PMI Blog

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.

On September 3rd we celebrated out 25th Anniversary in style with a party for over 90 customers, suppliers, contacts, friends and employees from the last 25 years.

The evening was a great success bringing together stories and memories from the past as well as hopes and thoughts for the future. The feature of the evening was an on-stage interview with PMI’s Jane Seddon and Jan Gillett in which they discussed their highlights from the past 25 years. 

To discover more about how we’ve been celebrating visit our 25th Anniversary section here.

PMI’s Jan Gillett comments on the issue of bonuses and performance related pay in the July issue of Management Today.

Responding to the question of whether bonuses should be phased out altogether Jan comments that “There has never been an independent, peer-reviewed report demonstrating the long-term positive correlation between performance-related pay and organisational achievement.  We shouldn’t forget the emotional and psychological side of these kinds of pay structures, which benefit a small minority of workers at the top of an organisation, and this represents a tiny proportion of the intellectual capital of the organisation as a whole. Those who don’t get a bonus, or who get a relatively small one, and who know how arbitrary the bonus awards process is, can become profoundly de-motivated.”

The full article, which explores all the arguments surrounding bonus cultures, can be viewed here.
 

This month has seen us sponsor two “3 Peak Challenge” teams on behalf of our supported charity - The Nagajuna Trust. The aim of the trust is to support impoverished orphaned children in Nepal by providing them with a stable home and school.

Before the challenge we spoke to Midlands Team Leader and PMI Consultant Dennis Crommentuijn-Marsh about how he thought the challenge would go and his motivation for doing it.

For those who don’t know, what is the 3 Peak Challenge?
It’s basically a 24 hour walk across the three tallest mountains in the UK. Ben Nevis in Scotland, Scafell Pike in England and Snowdon in Wales. It is 42km walking, and a total of 2600m climbing and back down again. The drivers will be doing about 1200 miles.

Sounds tough! Why are you doing the 3 Peak challenge?
Firstly - for fun! As well as that though because personally I want to raise the most amount of money possible for the Nagajuna Trust. This will enable them to ensure that they have enough money to build a permanent school.

So what made you choose the 3 Peak challenge then? Why not just a fun-run?
I always do a big thing every year with my mates so we were thinking of what to do when it hit me, why don’t we do the 3 peak challenge? But we needed a strong team. So I asked all my mates and we now have 8 of us in the Midlands team. Amazingly At the same time, Rebecca Seddon, chairperson of the Nagajuna Trust had the same idea, and she formed the London team, consisting of 8 of her mates. So when we rang each other, it was absolutely clear that we would do this on the same date.

Do you have any targets?
Well to start I would like to not only finish it but to finish it in 24 hours. Secondly again raise the most for the charity. Finally there’s a Nagajuna Trust target, to raise £100,000 so the school can be built.”

How are you keeping people informed?
Firstly we set up donation sites on justgiving.com. We updated our progress live using Twitter This will enable well-wishers across the world to see how we are doing; especially worried mothers! There is also a blog on the Nagajuna site, with photos on Flickr. So all the latest technology is used!

Finally how do you think this will help the charity?
The Nagajuna Trust requires £100,000 to build the school. Whatever we raise through this challenge will contribute towards this. We want to create a sustainable situation, where we have a permanent school, where the children, ranging from 4 to 14, get food, a bed, love and education.”
 

Both the Midlands and the London team successfully conquered all 3 peaks within 24 hours and in the process raised over £5,000 for The Nagajuna Trust. To find out more about how they got on or to donate to the cause visit the Nagajuna website here

We are 25 this year and to celebrate this we have been talking to clients, colleagues, friends and partners from the last 25 years about their experiences of process and business improvement with PMI.

In the featured interview this week, David Walter (ex BBC and ITN) talks with Jane Seddon, PMI’s Managing Director about our approach to process management over the last 25 years and the importance of understanding organisations as systems. Jane also offers an insight into how to survive the current economic turmoil by taking Dr Deming’s theories and using them to move forward.

You can view all of the content associated with our 25th birthday here or why not sign up to our RSS feed to get regular updates delivered direct to your inbox.
 

PMI's Jan Gillett and Jane Seddon respond to the news  that an NHS scheme is being launched to use £20m as prizes for the best ideas for improvement.

The article, which has been featured in the business pages of The Observer, discusses how real improvement can be achieved only by using suggestion schemes systematically and that they can only work when they form an integrated part of the whole system.

The article from The Observer can be viewed here or download the full PMI paper here (PDF, 56k).

To find out how PMI can help you achieve improvement in your organsiation contact us on +44 (0)1676 522 766