One under or ineffectively used tool is the specification or requirements review, which is a form of design review. In this case we are reviewing the design while it is still easy and cheap to make adjustments.  Experience suggests, if we do not just forget to do this activity, it is a hastily arranged activity […]

You need not been so technically skilled to be able to see how many project fail due to requirements.  We provide a brief list of the failings below: Requirements control Insufficient time Did not include the sponsor or customer Late delivery of requirements Requirements traceability We will not write any more on requirements control that […]

This may sound difficult, but there are some rules for good requirements.  According to the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE http://www.incose.org/chicagoland/docs/Writing%20Effective%20Requirements.pdf), requirements should have the attributes below (similarly can be found at IEEE): Necessary –  driven by the objective of the project and business Verifiable – ability to objectively confirmed that the requirement is […]

The Seven Circles approach (De la Maza, Michael. Rapid Chess Improvement, 2002) uses a repetitive approach to developing automaticity in chess strategy. For those in the automotive world, it resembles a layered process audit somewhat. It requires different levels, different speeds, exercises, and more. We suggest this approach is a good way to intensively educate […]

We have seen the word “layoff” used during a reduction in force. A reduction in force is a mass firing, often engendered by management ineptitude but sometimes driven by market forces. A layoff occurs when we temporarily dismiss an employee, but we provide preferential treatment for them when the market bounces back. Even with the […]

Teams must grow; teams cannot be simply appointed and anointed. We may have a designated group that evolves into a team, but this emergent phenomenon takes time. It takes time to discover the strengths and weakness if each member of the group, understanding that ultimately transforms into trust, the backbone value/concept for any successful team. […]

We have never seen a meaningful employee evaluation system. The abominations are generally designed as a tool to assess the performance of the employee with respect to corporate goals. When they present the illusion of quantification, the values are really qualitative and they will inflate over time as people are ‘soft’ about providing ‘real’ assessment. […]

Many raindrops make an ocean. We have seen a divisional vice-president sneer at a small cost reduction and tell us it was not Six Sigma material. We didn’t care, because permitting small cost reductions makes the practice part of the culture while still adding benefits to the firm. We have already shown in another blog […]