I’ve come across a few examples recently where people either have, or have nearly, re-invented something that already existed in an organisation. This can be termed “re-inventing the wheel”. Clearly, such activities would be a waste of resources, but what
What does a facilitator do?
A question that regularly arises is “What does a facilitator do?” which is a very pertinent question, especially in a business context. I will now try and provide a little more clarity on what, in my experience, good facilitators should
As clear as mud!! Or what does a facilitator do?
There has been a really interesting thread on the Professional Facilitators Network on LinkedIn about “How to explain what you do“. Some of the ideas have been very well thought out and have made me think about my elevator pitch and
Making performance improvement real
Last week I visited Haldex Concentric in Birmingham who manufacture pumps for commercial vehicle engines. They are shortlisted for an award at the Midlands Excellence Awards, to be announced this week. They have instigated a continuous improvement approach to improving
Business Efficiency Tools – Stronger in combination?
As a believer in taking the medicine I prescribe I’m always on the look out for opportunities to develop and improve my skills. Hence I recently attended an event at Midlands Excellence where Julian Beaney led a very informative morning discussing
Brainstorming – effective tool, or comfort blanket?
I found this article about the reasons why brainstorms fail the other day and it got me thinking. Parker Smith raises some very vaild points about this tool. When I trained to be a facilitator, brainstorming is about the first
Sometimes it’s the small things that make the difference…..
Yesterday I was delivering a training course as a refresher to people who regularly organise meetings at a government organisation. As often happens in these situations there were complaints about the poor chairing of meetings, normally by those higher up
There is no such thing as a data quality problem…
Over the last couple of days I have presented at a couple of conferences on the subject of Asset Information Management. When discussing with a delegate on Tuesday the nature of data quality problems, they asked: Are data quality problems
Approaches to data quality issues from suppliers
I recently came across two examples of how to handle poor quality supplier data, one good and one bad, in the same business unit of a large organisation. The organisation concerned is reliant on contractors supplying accurate data for the