can we improve, and demonstrate that improvement, without targets. It seems so obvious, […]
Making good sourcing decisions
I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last 6 months writing about strategic sourcing decisions – whether to do something in-house, outsource it, or form a strategic partnership with a number of other organisations. This wasn’t my original plan, but events took a hold, as the news items just kept piling in. In the private […]
Supplier Relationship Management in the Public Sector
The public sector is faced with a growing and diverse range of independent providers of public services. Traditional procurement frequently assumes an arm’s length approach, whereby services are purchased and managed through a tightly specified service contract. But many public services are there to address messy problems – services that are intimately involved in people’s lives, such as mental health, […]
Shared Services in the Public Sector
The use of Shared Services in the public sector has been a hot topic in 2012. Promoted heavily since Gershon’s Public Sector Efficiency Review in 2004, as a means to reducing costs, the NAO published a very critical report in March 2012 on the sharing of services in central government. There has also been the very […]