The analysis and design phase of a "bet your company" process change needs to be done thoroughly. As I noted in a previous post "Keep Your Operations in Shape by Focusing on Management Processes," performance measurement (which is usually managed by finance) is one of four critical management processes for improvement program success. MORE >>

Worse, bad data contribute to " analysis paralysis " and stasis it causes. Information & technology OperationsAt this point, most everyone has heard that S&P; downgraded U.S. government debt on Friday. An important piece of the story involves the $2.1 trillion error in debt that S&P; provided in its original rationale. Or the military ? MORE >>

Since it wasn't clear which ideas might work, this seemed like a logical next step — until the data analysis work dragged on for months as the team tried to reach the perfect answer. I've seen this pattern in many organizations where, instead of moving into action, managers insist on doing more analysis. MORE >>

By doing a deeper analysis of underlying cost drivers such as scale, efficiency, overhead, and logistics, the company gained new insights into why some plants and geographies performed so much better than others — and what high-impact areas to tackle for greater savings. Manufacturing Operations OEESounds simple, right? MORE >>

Menkes identifies three capabilities that help CEOs operate better under pressure: They possess a realistic optimism, a subservience to purpose (i.e., I've done some work with organizations that are in crisis and Menke's analysis of where leadership needs to be is spot-on. MORE >>