Five Bad Root Cause Analysis Questions You Should Never Ask by Kevin McManus, Chief Excellence Officer, Great Systems How effective are your root cause analysis questions? As a Western culture, we don’t do very well when it comes to root cause analysis. All too often, we blame people, equipment, or the weather. You can hear it at [...]
Seven Virtual Workshop Facilitation Tips by Kevin McManus, Chief Excellence Officer, Great Systems Given my Boomer age, I will admit right up front that I was not a fan of a speaker-led virtual learning space prior to the pandemic. Virtual content delivery did not seem to provide the potential for enough interaction and skill practice. Now, [...]
How to Measure Process Improvement Effectiveness By Kevin McManus, Chief Excellence Officer, Great Systems This 'how to measure process improvement effectiveness' post began as an Industrial and Systems Engineer magazine  article I wrote a few years ago. Back then, I had just completed another national Malcolm Baldrige Performance Excellence Program site visit. On that particular site visit, [...]
How to Write Effective Corrective Actions By Kevin McManus, Chief Excellence Officer, Great Systems A well-written corrective action clearly defines how to modify a process, or alter a piece of equipment, in order to reduce the potential for future human error or equipment failure. When we modify a process, we can add, or delete, one [...]
Four Steps to Effective Rule Enforcement By Kevin McManus, Chief Excellence Officer, Great Systems One of the key reasons people make mistakes is that they don’t follow the rules. There are multiple reasons to explain why people break the rules, but we all too often fail to effectively address them to improve rule compliance, let [...]
Positive Leader Feedback Drives Intrinsic Motivation by Kevin McManus, Chief Excellence Officer and Systems Guy, Great Systems Someone shared the 'no feedback, no motivation' phrase with me when I was speaking at an IISE conference a few years ago. Today, I share it with others because of its powerful and logical message. How can someone [...]
The Business Sports Analogy Dilemma by Kevin McManus, Chief Excellence Officer and Systems Guy, Great Systems As a huge sports fan, it is difficult to resist the use of the occasional business sports analogy to explain a business concept. Unfortunately, I have been coached over the years to avoid the use of such analogies in [...]
How to Measure Leadership Behavior Effectiveness by Kevin McManus, Chief Excellence Officer, Great Systems The leadership index is a great tool to use if you wonder how to measure leadership behavior effectiveness. Its design mirrors one that Federal Express uses. This tool has been successfully applied in many organizations since that time. Any organization, such [...]
How to Measure Employee Ownership by Kevin McManus, Chief Excellence Officer and Systems Guy, Great Systems I was once asked in an e-mail how I would measure employee ownership in a company. Before we get into the suggestions that I offered, we might want to first consider the question itself. Why is it important to have [...]
The AURA of Effective Training by Kevin McManus, Chief Excellence Officer and Systems Guy, Great Systems My personal experiences as a trainer have been a bit varied over the years. For the past eighteen years, I have been solely doing classroom style training. You know, the kind where a presenter shares their data viz and [...]
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