Are you Plusing your Show?

That philosophy is found in the phrase the Walt Disney started and everybody in the Disney Organization knows and it is called “Plusing the Show.” Walt would say: “We have to keep plusing our show, if we ever lose them, meaning the guests, it will take us 10 years to get them back.

This is an excerpt from the podcast with Doug Lipp. Doug is a world-renowned speaker and acclaimed expert on customer service, leadership, change management and global competitiveness. Doug recently published a book, Disney U: How Disney University Develops the World’s Most Engaged, Loyal, and Customer-Centric Employees.

About Disney U: The Disney University, founded by Van France, trains the supporting cast that helps create the world-famous Disney Magic. Now, for the first time, the secrets of this exemplary institution are revealed. In Disney U, Doug Lipp examines how Van perpetuated Walt Disney's timeless company values and leadership lessons, creating a training and development dynasty. It contains never-before-told stories from numerous Disney legends. These pioneers share behind-the-scenes success stories of how they helped bring Walt Disney's dream to life.

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Disney U reveals the heart of the Disney culture and describes the company's values and operational philosophies that support the iconic brand. Doug Lipp lays out 13 timeless lessons Disney has used to drive profits and growth worldwide for more than half a century.

Doug Lipp helped create the first international version of the Disney University, in Japan at Tokyo Disneyland, and then led the training team of the Disney University at the corporate headquarters of The Walt Disney Company, The Walt Disney Studios. He mentored under a number of Disney University visionaries, including the Disney University founder, Van France. Lipp consults with numerous Fortune 100 corporations and travels the world speaking about the lessons he learned at the Disney University.

At the Crossroads of Economics, Society, Culture & Technology is…

#ServiceDesign Specialist @sly or more formally Sylvain Cottong has worked extensively at these crossroads and as an early Internet evangelist, he has been advising governments & companies on strategies for the networked society.  He lives & works in Luxembourg and Berlin. An excerpt of the podcast can be read at An Economist who practices Service Design.

His areas of interest and expertise are:

• Leadership and innovation management
• Service innovation
• Business model innovation
• Social business & enterprise 2.0
• Intellectual capital management & learning organizations
• Complexity management, trendwatching, backcasting & forecasting
• Customer experience management, service dominant logic & social CRM
• Design management, service design & user experience design

Sylvain’s breadth of knowledge in these fields is extraordinary. Though we just grazed the surface, I think you will find the discussion quite insightful.

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Where you can find Sylvain:

• strategybuilders.eu: A Luxembourg based network of international consultants.
• projetspublics.lu: A Luxembourg based public sector innovation consultancy.
• nectar: A Berlin based user experience design & service innovation agency.
• integratetplace: A design consultancy specializing in 3 dimensional design & urban communication
• Member of the Internet of Things Council (http://www.theinternetofthings.eu/),
• Care To Design healthcare service design collective (http://caretodesign.com/)
• New Club of Paris (http://www.new-club-of-paris.org/).

In becoming Agile, did we forget about Quality Assurance?

On the Business901 podcast, Software Quality Assurance Podcast with Murali Chemuturi, we discussed Software Quality Assurance and what Murali considers best practice. I found his position quite different from the Agile and Kanban Software people I typically interview. I think most people in the IT field will find it interesting. This is a transcription of the podcast.

Quality Assurance in Software

J. Ross Publishing has recently published three books authored by Murali  Chemutur

• Mastering Software Quality Assurance: Best Practices, Tools and Techniques for Software Developers
• Mastering Software Project Management: Best Practices, Tools and Techniques
• Software Estimation Best Practices, Tools & Techniques: A Complete Guide for Software Project Estimators

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Systemizing your approach to management

My guest on the Business901 podcast was Bill Dettmer Senior Partner of Goal Systems International.

Bill is one of the most recognized expert in the Theory of Constraints field and more specifically the Logical Thinking Process. He has Eight years graduate level teaching of systems management, systems analysis, human factors, management control systems, organizational behavior and development, Theory of Constraints, Total Quality Management, and management of research, development, testing, and evaluation. More importantly, he brings a level of experience to these subjects that few in the world are able too.

His simple recommendation of one book on the practice of utilizing a systems approach to management immersed me into over 12 hours of reading, research and learning. I have not been that captivated in a particular subject for quite awhile. I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as I did hosting it..  

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William (Bill) Dettmer is the author of  The Logical Thinking Process: A Systems Approach to Complex Problem Solving ) and Strategic Navigation: A Systems Approach to Business Strategy , two books around which Goal Systems International's internationally renowned Thinking Process Course is based; Brainpower Networking Using the Crawford Slip Method . Co-author (with Eli Schragenheim and Wayne Patterson) of Manufacturing at Warp Speed: Optimizing Supply Chain Financial Performance (The CRC Press Series on Constraints Management) and Supply Chain Management at Warp Speed: Integrating the System from End to End. 

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Value stream Mapping Workshop

I had the pleasure of attending the Lean Enterprise Workshop workshop: Value-Stream Mapping for the Office and Service.  The workshop description:

This interactive workshop demonstrates how to apply value-stream mapping, a fundamental and critical tool, to address what many companies find difficult to do: making a fundamental change in business processes such as administrative, professional, and transactional activities. You will see how the key elements of lean thinking and value-stream mapping apply to such activities by identifying key processes to tackle, drawing an accurate current-state map of each process, applying lean principles to envision a leaner future-state for each process, and implementing the future-state in a way that can be sustained.

Jim Luckman of Lean Transformations Group was the facilitator, (Recent B901 Podcast Participant) did a very good job of combining instruction, case studies and interactivity. LEI is a stickler for interactivity in their workshops and it is a well learned lesson for me. I struggle creating webinars that have interactivity and always wonder if the people on the other side are sleeping or how much other things they are getting done during the webinar ;).  It is a lesson learned.

It is always great to see others present and to receive fresh material. I have spent a great deal of time in the past year constructing Value Stream Mapping processes for marketing. In doing so, I have ventured into many uncharted areas and as a result I have taken certain liberties in my mapping processes. In the workshop I learned or reinforced 2 particular areas that I felt are important to the marketing process.

1. Chunking: When you start creating a Future State Map it is wise to step back and take a more empirical view of the process looking for major outputs or changes in skill requirements. Dividing the Value stream Map in this fashion allows you develop chunks or groupings,. This allows the divided Value Stream to be scrutinized and more importantly better define your customer requirement, customer being the next recipient in the Value Stream. It was even challenging to define who that customer is and what the requirements for that handoff are. It reminded me of how we have been breaking down the Kanban boards and defining the endpoints and the queues. The methodology was a little different but the outcomes were very similar.

2. Heuristic/Transactional: Since this workshop was based on creating a Value stream Map for the Office and Service sector we spent time on the differences that were created in this sector versus manufacturing. I have to admit I struggle with mapping many marketing value streams and this little tip though simple made a great deal of sense to me and solved my problem. Most my problems are a result of combining the Heuristic section of marketing to the Transactional side. The lesson to split the value stream at this point and create 2 separate Value Stream Maps paid for the workshop. It was like not seeing the forest because of the trees. I even feel kind of stupid even saying it but when I review past struggles I have to admit the majority of them were exactly in this area. The ones that there were little struggle with were maps that had naturally divided that area on their own.

I returned to the Lean Problem Solving Workshop facilitated by Tracey Richardson, another B901 Podcast Participant.

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New formula for success: Deliver Today, Adapt tomorrow

I have been discussing Agile Marketing lately and recently came up on a blog post by Chris Brogan on “How We Make Businesses These Days” Chris stated in his post:

Think. Sketch. Execute. Revise

To me, the new formula of business is this: think. sketch. execute. revise. It’s important to consider contingencies. It’s important to be prepared for what can go wrong. But the best way to find out what’s going to go wrong is to launch and find the flaws.

This is top of mind to me right now, as I’m about to launch a business in a marketplace that I don’t fully understand, with a product that I’m still developing, to a bunch of people who I don’t necessarily have neatly corralled. Am I afraid? Not at all. I’ve got smart collaborators. We’ll figure it out. Will we upset someone along the way? No question. Tell me one business that hasn’t made a mistake. The goal, I imagine, is not to make any fatal mistakes.

Think. Sketch. Execute. Revise.

That looks very close to the iterative process of the five phases of Agile Project Management(book link below) and described by Jim Highsmith. I adapted the description to a marketing tone.

Envision. Speculate. Explore. Adapt. Close.

How closely it resembles it you need to have a definition of each term to see the similarities:

1. Envision: Determine your marketing vision and objectives and constraints, your community, and how your team will work together.
2. Speculate: develop the capability and/or feature based launch to deliver on the vision.
3. Explore: plan and deliver running tested stories in the short iteration, constantly seeking to reduce the risk and uncertainty of the launch.
4. Adapt: review the delivered results, the current situation, and the team's performance, and adapt as necessary.
5. Close: conclude the launch, pass along key learning, and celebrate.

But even more so the real key point is that we're not concentrating on the flow were concentrating on the cycle. Continuous short iterations are constantly happening to improve the value of the offering. No longer can we wait for the perfect scenario. We build the scenario as an ongoing process. Customer relationships need to be his collaborative as possible. Customers then can define the capabilities needed to provide value. When that scenario could no longer be adapted or improved upon the life of that marketing cycle is over or exhausted. This effort enables customers to define the value and judge your marketing cycle. Your marketing team must always be in contact with the customer and continuously asking: Is what we are doing providing value in your decision making process for our product or service?

Envision. Speculate. Explore. Adapt. Close.

Related Posts:

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Start thinking Cycles, not Funnels in your marketing! 

Inspiration provided by Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products (2nd Edition)

Technorati Tags: Agile Marketing,Agile Project Development,Lean,Marketing Cycle,Chris Brogan

Simple, Easy to use Lean Six Sigma Software tools

When talking to most Lean Six Sigma Consultants they will tell you the 2 lean tools that you start with are 5S and Standard Work. Looking for a simple way to describe the Standard Work process, I ran across this software company and their set of tools. I found them quite interesting and have started "Testing" them out. I wonder has anyone else tried them?

Here is a description and a picture of their template. Tools for standardized work are the most important tools in your Lean toolkit - because they avoid backsliding into old habits

The Standard Work Sheet Excel template is 5 tools in 1:

1. Value Add Analysis (auto-calculates pie chart)
2. Work Balancing (auto-draws work load balancing bar chart in relation to Takt Time)
3. Standard Work Instructions & Analysis
4. Quick Changeover tool for setup reduction.
5. Standard Work Combination Sheet visual time chart.

What makes these templates unique is that they are built on Excel spreadsheet platform.

You have options to:

• Auto-draw a Standard Work Combination Sheet with a single click of a button.
• Create a separate time chart for each operator, or display all operators in a single chart.
• Use either stopwatch or video Time Observation to observe and time your standard work procedures
• Split your Value Add Pie Chart into your own user-defined types of waste
• Plot as many as 4 chart lines - for Takt Time, Target Cycle Time, Cycle Time, and even a 4th user-defined chart line (perhaps for out of cycle work?)
  
  Draw the chart with or without labels
• Include up to 200 lines of work elements on a single chart
  (and spread even larger processes over multiple charts - perhaps with summary data rolling up to each higher level)
• Define your own header data field labels
• Link to or from another worksheet for calculations such as Working Time Available, product mix, or master scheduling...
• Paste a picture of your Spaghetti Diagram on the same page with your Standard Work Combination Table!
• Use this as a Quick Changeover tool for Lean SMED setup reduction

I think it is a pretty unique product. You can download a free trial but I think it will ake a commitment to use these templates so if it is free, you may just never commit.

Technorati : 6sigma, Consultants, IT, Lean, Quality, Six Sigma, software