A commenter on one of my posts suggested I write about how companies shift from focusing on “making widgets” to providing customer satisfaction.  What a great suggestion!  Companies known for customer satisfaction don’t just make it one department’s job.  All teams understand their customers and work to make them happy.  Here are some tips to […]

All too often, the following conversation happens in businesses everywhere: “We need to find someone to help us make this widget.” – “I have a friend/relative/golf buddy who does that.  Let’s go with them!” Doing business with someone you know through personal connections is a common practice.  It has its benefits:  you think you know […]

This week’s brief post is inspired by another recent blog article: Brad Power’s Where Have the Process Owners Gone? on the Harvard Business Review website.  I recognize the importance of having a dedicated Process Owners and formal process improvement governance and I would love to work with a company that really makes it work.  Throughout […]

Monty looks exactly like his profile photo: he is a small stuffed moose who is a fan of the Montreal Canadians, Tim Horton’s coffee, and loves making new friends.  Monty is also the official mascot of MEETin Montreal and as the City Lead for 2010, I had the opportunity to have some fun with Monty […]

There are three distinct phases in any product’s life cycle:  New Product Introduction (NPI), Sustaining, and End of Life (EOL). Most of the similarities between the industries I have worked in, and the applicable lessons learned, are in the first phase:  NPI. These lessons will be covered through a series of articles, each covering a […]

Back in 1999, when I started my new job with my customer in California, I took a couple of hours and wrote a list of everything I learned while I was on the supplier side of the desk so I wouldn’t forget now that I was on the customer side.  The list had both the […]