Often in professional development discussions young team members bring up the topic of becoming a manager.  My first question is always, “Why?”  As the conversation continues, I usually have to practice the 5 Why’s to get to the heart of the matter and I can share the truth about being a manager. As a manager, […]

Improving team engagement and motivation has been a hot topic for me this week.  It has become clear that the team at one of our suppliers is not performing as expected because the team’s engagement with the product and the job is not where it needs to be.  They are doing the functional part of […]

I caught up with an old friend one evening while I was on a business trip in southern California earlier this week.  After spending most of her career in larger companies with mature processes, she had recently joined a company still in the start-up phase.  While she has learned to appreciate that “putting steel in […]

If a process or a product hasn’t been going well for a while, frustration builds and some leaders try to fix it  by looking for solutions from wherever and from whomever they can.  This results in multiple parallel conversations and/or the team chasing after a dozen or more perceived solutions to the problem.  While everyone […]

This month I am working closely with one of our production teams to help fix some process issues.  I thought I would discuss my approach each week as a sort of diary on improving an Agile process.  Out of respect to the project team, I can’t give any context or details of the project itself.  […]

I had planned a longer post with some reflections on a process improvement project I have been working on.  However, the same project is contributing to longer hours at work and taking time away from writing.  Rather than wait until the weekend, I thought I would do a quick blog post and share a video […]