Yes, it’s been several months since I’ve posted, although that doesn’t mean I’ve not been musing.  Just too many things on the plate. However, here’s a short collection of thoughts.

Webinars: 1) One of the most frustrating things I’ve experienced in the past couple of years is just how long the introductions are for a 1-hour webinar.  Often it’s a review of a very long bio of the speaker(s).  My view is that if we’re already attending we probably have read this in the promotion materials, and taking up 7 minutes before getting to the topic is waste.  Maybe I’m the only one who thinks like this? 2) How many times do we have to hear “That’s a great question”? 3) Amazing how many people don’t ensure they are muted when entering late.

Root Cause Analysis: Far too often people seem to think of RCA as an employee involvement process.  That doesn’t mean that sometimes a cross-functional team, or multiple personnel, aren’t useful.  But the purpose should be (and therefore the organization of the RCA) to solve the problem.  A byproduct of learning and cooperation is great, but don’t involve people just to be involving them.

Aggregate Metrics: I’ve never been a fan of aggregate metrics, such as OEE.  Recently was thinking about the dangers of using P/E ratios as an investment screening criteria and it points out the same.  If you think a company’s P/E ratio is low and therefore a good investment, you should ask yourself whether it’s low because the Price is low (e.g., the share price has dropped due to perception of their future success), or their Earnings have gone up (due to past success).  In other words, aggregate metrics don’t really tell the story … only the individual metrics involved in the aggregate do.

And finally, if you’ve not looked at my YouTube page you might want to do so.  I’ve started to load some presentations on it.  Current topics include risk management and root cause analysis.