All Features
Kate Zabriskie
From time to time, everyone misses a deadline, forgets an obligation, or fails to meet a commitment. We’re human, and it happens. For most of us, failure is followed by an immediate effort to right the situation.
Problem solved, right? Not so fast. “Most of us” excludes a special cohort: those who…
Mike Figliuolo
A consistent and regularly scheduled prioritization process helps eliminate distractions and can focus your efforts on the most meaningful projects. Some processes are formal, while others are simply frequent conversations about priorities. Choose a process that’s appropriate for the size of your…
Michael Mallen
The concept of cost of quality (COQ) has been around for decades, but applying it to business is difficult. The adage “quality is free” (coined by Philip B. Cosby in his book by the same title) does not simply mean that you don’t have to pay for it. It means that you are likely already paying to…
Ryan E. Day
One of the technologies driving Industry 4.0 is artificial intelligence (AI), and AI is enabling massive change in manufacturing. It is also revolutionizing the smart manufacturing supply chain as well.
It seems that for every benefit technology provides, it also spawns an associated challenge.…
Dave Klumpe
Recent surveys point to increasing frustration and, frankly, exhaustion among nurses across the country. Although attending to patients during the pandemic has exacerbated the challenges of the profession, nursing shortages have been reported on for well over a decade. It is incumbent on hospitals…
Manfred Kets de Vries
Serge faced a conundrum. One of his business partners was in a legal dispute with Serge’s father, Charlie, and asked for his help. Serge knew that his father was prone to suing everyone who crossed his path—including family members. The business partner had repeatedly tried to end this legal fight…
Liz Uram
When Mary started with the company, she was enthusiastic, energetic, and consistently the top salesperson on the team. She got along well with her co-workers and was known for her superior customer service skills. But over time, something changed.
Mary began to arrive to work late, leave early,…
Corey Brown
Understanding the distinction between document management and knowledge management is vital to operational excellence. While the terms can sometimes be used interchangeably, understanding their differences couldn’t be more relevant to the shifting industrial workforce.
What is document management…
Annette Franz
The terms “customer-centric” and “customer-centricity” get thrown around a lot; oftentimes, it’s quite clear that they’re being used out of turn. I believe “customer-centric” is often confused with “customer focus,” but the two are very different.
Let’s look at some definitions.
Customer focus …
Mark Schmit
The Covid-19 pandemic has asked much of manufacturing executives. They’ve had to make decisions about staffing and operations in the face of tremendous health and economic uncertainty—and then adjust or even change decisions based on myriad shifting and evolving factors.
They’ve had to retool to…
Ryan E. Day
In an article published by Quality Digest, Julias DeSilva addresses recent declines in ISO certification and poses the question, “Does quality matter anymore?” His conclusion is that even if you don’t get certified, you will still gain from a well-implemented management system. But what do…
Yves Doz
There is no getting around the hype surrounding agile, the organizational concept originally codified by software developers in 2001. Powered by the demands of a fast-changing consumer landscape in recent years, agile’s reach has stretched beyond software development and now extends to customer…
Quality Digest
Digital transformation is the integration of technology into all areas of a business, which fundamentally changes how organizations operate and deliver value to their customers. But what does success look like in a digital transformation? Project is on time and budget? Stakeholders are engaged…
Theodore Kinni
There is no shortage of advice regarding the art and craft of business strategy. Yet, in 2019, when the consulting firm Strategy& surveyed 6,000 executives, only 37 percent said their companies had well-defined strategies, and only 35 percent believed that their strategies would lead to success…
Sébastien Breteau
It’s been about one year since the Covid-19 impact intensified from a seemingly isolated health scare to a worldwide, ubiquitous tragedy that has upended daily life as we know it. Ever since consumers first faced widespread product shortages of essential items during the early days of the pandemic…
Mike Figliuolo
In the first article of this series, we discussed the specific and measurable aspects of SMART goals. Here in part 2, we’re talking about the last three characteristics: achievable, relevant, and time bound.
Achievable
Another characteristic of a good goal is that it is achievable. If a goal is…
Bryan Christiansen
If somebody asked you for a list of your company’s assets, would you be able to provide it? What about the exact location, condition, and utilization of each asset?
Organizations with a large number of physical assets can answer those questions only if they have the right asset inventory…
Knowledge at Wharton
It’s a commonly held belief, one that gets played out daily in organizations around the world: Employees who receive performance feedback are much more likely to improve their performance than those who don’t get feedback. But research tells us that it’s simply not true.
Typically, performance…
Jim Benson
Respect is an abused word. Weak minds use it as a placeholder for fear. Weak egos will demand it up front. Weak hearts will use it to attach themselves to people of bluster, wishing they could be so outspoken.
We could do with a few more conversations about respect.
We can see here, sadly, that…
Harry Hertz
Untitled Document
This past year has seen greater change in the work environment than any year in my recollection (and that is quite a few years). It was a year of many challenges, brought on by a global pandemic and a renewed and needed social consciousness. The past year also created many…
Mike Figliuolo
When you set goals, I suggest you try to set SMART ones. SMART is an acronym. It stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. These are the key characteristics of a good goal. Now there are multiple versions of SMART out there, but they all get to the same thing: creating…
Ryan E. Day
With a hashtag of #WomenInScience, the United Nations kicked off its sixth annual International Day of Women and Girls in Science assembly. A short post on the BoldData website seems to suggest the STEM business sector may not have gotten that memo.
The unwomen.org prefaces the Feb. 11, 2021,…
Ayman Jawhar
Product management as we’ve known it up until now—as a limited function or role—is effectively dead. However, viewed as a culture, product management is thriving. I predict “product culture” will be central to the future of work in digital economies. Yet knowledge workers, executives, and business…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
When I was 13, I had dreams of being a rock and roll star. For my birthday, I asked my parents for a guitar, and lessons to play it. My parents hired a staid instructor, and I was uninspired by the folk tunes she was teaching me. She was clueless about Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Kiss... even Black…
Mark Schmit
During the Sept. 18, 2020, session of the “National Conversation with Manufacturers,” our three West Coast manufacturing leaders on the panel kept coming back to their critical need for skilled workers.
The conversation was one in a series of 11 virtual listening sessions hosted by the National…
