Visual Management requires a well thought-out strategy. The purpose is to inform the human brain in a calm, consistent, organized way. But just when you think you have everything in place, technology requires action. You need to update, fix, or replace a system. And because all your systems are threaded together in an intricate web, one change affects the whole chain. It’s far from ideal.…
Here’s a little experiment: look at a photo of an elephant, put it away, and try not to picture the elephant within the next few seconds. Go. Now. Done? The picture of the elephant was on your mind the whole time, wasn’t it? That’s your brain at work. It has a will of its own. See, all sensory information enters our brain. There’s no stopping…
Before the pandemic hit, the office was the contact center manager’s floor. Now, this floor has expanded significantly: people across the globe work from home, and there’s no way to check their every move. This new way of working doesn’t seem to be a temporary thing. More and more organizations agree people will continue to work remotely after the pandemic, be it in whole or…
If reports come in too late, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to solve today’s problems. It’s a predicament many contact centers struggle with. But what if actionable, real-time data can help you improve today so you’ll perform better tomorrow? It’s exactly what performance boards and a well thought-out information sharing strategy have done for APG, the largest pension provider in the Netherlands. Here, the…
As we live in unprecedented times, we need to make decisions we’ve never had to make before. This means we’re forced to make 100% of decisions using 50% of information, as the Dutch prime minister put it. We’re navigating unexplored territory, so it’s the only possible approach. Here’s what we have observed, though: many organizations have adopted this motto when it comes to business, too.…
In our last blog post, we discussed why it’s important to ban fake news if you want to foster organizational growth. The thing is, a hard-working manager may choose to disregard hard-and-fast data so they won’t have to admit to not meeting their targets — pride tends to get in the way of success, and that’s understandable. But from an organizational perspective, it’s paramount that…
Waste: we’ve been mentioning the term quite often in our blogs. But what does it look like in practice? Basically, there are eight types of waste. Today, we’d like to highlight two of these – ‘Talent’ and ‘Motion’ – through a real-life example: a top-tier logistics operator that has been working with Texas Digital Europe to become more Lean. ‘Wasting’ Motion and Talent: trouble in…
The 2020 presidential election in the United States has been nerve-racking. The neck-and-neck race has given rise to much debate and dissension, and the discussion about fake news versus real news has once again flared up. One big question is who is sharing the facts. Another is, who’s open to learning them? The sad fact of the matter is, some people prefer having dust thrown…
You know those horseback riders who use their spurs to urge the horse forward? They want to be in full control of the animal, and they do not shrink from using force to achieve their goal. Traditional project managers are the horseback riders of the office: they want to be in charge of everything. All the time. But you know what? In today’s world of…
The world has changed. In recent months, most people have worked from home. But what started out of necessity has come with unexpected benefits, which are definitely worth exploring from a business point of view. What are the outcomes of remote working, and what do people need to work optimally from the comfort of their own home? Remote working is here to stay A German…
