A very broken process
They must do this thousands of times a week all across the world and yet the process beggars belief. They are Ikea and the process is selling a kitchen to be delivered. It starts out promisingly. You can use an online, 3D design program to position your desired cabinets, drawers and appliances with the doors [...]
I can’t tie my shoes
I love to follow the talks on TED.com. They are always interesting and thought provoking. But little did I know that Terry Moore’s talk from 2005 would tell me that I have been doing up my shoelaces incorrectly all these years. If you have laces on your shoes, you have to watch this, it is [...]
Soldiers kill civilians for bonuses
Indian soldiers in Kashmir are being investigated by the local police because they may be killing civilians and then claiming that they are Islamic militants. Human rights activist Parvez Imroz was interviewed in an article by The Guardian where he said that soldiers received bonuses for each kill. He added that, “There are vested interests [...]
Why performance related pay is bad for the public sector
Glyn Lumley has written an excellent blog post entitled 10 reasons why performance-related pay should not be used in the public sector and I recommend reading it before proceeding with this post. I would like to add reason 11, which is hinted at in Glyn’s reasons 8 and 9. He cites Daniel Pink and Alfie [...]
Local Gov Camp Review – Part Two
This is the second part of the report of the Local Gov Camp – Yorkshire and Humber event. You can read the first part here. I wanted to break it into two since the first part is quite positive, I was very impressed with the enthusiasm of the attendees to firstly come in their own [...]
A target is not a plan
In the News section of the May 2010 edition of Qualityworld (who I have written for) there is a report on a vote by readers on which of the political parties have the best appreciation of change. I noted that one respondent wrote, The Tories’ critisism of targets indicates that they do not understand the [...]
Perverse process is caused by policy
In The Guardian: Dr Lansley’s prescription can only induce more perversity, comes: No business is immune from the perverse incentive. People will always find a way to work around financial incentives, and processes will evolve that look, well, perverse, until they’re traced back to the policy that created them. This goes further because it is [...]
Learning by shutting up
The possible political angle of the story of Clara Stokes receiving ‘inhumane’ treatment in a Luton hospital, according to her family, is not the reason for this post. Rather I am interested in the spokesman’s response at the bottom of the article. The family say that Clara was abandoned for hours at a time, left [...]
Openness is the new constraint
We live in a closed world. Even though they deal with tax payers money, government contracts are shielded by ‘commercial confidentiality’, we only get to hear about MPs expenses when they are leaked to a newspaper, Apple won’t let applications it doesn’t fancy onto its iPhone or iPad, scientists and commentators like Simon Singh are [...]
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