Simon Guilfoyle
- New blog - 'Ant Death March'. inspguilfoyle.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/ant… Will you break out of the spiral? Comments, RTs appreciated. Enjoy! 3 hours ago
- RT @KatieMagnet: This is BRILLIANT Act now before it is too late via @SimonJGuilfoyle Ant Death Circle wp.me/p1v66G-xh via @wordpres… 4 hours ago
- RT @InternalChoice: Ant Death Circle wp.me/p1v66G-xh via @SimonJGuilfoyle - Does your #organisation create these circles? #SystemsTh… 4 hours ago
- RT @PCDKirkwood: PCDKirkwood's Daily iBriefing is out! paper.li/PCDKirkwood/13… ▸ Top stories today via @ProtectRPolice @SimonJGuilfoyle @Spe… 4 hours ago
- @DaveHasney Liking the DBS mate! ;-) 4 hours ago
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Recent Posts
- Ant Death Circle
- Dial ‘F’ For Failure
- My Name is Bill King
- Finding the Source
- Panic!
- Ministry of Silly Systems
- One Thing Leads To Another
- Play Your Cards Right
- Do Something Different
- This Time Last Year
- Must Try Harder
- A System Fit For Heroes
- Barking Up The Wrong Tree
- Free Beer!
- On Purpose
- The Bells! The Bells!
- Spot The Difference
- Get Back! Stay Back!
- Pull The Other One
- Oh Deer
- Life in the Fast Lane
- Epic Fail
- Great Expectations
- Equally Wrong
- Troubled Thinking
- Poo-Pooing Performance Indicators
- Toilet Humour
- (Not So) Bad Performance Measurement On Tour (#3)
- Would You Like Sub-Optimization With That?
- Bad Performance Measurement on Tour (#2)
- Bad Performance Measurement on Tour (#1)
- How To Lose Weight With Systems Thinking
- Is That Large?
- Would You Sit Next To Me?
- No Cheese, Please!
- Please Take A Ticket
- Water on the Brain
- Check It Out
- Left Hand, Right Hand
- Potted!
- Cream or Ice Cream?
- A Short Pub Tale
- Divide And Don’t Conquer
- Pie In The Sky
- Binary Finary
- Watch Your Waste
- The Perfect Target
- “What’s Your Favourite Cheese?”
- Choose Your Own Adventure
- Stay Calm And Don’t Knee-Jerk.
Blog Stats
- 57,937 hits
Tag Archives: variation
Play Your Cards Right
Remember the classic TV game show ‘Play Your Cards Right’? (Showing my age now). If not, then the basic premise was to predict whether each card in a row was higher or lower than the previous one. If the contestant … Continue reading
Posted in Systems thinking
Tagged binary comparisons, performance measurement, prediction, systems thinking, targets, variation
4 Comments
This Time Last Year
Question: What have these four things got in common? 1. Choosing a random number generated by a lottery machine. 2. Reading tea leaves. 3. Blindfolding yourself and sticking a pin in a board. 4. Tossing a coin. Answer: They’re all better methods of … Continue reading
Posted in Systems thinking
Tagged binary comparisons, control charts, management, performance management, systems thinking, variation
7 Comments
Life in the Fast Lane
According to St Etienne, life is ‘like a motorway’. I’m not too sure about that, but I do know that a motorway is definitely like a system… (*ignores groans from readership*) During my travels on some of the nation’s motorways … Continue reading
Posted in Systems thinking
Tagged flow, motorway, process, systems, systems thinking, traffic, variation
10 Comments
Epic Fail
Yesterday, I saw this headline in a newspaper: “£136million spent by customers waiting to get through to HM Revenue and Customs”. The article bemoaned the amount of time that HMRC customers were left on hold (if they got through at … Continue reading
Posted in Systems thinking
Tagged assumptions, demand, deming, division of labour, failure demand, flow, management, systems, systems thinking, tax, variation, waste
5 Comments
Bad Performance Measurement on Tour (#2)
Just one day after Episode One of this tragedy series, one of my faithful readers told me about a target so ridiculous that it would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. During a hospital training session, those attending were … Continue reading
Posted in Systems thinking
Tagged deming, nhs, performance, performance management, police, systems, systems thinking, targets, variation
7 Comments
Bad Performance Measurement on Tour (#1)
A friend at work told me that whilst giving blood recently, he noticed there were performance indicators on a nearby board showing the number of blood donations, in the dreaded ‘this week vs last week’ format. Nothing’s sacred, is it? Anyway, this … Continue reading
Posted in Systems thinking
Tagged binary comparisons, control charts, data, deming, management, performance measurement, systems, systems thinking, targets, variation
8 Comments
How To Lose Weight With Systems Thinking
One of the key tenets of systems thinking is understanding variation. Deming said: “Life is variation. Variation there will always be, between people, in output, in service, in product”. This applies to weight loss as much as everything else. People … Continue reading
Posted in Systems thinking
Tagged binary comparisons, control chart, data, performance, spc, systems, systems thinking, variation
20 Comments
No Cheese, Please!
Someone recently asked me, “Why don’t you write blog posts about positive things?” I was surprised at first (and probably a bit defensive) as I think my posts are positive – after all, I don’t just go about kidney-punching management … Continue reading
Posted in Systems thinking
Tagged decision making, demand, division of labour, management, organisational culture, purpose, systems thinking, teamwork, variation, waste
6 Comments
