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Browsing All Posts filed under »Lean Six Sigma«
Marketing has a New Lean Diet
In today’s economic climate, it’s not uncommon for organizations to drastically cut their marketing budgets in an effort to improve their bottom line. And yet, during this fiscal downturn, the need is even more prevalent to reach consumers, improve branding and broaden market shares. Marketing staff must find ways to identify opportunities in both new […]
Agile Principle 10 – Maximize work NOT done!
February 13, 2011 by Dave Kohrell
The tenth principle of the Agile manifesto may be my favorite one – simplicity, the art of maximizing the amount of work NOT done. Too often methodologies, frameworks and process improvements get mired down in heavy process and documentation. It’s a balancing act. It’s important to be neither too much, nor too little – just […]
WEMSHA! – WE Make Stuff HAppen.
February 1, 2011 by Dave Kohrell
We make stuff happen! Adjust some capital letters and you get WEMSHA (pronounced Whim Shaw)! That’s been a working term for us at TAPUniversity the last several years. A WEMSHA mindset helps keep focus among competing methodologies, approaches and flavors of the month – Agile/SCRUM, FDD, Lean, SDLC, RUP, Iterative, Incremental, Change or Plan […]
Virtual Teams – Media Richness
January 31, 2011 by Dave Kohrell
Various technologies have various levels of media richness. Media richness means communication media have varying capacities for resolving ambiguity, negotiating varying interpretations, and facilitating understanding. Media is said to be very rich when it provides: the availability of instant feedback; the capacity of the medium to transmit multiple cues such as body language, voice tone, […]
Virtual Teams – Conflict Resolution, Evaluate the team’s pulse
January 22, 2011 by Dave Kohrell
While environmental IQ through stakeholder’s analysis addresses the outside / in part of the equation, evaluate the team’s pulses addresses the inside / out. When the two are balanced through an equal amount of attention and thought, then the conflict potential is lowered. There are two steps for knowing a teams pulse.
Virtual Teams – Swift Trust
January 17, 2011 by Dave Kohrell
While delivering over forty Effective Virtual Team workshops at TAPUniversity since 2006, one question we encourage participants to ask is "well, OK, how does this differ from team members we see in person?" Swift Trust is one concept worth digging in to help answer the question of differentiation.
Effective Virtual Teams – 2011
January 14, 2011 by Dave Kohrell
TAPUniversity has shared and learned with over 310 professionals concerning virtual teams since August of 2005. Those professionals completed an in-depth survey of best practices for virtual teams. As we prepare for 2011 we want to know what your opinion is regarding what makes for effective and ineffective virtual teams. The results from previous students […]
2010 in review
January 2, 2011 by tapuniversity
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow. Crunchy numbers A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats. About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was […]
Secondary Risk versus Residual Risk
December 28, 2010 by Dave Kohrell
Synonymous term or a different term, that’s a common question we receive in our course delivery for secondary versus residual risks. Those two terms do sound quite a bit a like. Are they? They’re similar concepts but are different! Secondary risk occurs once a risk event triggers and the appropriate management response strategy deployed. The […]
Risk Types from Auditing
December 22, 2010 by Dave Kohrell
Don’t start from scratch. Reuse and recycle. Learn from others. Those three quick statements for learning apply to risk management. Identifying potential risks, good and bad, can be a cumbersome process. To hasten the process, discover what risk are common for your industry, whether that’s construction, information technology, product development or public power. Use those […]
Risk Management Approaches
December 2, 2010 by Dave Kohrell
Weaving throughout the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK), ISACA content & CobiT, Lean Six Sigma best practice and the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) / PRINCE 2 is the concept of proactively managing risk. Risk is based on a probability of an event occuring (positive and negative) and the impact should that even […]
Operational Definition
November 2, 2009 by tapuniversity
An operational definition is how a construct will be measured. This includes measurements in research studies such as Six Sigma studies. For example, in a pet obesity study a new weight loss drug will be given to overweight cats. But what is an overweight cat? Someone may suggest that if the cat is 15 pounds […]
Process Lead Time
October 26, 2009 by tapuniversity
To better understand a process, Process Lead Time may be calculated. This calculation is an foundational metric for both Lean and Six Sigma, or what is commonly referred to now as Lean Six Sigma. The formula for Process Lead Time = Work in Process (WIP) / Average Completion Rate. Work in Process is anything that […]
Defects per Million Opportunities and Yield
October 22, 2009 by tapuniversity
Defects per Million Opportunities (DPMO) is the flip side of Yield. DPMO is the number of defects in a million opportunities and Yield is the percentage of the output that is non-defective. For example, in Katy’s Cookie Factory, exactly one million chocolate chip cookies are made each week. They seem to have a problem with […]
What is a Green Belt?
October 21, 2009 by tapuniversity
Six Sigma differentiates people’s level of expertise in Six Sigma using the belt system. Supposedly this originated from a Motorola employee who had an affinity for karate. Be aware that different organizations and authors use slightly different definitions. Some organizations may only recognize a Green Belt, Black Belt, and Master Black Belt. Others also recognize […]
Ethics in Business Analysis
October 19, 2009 by tapuniversity
Ethics is part of the BABOK®’s Behavioral Characteristics competency, which is one of six general competencies that a successful business analyst should possess. For each competency, the BABOK lists effectiveness measures. These effectiveness measures for ethics include: making decisions that consider the interests of all stakeholders, being clear with the reasons for decisions, disclosing potential […]
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October 5, 2012 by Ryan Sauer
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