PMI Blog

To match the increasing demand for reducing waste, driving out inefficiency and reducing costs we are delighted to be able to announce new dates for our Lean Workshop course. This course teaches delegates the tools and techniques of Lean based improvement allowing them to understand and efficiently deliver value for both themselves and their customers.

The first 3 day course begins on 14th September in central London and costs just £1350, which includes access to our industry leading e-Learning series; the Lean Essentials.

To find out more about the course download a copy of the flyer here or call us on +44 (0)1676 522 766.
 

Picture the scene; it’s 1992 and a group of PMI training delegates are learning a series of consensus-buildingtools. The first task is to agree the meaning of the word. Still in the shadow of the 1980’s, consensus had a bad name amongst many.

So in our training and consulting programmes we always work first to agree on a definition of consensus; “a decision that all will support, even if some have reservations”. The test of a consensus decision is not in the room, at the time, it’s later - do people still support it, or do they dismiss it, undermining the decision and the way it was reached.

Why are PMI so enthusiastic about consensus then? It’s because we have learned that any kind of organisational transformation needs support from all, and it’s rare indeed for none of the participants to have reservations. Since 1992 we have used many of the quality tools in building consensus, as many PMI graduates reading this will know, ranging from an affinity diagram to a system map, or perhaps a PDPC contingency analysis.

20 years on and, consensus still doesn’t have a very good name in politics, but this year the electorate left their representatives with not much choice. The nation has watched as  it has  been developed with Conservatives and Liberal Democrats spending many hours together before agreeing their coalition terms. The longer it took, the more options were explored, the greater the chance that participants have developed their understanding to agree to something they previously had not thought of, or did not believe in.

So in 2010, if you were to visit a PMI consultancy and training session you would see consensus being built, using tools that have decades of development that reassure everyone that their voice is being heard, and that lead the group through a logical process that arrives at actions. Time and again these actions have led to unprecedented change and achievement. Hopefully something similar will be under way in the new coalition government, and that the UK can look forward to unprecedented achievement in that field as well.

If you are looking at how to build consensus and manage change then call us on +44 (0)1676 522766 and talk to one of our expert consultants.

We were delighted to recently sponsor and present at the 11th Annual Process Excellence Summit and Awards held in Chelsea, London.
The summit was well attended by Process Excellence professionals with Jan Gillett and Jane Seddon's presentation on Transformation being very well received.

The event was particularly successful for one of the visitors to our stand who won one of two Tiffany Bracelets that had been hidden by the organisers!

In addition to the seminars and exhibition the event also included the Process Excellence Awards which have been established to honour, recognise and celebrate projects that demonstrate true best practices.   

We sponsored the “Best Process Improvement Award” which was won by Deutsche Post DHL, with an honorary mention for Credit Suisse.  The award was presented by Rebecca Seddon who said “We are delighted to sponsor the Best Process Improvement award. It’s great to see so many people enthusiastic about improvement across all the award categories.” 

The annual Transformation Forum, held by the Deming Forum is taking place in May.

Held over 3 days, the Forum will present and share ideas, thinking and methods on how to transform any organisation in any economic situation.

To discover more about how to attend the event visit the website here or download the flyer.

Our public lean and six sigma training courses are now available in Manchester. Together with the CQI, we offer a range of training courses available online or classroom based. To find out more visit our public training pages here.

To see the full range of dates and locations available for all of our courses in 2010, download a copy of our public training calendar or give us a call on +44(0)1676 522 766.

Throughout the Autumn Jane Seddon and Jan Gillett have been presenting their latest paper at a number of global conferences. The paper “Natural Systems Principles, Systemic Leadership and the Deming Prize” is available to download here and has been well received at the ANQ conference in Tokyo, the European Business Excellence Summit in Brussels and most recently at the CQI’s World Quality Day at the Sellafield Centre.

The paper explores how, by using the principles underpinning the Deming Application Prize combined with the emerging knowledge of Natural Systems Principles a new formula for Systemic Transformation can be presented.

To talk about how any of the ideas presented in this paper can help your business call us on +44 (0)1676 522766.

We will be sponsoring and presenting at the 11th Annual Process Excellence Summit and Awards in April 2010. Visit our events page here for more details.

We are delighted to announce that the 5S Challenge, part of the Lean Essentials series from essential.genius, has won a Bronze award at the prestigious e.Learning Age Awards. 

The judges said “essential.genius has come up with a fine innovative game...it appeals to users’ competitive nature through real-life scenarios rather than abstract jigsaw puzzle type games.”

The 5S challenge is part of the Lean Essentials Series; find out more or watch a short trailer here.

We are delighted to announce an update to the content our popular Lean Six Sigma Green Belt course. We understand that  to gain the most benefit from the green belt tools our delegates need to be able to practice the techniques in a structured teaching environment. 

The inclusion of an enhanced simulation exercise - "Orb-it" allows them to do that; Head of Learning Systems Martyn Tebb explains:  “This is a very exciting development for us. Our challenge was to create a business simulation which delegates improve real time over the duration of the course.  A number of clients have told us just how real they think the simulation is and how much it helps transfer the classroom learning into the workplace”.
 
To find out more about our Lean Six Sigma Green Belt visit the course page here or call us on +44 (0)1676 522 766 and we’d be happy to talk through your training needs.