Execution

In my experience there is a danger in expending vast amounts of effort in designing your Strategy and Goals. Often this type of work is comfortable and unthreatening. We don't have to face the real world yet, as we are still "Strategising"

Now don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying don't think things through, challenge your goals, or develop plans; but consider the following:

• The old adage about the survival of the plan when it meets the enemy
• The importance of speed in today's world. Speed to market, speed to communicate etc
• The energy needed to construct the plan and the danger of "relaxing" into implementation.
• You can learn very fast about the strengths and weaknesses in your plan, or thinking, by testing it out, adapting and moving forward

So what should you do? Well good leaders everywhere recognise the need to bias towards action. They ask when things will start happening, changing, because while it doesn't guarantee completion it's a good indicator!

Visual Management

Managing the invisible is a real challenge. Talk to the bankers and regulators in the invisible world of Off-Balance Sheet instruments!

Of course there are different and less controversial ways of making things invisible. Consider the humble laptop. How many spreadsheets have you seen crushed into a tiny Laptop screen or projected in hope onto a wobbly screen? The beauty of computers is the amount of data that can be collected, analysed and manipulated. I wouldn't be without mine either, but the trouble starts when you have to manage with the data and even more when you have to work with a team of people using that information.

The solution? Go big, go visual, and put the picture on the wall. Print out that spreadsheet out on a big bit of paper, or use a big whiteboard. Easy to read as a team, easy to modify together, easy to see gaps, problems or patterns. As a team. When all, or nearly all can see it the job if solving the problem, getting buy-in, and deciding what to do becomes much simpler.

Give it a try, think visual and think big in more ways than one. It's also harder to ignore a problem writ so large, more power to your elbow and harder for your boss to brush away too when you have an idea.

Lord Digby Jones

I was fortunate to receive an invitation to listen to Lord Digby Jones speak at Pera in Melton Mowbray this week. He made an impassioned speech without notes on the subject of "Growth through Innovation". His visual imagery of the Taxi driver providing for his son to learn skills so that he would in future sit in the back of some else's Taxi was excellent. The most powerful of the images however was the likely direction of countries such as China and Brazil this Century. Not surprisingly he was also a strong advocate of the importance of skills in this country as one of the routes to grow UK plc through Innovation.

He entertained his audience by confirming all of our views that Governments just don't get it when it comes to business. The recent Bombardier news, being so local was extra relevant.

Of course as he is a Leicester Tigers fan like myself, it makes me a little biased. To read more about him yourself, click on the link above.

Calcs and Assumptions

Never underestimate the value of doing a little analysis. I say a little because a limited amount of calculation puts you a surprisingly long way ahead of those that don't, or can't be bothered. And I say a little because if you think carefully about what to calculate it limits what you have to do, to just what is important.

And remember the assumptions you make. Write them down, let people know. Often the thinking that sets the assumptions is more important than the calcs. They set out the quality of your thinking, they prompt a debate.

So:
Decide what it's important to calculate
Think about what assumptions to make and write them down
Do the simple calcs and draw the conclusions.

Applying Flow to NPD

Donald Reinertsen has written a very good book looking at the application of Lean techniques and Flow to the world of New Product development. He also applies his experience of network design problems to consider how inherently variable NPD can benefit from the experience of unpredictable web and phone traffic. There are lots of principles and a useful cost model. Major lessons are to manage queues and understand the cost of delays and not worry too much about utilisation while reducing the batch sizes of work.
When I have some time I'll list out the key interventions his principles propose for our industry. I can recommend his book.

CIA Phoenix Question list

As some of you may have seen from one of my recent Tweets, a Question checklist by the CIA has been revealed. http://bbh-labs.com/tag/phoenix-checklist. I can't vouch for the source of the checklist, but it does make interesting reading whether you consider it from the point of view of your own work, or pretend that you are trying to flush out a double agent.

Of course if that is your work, I'm surprised that you are reading this blog!

Questions include:

• Can you restate your problem? How many different ways can you restate it? More general? More specific?
• Can the rules be changed?
  

And then as a bonus there is a list of questions that help you plan (always a favourite topic of mine). They include:

• What do you need to do at this time?
• Who will be responsible for what?
• Can you use this problem to solve some other problem?
  

Read the list and enjoy. Remember to add some Kudos when solving the next problem with your team. "Hey guys, it's time to use the CIA's checklist"

GSK Brings some manufacturing into Scotland from India

Some good news for the UK Pharma industry this week, with GSK announcing that it is bringing back some Manufacturing from India and putting it into their Montrose Site in Scotland. Click on the title to see an article about it on Fierce Pharma.