The (over) Enthusiasm of Youth. A long time ago (over quarter of a century), in a Galaxy far, far away (St. Mellons, East Cardiff) I learnt all about Root Cause Analysis (RCA), and my life was enriched. I was freshly equipped with a science degree, doing science based things at work and RCA fitted perfectly. […]
Getting Excited About Governance
Governance isn’t one of those words you’d typically associate with ‘enthusiasm’ or dare we say it ‘excitement’. Strange as it may seem, governance is something that we (Kate and Chris) do get excited and enthusiastic about. We probably spend more time talking about it than might be considered reasonable. There are good reasons for this. […]
Scaffolding: Temporary, Lightweight and a Utilitarian Metaphor.
I’m a bit of a sucker for metaphors. Which one of these descriptions works best for you? Option A. “To make this project something that will be a success for many years we need to put up the right sort of ‘scaffold’ to help it develop…” Option B. “To ensure the successful delivery of the […]
Customer Contact Centers After Covid. More Human, More Local, More Joyful?
It’s Down By There… I had two experiences of Customer Services this week. One was a terrible grind, the other left me feeling joyful. The terrible grind is what you might expect when trying to cancel a conscription* with a massive global company. You don’t actually get to speak to anyone human. It’s just a […]
Knowledge Management is like a Boomerang.
There’s so much I don’t know (about knowledge). I don’t feel particularly confident about writing this post. The more I’ve learnt about ‘knowledge’, the more I realise that I don’t know very much. However, sometimes I feel the need to speak out – in a helpful sort of way – to prevent others making the […]
What do Amazon’s Business Model and a COVID-19 Rapid Learning Engine have in common?
This is not as tenuous as it sounds. Have a glance at the image above and ponder on this. It was originally drawn in the early 2000’s by Jeff Bezos, on a paper napkin. Described as the ‘virtuous cycle’ its been at the heart of Amazon’s approach, and part of them becoming one of the […]
Facilitation Sketchnotes
I’ve been experimenting with some drawings / sketchnotes of facilitation methods I’ve used a lot, or fall back on at various moments. I was planning to have done something a bit more structured with them, but that’s proving to be a challenge at the moment – so I’m just parking 4 of them here until […]
Ray Cats. The Ultimate Wellbeing of Future Generations Job.
How do you send a message to someone 10,000 years in the future? It’s not a question I’d imagine most of us think about every day. Even the people who have Futurologist in their job title, or work on the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act (Wales) probably don’t stretch to 10,000 years in the future […]
Pathological to Generative. Moving up the Regulation Culture Ladder with Bruce.
Love Your Auditor. A wise person* once explained to me why they enjoyed a visit from their auditors. The gist of the story revolved around the benefit provided by auditors in presenting an ‘outside viewpoint’, something valuable that helped them improve their business. A challenge in the style of a ‘critical friend’ was a catalyst […]
Volunteer Fire Departments and Community Building. Neighbours helping Neighbours. #ChurchillFellowship Post 16
There are 337 Fire Departments in the State of Maine USA, and 94% (316 of them) are Volunteer Fire Departments (VFDs). For a population of roughly 1.3 million, that works out at about 1 Fire Department per 3,964 Mainers. In Wales we have approximately 153 Fire and Rescue Stations, all operated by paid professionals. For […]
