Randy Lerner

[PaulWinch again]

I am a big fan of Traore and the big difference with him, regardless of the alleged inflated wages is that, unlike large chunks of our squad he retains sell on value.

I think there's a lot of potential there, he just need to get fit and be coached well.

[Villa in Denmark]

My three major recommendations:

1)Buy lots of better footballers. This will involve capital investment but has a positive effect on the actual football side of the business. I believe in turn this will lead to better results, which research has shown can lead to increased income.

2)Employ senior, board room level types that have actually performed the role you require elsewhere.

3)Keep the manager.


Where do I send the invoice?

As a general point, their are 2 problems with No 2.

1 is that no new blood ever gets into the system, if you only employ people who've already proven they can do it.
2 If you only ever employ people who've proven that they can do it, you end up with people who are past their sell by date. The 2 obvious examples for me are managers rather than boardroom / executive types.  SGT should never have come back for round 2 and Nottingham Forrest would have been well served by pensioning Brian Clough off 2 years earlier.

In our instance, yes people who can just come in and get going from day 1 are vital.

I absolutely appreciate that, those solutions are specific to our current plight.

Or what else are you paying me for? It's not just consultancy by numbers you know.

*huffs, turns back, pretends to study important paperwork*

Shouldn't that be walks off studying a clipboard?

[LeeB]

My three major recommendations:

1)Buy lots of better footballers. This will involve capital investment but has a positive effect on the actual football side of the business. I believe in turn this will lead to better results, which research has shown can lead to increased income.

2)Employ senior, board room level types that have actually performed the role you require elsewhere.

3)Keep the manager.


Where do I send the invoice?

As a general point, their are 2 problems with No 2.

1 is that no new blood ever gets into the system, if you only employ people who've already proven they can do it.
2 If you only ever employ people who've proven that they can do it, you end up with people who are past their sell by date. The 2 obvious examples for me are managers rather than boardroom / executive types.  SGT should never have come back for round 2 and Nottingham Forrest would have been well served by pensioning Brian Clough off 2 years earlier.

In our instance, yes people who can just come in and get going from day 1 are vital.

I absolutely appreciate that, those solutions are specific to our current plight.

Or what else are you paying me for? It's not just consultancy by numbers you know.

*huffs, turns back, pretends to study important paperwork*

Shouldn't that be walks off studying a clipboard?

note to self: investigate Villa in Demark's role in the organisation, with a view to economising.

[Villa in Denmark]

Note to LeeB.

Leave Villa in Denmark's organisation alone. They're currently undergoing the most half arsed implementation of Lean he's experienced which is mildly amusing if you know where the jokes are. Unless you want to cull about half of management which expanded by 5 whilst the rest of the organisation went down by 60 in the last "rationalisation"

[cheltenhamlion]

We haven't had a Lean round for a couple of years. It might work in big manufacturing, it fucking doesn't in house insurance.

[Villa in Denmark]

We haven't had a Lean round for a couple of years. It might work in big manufacturing, it fucking doesn't in house insurance.

It works well in production line environments, which is where it comes from, originally being Toyota Manufacturing System.

There's bits of it that can be applied to most environments, the trick being to use the 3 or 4 methods that are actually applicable and preferably don't mention the words Lean, Six Sigma, 5S or any of the other 50-60 "tools" that make up lean.

Our latest has been to implement 5S in the engineering office. (Or tidy your desk before you go home)

[pauliewalnuts]

I don't know much about lean, but - talking of Toyota originated systems - we have what we call "an evolving agile environment" in our place.

So, we talk loads about agile and scrum, and some of it, we do - stand ups, backlog planning, sprints - but so much of it is totally impractical in our place that it becomes really unrecognisable as scrum. It's just a pick and mix of stuff we can and can't do.

I had to go on a certified scrum master training course before christmas (all management have to - despite us never having to function as scrum masters).

Within the first hour, the trainer started telling us how, if we didn't have our product owner embedded with the team full time, it just wasn't ever going to work as it "isn't scrum". I asked her what the fuck we're meant to do if that can't ever happen within our structure (at our place, it can't) and the answer was to just keep on asking people until it did happen. Marvellous.

I'm pretty sure that at our place the efficiency savings which we make through our bastardised version of scrum are all spunked away in the time we waste talking about scrum / debating whether we're ever going to be agile / evangelising scrum to others in the company.

The easiest way for consultants to improve things at our place would be to come in with AK-47s and a helpful member of staff pointing out the colleagues we could do without.

[Chris Smith]

I see Lean much like Prince or ITIL in that it gives you the basic tools but then has to be adapted for the specifics of individual organisations. The problem is that often those conducting the training know the theory inside out but have little experience of implementation.

[Sexual Ealing]

I don't know much about lean, but - talking of Toyota originated systems - we have what we call "an evolving agile environment" in our place.

So, we talk loads about agile and scrum, and some of it, we do - stand ups, backlog planning, sprints - but so much of it is totally impractical in our place that it becomes really unrecognisable as scrum. It's just a pick and mix of stuff we can and can't do.

I had to go on a certified scrum master training course before christmas (all management have to - despite us never having to function as scrum masters).

Within the first hour, the trainer started telling us how, if we didn't have our product owner embedded with the team full time, it just wasn't ever going to work as it "isn't scrum". I asked her what the fuck we're meant to do if that can't ever happen within our structure (at our place, it can't) and the answer was to just keep on asking people until it did happen. Marvellous.

I'm pretty sure that at our place the efficiency savings which we make through our bastardised version of scrum are all spunked away in the time we waste talking about scrum / debating whether we're ever going to be agile / evangelising scrum to others in the company.

The easiest way for consultants to improve things at our place would be to come in with AK-47s and a helpful member of staff pointing out the colleagues we could do without.

I work in the wankiest digital content producer in Soho and I STILL don't have a clue what any of that means!

[dave.woodhall]

I don't know much about lean, but - talking of Toyota originated systems - we have what we call "an evolving agile environment" in our place.

So, we talk loads about agile and scrum, and some of it, we do - stand ups, backlog planning, sprints - but so much of it is totally impractical in our place that it becomes really unrecognisable as scrum. It's just a pick and mix of stuff we can and can't do.

I had to go on a certified scrum master training course before christmas (all management have to - despite us never having to function as scrum masters).

Within the first hour, the trainer started telling us how, if we didn't have our product owner embedded with the team full time, it just wasn't ever going to work as it "isn't scrum". I asked her what the fuck we're meant to do if that can't ever happen within our structure (at our place, it can't) and the answer was to just keep on asking people until it did happen. Marvellous.

I'm pretty sure that at our place the efficiency savings which we make through our bastardised version of scrum are all spunked away in the time we waste talking about scrum / debating whether we're ever going to be agile / evangelising scrum to others in the company.

The easiest way for consultants to improve things at our place would be to come in with AK-47s and a helpful member of staff pointing out the colleagues we could do without.

I work in the wankiest digital content producer in Soho and I STILL don't have a clue what any of that means!

I think Paulie's got a job as a rugby coach.

[Sexual Ealing]

I don't know much about lean, but - talking of Toyota originated systems - we have what we call "an evolving agile environment" in our place.

So, we talk loads about agile and scrum, and some of it, we do - stand ups, backlog planning, sprints - but so much of it is totally impractical in our place that it becomes really unrecognisable as scrum. It's just a pick and mix of stuff we can and can't do.

I had to go on a certified scrum master training course before christmas (all management have to - despite us never having to function as scrum masters).

Within the first hour, the trainer started telling us how, if we didn't have our product owner embedded with the team full time, it just wasn't ever going to work as it "isn't scrum". I asked her what the fuck we're meant to do if that can't ever happen within our structure (at our place, it can't) and the answer was to just keep on asking people until it did happen. Marvellous.

I'm pretty sure that at our place the efficiency savings which we make through our bastardised version of scrum are all spunked away in the time we waste talking about scrum / debating whether we're ever going to be agile / evangelising scrum to others in the company.

The easiest way for consultants to improve things at our place would be to come in with AK-47s and a helpful member of staff pointing out the colleagues we could do without.

I work in the wankiest digital content producer in Soho and I STILL don't have a clue what any of that means!

I think Paulie's got a job as a rugby coach.

I thought that. And in that context, if I ever came across a 'stand up' I think I'd sprint too.

[PeterWithesShin]

I knew exactly what Paulie meant until he said "about Lean" and then I was lost from that point onwards.

[CJ]

I left the rat race 7 years ago and I really,really, really don't miss all the corporate bollocks. It's put my blood pressure up just reading what the latest management bullshit is about these days and I'm well out of it

[pbavfckuwait]

We are a goverment owned company, with a agreement with DSME (Korean) to provide production management and the CEO, every time something goes wrong, a regular event, there is the shout of reorganize, this department will answer to this person now, instead of this person, what I would give for independent consultants to come in and shake the bastards up.

[aev]

I don't know much about lean, but - talking of Toyota originated systems - we have what we call "an evolving agile environment" in our place.

So, we talk loads about agile and scrum, and some of it, we do - stand ups, backlog planning, sprints - but so much of it is totally impractical in our place that it becomes really unrecognisable as scrum. It's just a pick and mix of stuff we can and can't do.

I had to go on a certified scrum master training course before christmas (all management have to - despite us never having to function as scrum masters).

Within the first hour, the trainer started telling us how, if we didn't have our product owner embedded with the team full time, it just wasn't ever going to work as it "isn't scrum". I asked her what the fuck we're meant to do if that can't ever happen within our structure (at our place, it can't) and the answer was to just keep on asking people until it did happen. Marvellous.

I'm pretty sure that at our place the efficiency savings which we make through our bastardised version of scrum are all spunked away in the time we waste talking about scrum / debating whether we're ever going to be agile / evangelising scrum to others in the company.

The easiest way for consultants to improve things at our place would be to come in with AK-47s and a helpful member of staff pointing out the colleagues we could do without.

I work in the wankiest digital content producer in Soho and I STILL don't have a clue what any of that means!

Are you more Clem Fandango or Danny Bear?