Browsing: Best Practices

Just about every functional organization (e.g. IT, HR, Finance, Procurement, Legal, Marketing, etc.) can be measured against a maturity model.  The use of a maturity model allows an organization to have its processes and practices assessed against a set of external benchmarks, best practices or even next practices.…

Share.

I’m not a huge baseball fan, but my daughter gave me the book Moneyball (used at many leading business schools) by Michael Lewis and I was eager to see the movie. Brad Pitt takes a break from his jet-setting life with Angelina Jolie to play Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team. Billy Beane is well-known for fundamentally redefining the way baseball teams make decisions and challenging the way teams had been managed for over a century. He essentially changes the decision criteria used to select players to a much more fact-based model, which focuses on the real value the players bring toward the Intended Consequences (getting a win). Once he redesigns the consonants (People, Process, Technology), he quickly realizes that getting to the expected results is still far away. It’s not until he focuses on the vowels (Adoption, Execution, Implementation, Optimization and Utilization) that the results start showing up. The constraints he faces should sound very, very familiar to everyone. Follow the trail and tell me if you agree that we all need to be a Brad Pitt (no that does not come with Angelina Jolie).

Share.

Ever wonder why companies that officially “Go Green” frequently fail to accomplish much? So did the author of today’s blog. Read on to get a new perspective on this example of “transformations”

Share.

This Blog will “Challenge your Change Team to re-examine the “logic” behind your measures or the measures that are important to your stakeholders.” Why is that an important step in successful change efforts? Read more to find out.

Share.

One of my favorite presentations of the day was delivered by Alistair Donald, the Chief Procurement Officer of Global Procurement Services of ConocoPhillips Company. Alistair’s presentation had a James Bond / Secret Agent theme which made it very entertaining as well as informative. Alistair has a wonderful story to tell of his success in transforming the Supply Management function within ConocoPhillips. Michael Lamereaux from Sourcing Innovation, an NPX attendee, wrote that Supply Management has been a key contributor to ConocoPhillips’ financial success over the last several years in his blog post, Supply Management: Secret Agent of Business Improvement (Key NPX Take Away 5) where he articulated Alistair’s value contributors.

Share.
1 2 3