# Service Excellence Network

> Performance excellence for service and knowledge-work organisations


## Posts

- [Minimising High-Growth Complexity](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/minimising-high-growth-complexity/): This article explores the proliferation of organisational complexity, particularly under high-growth conditions, and how it can be counteracted.
- [Cultivating a Culture of Simplicity & Learning](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/cultivating-a-culture-of-simplicity-learning/): In today's ever-changing and competitive business landscape, organisations are constantly seeking ways to enhance their performance, adaptability, and competitive edge.
- [Orchestrating for Excellence](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/orchestrating-for-excellence/): In the world of business, achieving operational excellence is akin to the symphonic brilliance of a great orchestra.
- [First, Capture the Hearts and Minds of Your Workforce.](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/first-capture-the-hearts-and-minds-of-your-workforce/): In the ever-competitive landscape of modern business, organisational alignment and workforce commitment have moved from being desirable qualities to absolute necessities.
- [Complexity, Simplicity and Simplexity in Organisations](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/complexity-simplicity-and-simplexity-in-organisations/): In the realm of management and organisation, the concepts of complexity and simplicity have long been the subject of debate and discussion.
- [Navigating Complexity: Our Approach to Achieving High Performance](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/navigating-complexity-our-approach-to-achieving-high-performance/): In today's dynamic and competitive business landscape, organisations face a constant struggle to maintain and enhance their performance.
- [Six Simple Rules How Middle Managers & SIPOCs Can Simplify Unnecessary Complexity.](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/six-simple-rules-how-middle-managers-sipocs-can-simplify-unnecessary-complexity/): Modern businesses are enmeshed in a web of complexities. These complexities often lead to inefficiencies, reduced effectiveness, and decreased employee morale.
- [The Organisational Big Bang](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/the-organisational-big-bang/): The genesis of the universe and the founding of an organisation are cosmic events of vast potential, both heralding the emergence of something momentous.
- [Covey's 4DX Framework and Operational Excellence](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/coveys-4dx-framework-and-operational-excellence/): Operational Excellence (OpEx) and Stephen Covey’s The 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX) are two frameworks often cited for their effectiveness in achieving long-term objectives.
- [The Case of Reluctant Managers](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/the-case-of-reluctant-managers/): In his seminal book "Management", published in 1973, Peter Drucker foresaw the challenge of the reluctant manager that is facing today's organisations and their workforces.
- [Confusing "Getting Things Done" with "Executing Well"](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/confusing-getting-things-done-with-executing-well/): In today’s competitive business landscape, companies are under relentless pressure to deliver results quickly and are often judged by short-term performance goals.
- [The Indispensable Role of the Chief Operating Officer in Driving Operational Excellence](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/the-indispensable-role-of-the-chief-operating-officer-in-driving-operational-excellence/): In the increasingly complex landscape of modern business, the role of the Chief Operating Officer (COO) has evolved to become more critical than ever.
- [Solving Problems: A Paradigm Shift from Excuses to Excellence](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/solving-problems-a-paradigm-shift-from-excuses-to-excellence/): In today's fast-paced business environment, obstacles and challenges are inevitable.
- [Why Many Organisations Lack Formal Processes](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/why-many-organisations-lack-formal-processes/): Processes are to organisations as highways and railroads are to any modern economy.
- [The Imperative of Strategy Deployment in Achieving Operational Excellence](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/the-imperative-of-strategy-deployment-in-achieving-operational-excellence/): In the ever-evolving business landscape, the importance of a well-articulated strategy cannot be overstated.
- [How Operational Excellence Empowers People to Make Better Decisions](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/how-operational-excellence-empowers-people-to-make-better-decisions/): In today's fast-paced business environment, the ability to make informed, effective decisions is more crucial than ever.
- [SIPOC + CLOU = Game Changer](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/sipoc-clou-game-changer/): The combination of Colleague Letters of Understanding (CLOUs) and SIPOCs (Supplier, Input, Process, Output, Customer) can be a powerful approach to improving organizational processes and fostering a culture of clarity, accountability, and continuous improvement.
- [Complexity Is Not Doing The Simple Things Well](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/complexity-is-not-doing-the-simple-things-well/): In a bustling office filled with diligent employees, there was a common nemesis that plagued their daily tasks – a web of tangled ethernet cables.
- [Simplification Through Commitment](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/simplification-through-commitment/): In a world where organisational structures often resemble hierarchies with top-down decision-making, Morning Star stands as a beacon of innovation.
- [Why Todays Problems Often Come from YesterdaysSolutions……..and How to Break that Vicious Circle!](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/why-todays-problems-often-come-from-yesterdayssolutions-and-how-to-break-that-vicious-circle/): here”, what would be the answer?
- [Why Actively Managed Processes Tame Complexity and Empower People.](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/why-actively-managed-processes-tame-complexity-and-empower-people/): your organisation?
- [The Tangible Benefits of Operational Excellence](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/the-tangible-benefits-of-operational-excellence/): with minimal waste, cost, and errors.
- [The Futility of Planning for Certainty in an Uncertain World](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/the-futility-of-planning-for-certainty-in-an-uncertain-world/): (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) but persist with using old style business tools and methods that were designed for more stable and certain times.
- [The Pitfalls of Being a Results-Driven Organisation.](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/the-pitfalls-of-being-a-results-driven-organisation/): culture, not understanding its pitfalls.
- [IT Support team transformation](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/it-support-team-transformation/): CIO objective to redeploy/release 15% of their IT support headcount over 2 years.
- [Performance assessment: IT PMO](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/performance-assessment-it-pmo/): PMO process had not been adequately operationalised resulting in a lack of clarity in process roles & responsibilities and significant (>25%) inefficiencies in its execution.
- [Entanglement: The Core Driver of Frustration and Poor Productivity in Service and Knowledge-Work Organisations!](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/entanglement-the-core-driver-of-frustration-and-poor-productivity-in-service-and-knowledge-work-organisations/): Globally, the low productivity of the service and knowledge work sectors is causing governments and economies a major concern, given that they now account for over 80% of GDP and the bulk of employment growth.
- [Quality versus quality? Why knowing the difference can help change your organisation for the better.](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/quality-versus-quality-why-knowing-the-difference-can-help-change-your-organisation-for-the-better/): article proposing that "It’s time to stop measuring productivity" by Dominic Price, the resident "work futurist" at Atlassian.
- [The 4 Root Causes of Poor Effectiveness and Efficiency in Service and & Knowledge-Work Organisations (S&KWO)](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/the-4-root-causes-of-poor-effectiveness-and-efficiency-in-service-and-knowledge-work-organisations-skwo/): chart but at the front line of service delivery.
- [Team Leaders Without Training?: Just Dodgem!](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/team-leaders-without-training-just-dodgem/): Why is it that many newly appointed Team Leaders and Mid Level Managers receive little formal training in the hard skills of effective and efficient resource management, either before or after being appointed?
- [Without Substantiated Reasons, Can Managers Really Ask for More?](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/without-substantiated-reasons-can-managers-really-ask-for-more/): For those of us who have worked in the manufacturing and industrial sectors, the question posed in the headline would seem strange if not bizarre.
- [Why Service & Knowledge-Work Teams are "Pre-Lean" and Can Therefore Quickly Double Their Productivity or better!](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/why-service-knowledge-work-teams-are-pre-lean-and-can-therefore-quickly-double-their-productivity-or-better/): Most Service and Knowledge-Work Organisations are Pre-Lean and by that I mean, the core skills and disciplines of Operations Management, the operations management fundamentals, are weak or absent.
- [Collaborative Management and the "Planned Percent Complete" KPI](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/collaborative-management-and-the-planned-percent-complete-kpi/): Sometime back, while working with the Resource Teams in a large Information Technology client, a dispute arose amongst the resource team leaders, around how well the Project Management Office (PMO) was planning project work.
- [Measuring and Improving Service Productivity](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/measuring-and-improving-service-productivity/): goal, in the main due to the difficulty in measuring it. Productivity is the relationship between the inputs to a process and the process outputs.
- [McLaw & Associates and Xpertivity Join Forces](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/mclaw-associates-and-xpertivity-join-forces/): McLaw & Associates and Xpertivity Limited were both founded by Alex McDonnell and Paula Lawton.
- [Ryanair: A Lesson for Leaders, Managers, Unions and Society](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/ryanair-a-lesson-for-leaders-managers-unions-and-society/): There's been a lot of feedback on my earlier post on Ryanair supporting the post but also pointing out the great things that Ryanair has achieved for society such as low fares, the boom and ease in travel, growth in jobs, etc....all of which are true.
- [Ryanair: When Complex Adaptive Systems bite back!](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/ryanair-when-complex-adaptive-systems-bite-back/): Ryanair is Europe's largest airline and is probably the first modern day organisation to build a successful business model based on despising its customers, its people and its suppliers.
- ["Whistling Past The Graveyard" of Bad Performance Measures.](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/whistling-past-the-graveyard-of-bad-performance-measures/): In Ireland, where I come from, we have a tradition of folklore, mystery, tall tales, "sayings" and proverbs that cover every possible life situation, one of which is "whistling past the graveyard".
- [Easiest Way To Improve Performance? Step 1: Stop Making Things Worse!](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/easiest-way-to-improve-performance-step-1-stop-making-things-worse/): I work with service and knowledge work organisations and it's often quite surprising to them how much they can improve performance by just stopping making things worse.
- [Service Sectors Biggest Problem Solved: How Long is a Piece of String?](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/service-sectors-biggest-problem-solved-how-long-is-a-piece-of-string/): Anybody familiar with fractals will know that the answer to the question is "infinite".
- [Transforming Lean: Is Leans Roots in Japanese Religion and Culture holding it back?](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/transforming-lean-is-leans-roots-in-japanese-religion-and-culture-holding-it-back/): Christian Wittrock from Aarhus University in Denmark wrote an interesting paper* in 2015 tracing Leans roots in Japanese religion and culture.
- [Why "Cause" beats "Urgency" every time.](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/why-cause-beats-urgency-every-time/): I admire John P Kotter, I have been an avid reader of his books and an evangelist for his message about leading change.
- [What is Lean Enterprise Excellence & Operational Excellence](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/what-is-lean-enterprise-excellence-operational-excellence/)
- [Today's Problems Come From Yesterdays Solutions.](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/todays-problems-come-from-yesterdays-solutions/): The above quote from Peter Senge's great book "The Fifth Discipline" is one of those profound pieces of wisdom that, even when said out loud,, doesn't always capture the depth of the insight.
- [Joined-Up Thinking and the "Germ Theory of Management"](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/joined-up-thinking-and-the-germ-theory-of-management/): If I hear another commentator, while bemoaning the ills of our country (any country but in my case Ireland), say that "what we need is some joined-up thinking" and say it as if it's some "as-yet-to-be-found" sub-atomic particle, or is buried under an Arctic icecap and remains unreachable, then I am afraid I am likely to scream.
- [When Fixing What's Broken Doesn't Work](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/when-fixing-whats-broken-doesnt-work/): For over 30 years now I have been engaged by organisations in the service and knowledge-work sectors to help them improve their performance.
- [Confusing Common Practices with Best Practices](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/confusing-common-practices-with-best-practices/): I work quite a bit with helping senior management teams improve the performance of their organisations and one of the most common issues I come across is the confusion between "common practices" and "best practices".
- ["The measure of intelligence is the ability to change."](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/the-measure-of-intelligence-is-the-ability-to-change/): That quote from Albert Einstein has a particular resonance today, given the recent troubles of one of our (Irish) national political parties, Fine Gael and it's handling of the "Alan Shatter affair".
- [Why TPS is not "Lean for The Masses" ....hint, the answer is in the name!](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/why-tps-is-not-lean-for-the-masses-hint-the-answer-is-in-the-name/): At the risk of being branded a heretic, I'd like to propose that, in their seminal books on Lean (The Machine that Changed the World and Lean Thinking), Womack and Jones saw two distinct forces in action when they visited Toyota and which they mistakenly combined into their description of Lean.
- [40% Productivity Improvement: Public Sector](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/40-productivity-improvement-public-sector/): “We tried applying Lean our own but struggled to make it relevant to our day to day work.
- [Laying Lean Foundations for Serious Growth](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/laying-lean-foundations-for-serious-growth/): What was at stake?
- [Lean Operations: Global Banking](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/lean-operations-global-banking/): The client, an Irish subsidiary of a foreign bank, needed staff and cost reduction in order to keep their doors open.
- [Lean Transformation at KTL](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/lean-transformation-at-ktl/): “..agility can come at a significant cost to the bottom line.
- [Operational Excellence for Future Expansion: Large Health Organisation](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/operational-excellence-for-future-expansion-large-health-organisation/): In 2016, the client embarked on a digital transformation programme to improve their digital presence and their online service delivery.
- [Significant capacity release: Insurance](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/significant-capacity-release-insurance/): The company needed to significantly increase the capacity of its Centralised Operations Team, which handles centralised back-office administration for all insurance policy processing.
- [Why Common Practice is Not Best (or Better) Practice!](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/why-common-practice-is-not-best-or-better-practice/): In speaking to managers in service and knowledge work organisations, I'm often told that "we already employ industry best practices" but often find that what they really mean is "we employ industry common practices" which is not the same thing.
- [Demand and Capacity Management of Remote Working Teams in the "Post Covid" Era](https://serviceexcellencenetwork.com/demand-and-capacity-management-of-remote-working-teams-in-the-post-covid-era/): The problem of productivity and utilization is another challenge since it is difficult to gauge someone’s pace of work when everyone on the floor is working on their PC.

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