Imagine you are in the Scottish Highlands in the late 1500's between you and your extended family or Clan as we call them, you have a bit of land and around 600 cattle and sheep. Now imagine that another clan have decided that for what ever reason to have a bit of a battle. Typically, these battles were comprised of hundreds of people all on foot w...

Joe walked into a doctor's surgery convinced he was not long for this world. He sat patiently waiting for the doctor, who was running 30 minutes late, but finally it was his turn. The Doctor, an elderly and portly man with a beard that would make Santa proud, asked what the problem was. Joe explained that everywhere hurt, he said that when he touch...

When people start out on the journey for ISO27001 sometimes they can forget to stop and really think about the design of their Information Security Management System (ISMS), eventually it catches up with them and it happens. One factor in that design that most seem to gloss over however is the Values that the system is based around and that's what ...

I attended a client's monthly management meeting the other week and it was interesting to say the least. The session was scheduled for an hour (so in my head I'm thinking that's a bit short) and it was to cover operational performance and a new product they were designing for a new market they were looking to enter. I'd asked in advance why they we...

I was at a meeting the other week when one of those annoying corporate sound bites was used to shut someone down, you know the ones that seem to sound right but when you stop and think about it a little they make zero sense at all. We've all heard and probably, unfortunately, used them from time to time but this one is one of the dumbest ones I can...

Organisations talk about their values, they frame them and put them on their walls, but do they really pay much attention to them? Frequent readers of the blog know that I have a passion about organisational culture, it's the one single true advantage your organisation has over any other so having a true set of values that you can build your cultur...

Let's face it when it comes to any form of system, process or way of working the one sure that that will kill it quickly and drive staff morale into the gutter is lack of management commitment. We spoke about the need for this in depth when we looked at the requirements of ISO9001:2015 for Quality Management Systems and it's exactly the same requir...

 When it comes to changing or improving things they say it's always easier to critique an idea or a draft of something than start with a blank sheet of paper, you never really get to start with a blank sheet anyway, there's always something that's set in stone, but what if there wasn't? What if you could genuinely start with a completely blank...

Ever wonder why processes and systems breakdown in your organisation? The answer is normally pretty simple and comes back to just one word, Responsibility. If you don't assign responsibility to someone to get a task done or own a process, then guess what it'll fall over. All processes and systems left unattended eventually just fall over, it's call...

I spend a lot of time talking to people about lean and ISO (International Standards Organisation) systems, especially ISO9001. People sometimes think that it's a strange mix of things but when you peel back the surface of ISO9001 what you have is a standard build around 2 things, understanding risk and the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) or if you are ...

I often ask people I'm working with, "if you want to fix something, to improve it, then what is the 1st thing you have to have in order to be able to do that?" I get all sorts of answers usually most of these resulting of spending a lot of money, which seems to be the default approach – there's a problem lets spend money. The real answer is actuall...

My mum used to make the best chicken and veg soup, she'd boil up a chicken to create the stock, then remove it and add the chicken meat back, then she would add Split Peas, Pearl Barley, Lentils, Carrots, Peas, Onion and lastly some salt for seasoning. It was the same process every time, they were added in the same order, the same weights were used...

When you parked your car this morning did you lock it and put valuables in the boot, so they don't get stolen? What about when you left your house, I bet that was locked up, windows closed, oven and cooker off so as not to burn the place down. You don't want come home and find that your house is empty of all your possessions, that your family photo...

When you make the decision to really look at information security there are a number of options available to you in terms of how to do it and what standards to follow - NIST, COBIT, ISA, CIS or ISO. The great thing about ISO27001 for Information Security is that it really does cover all the bases and like the updates to ISO9001, 14001, 45001, ISO 2...

I get asked pretty much every week what Lean is, what's its purpose, how can it possibly help my organisation, we don't make cars, or volume or even, we don't make anything – we are a service organisation! From time to time I also get told "we don't want lean here – we don't want to see people losing their jobs". I've even had the whole 6 sigma vs ...

"If you want to cut someone's hair, they need to be in the room". I heard that phrase a while ago and it's continued to bounce round my brain nonstop since then because frankly it's brilliant. If you want to understand leadership, engagement and one of the most fundamental tenants of lean, respect for people, then that's the phrase, that I think, w...

When Taiichi Ohno started the journey that was to revolutionise not just Toyota but the manufacturing world, which has now spread across all organisations including services and even healthcare and construction. Ohno started with good old-fashioned Industrial Engineering, that was his job. Today universally it's referred to as lean, but at its core...

Suppose you are sitting in your home, reading your favourite book when there's a bit of a bang and the light above you goes out. Now you are sitting there trying to read in the dark, what do you do? Obviously, there are options, you can just get up and move to somewhere that has a working light, you could go to the cupboard you keep the spare bulbs...