The Innovator's Toolkit - David Silverstein, Philip Samuel, Neil DeCarlo

50+ Techniques for Predictable and Sustainable Organic Growth

The Innovator's Toolkit is an essential companion for every innovator, innovation team leader, operations manager, and corporate change agent who needs to drive organic growth. 
Written and presented in an easy-to-use reference format, the book helps users understand why, when, and how to apply each technique for maximum benefits and results. 
The fifty-plus tools and techniques in this book are organized around a framework for identifying innovation opportunities, generating new and unusual ideas, selecting the best ideas for further refinement, and implementing new solutions that better meet customer expectations.
This revised second edition includes significant updates to nearly two dozen techniques.
Also offers several brand new techniques, including Idea Harvesting and Treatment, Seventy-six Standard Solutions, and Six Thinking Hats
This updated and revised edition of The Innovator's Toolkit simply helps innovation leaders, managers, and specialists do their jobs better than ever before giving them more confidence, greatly reducing the chance of expensive failures, and packing more practical innovation knowhow under one cover than ever before.

 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.com]

Goodreads Rating - 3.84 out of 5 (56 Ratings, 6 Reviews)

My Rating:  4 out of 5. 

Buying Options 
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(Anybody can read Kindle books—even without a Kindle device—with the FREE Kindle app for smartphones and tablets.)
 

Kanban in Action - Marcus Hammarberg & Joakim Sunden

Too much work and too little time? 

If this is daily life for your team, you need kanban, a lean knowledge-management method designed to involve all team members in continuous improvement of your process. Kanban in Action is a practical down-to-earth, no-frills, get-to-know-the-ropes introduction to kanban.
Written by two kanban coaches who have taught the method to dozens of teams, the book covers techniques for planning and forecasting, establishing meaningful metrics, visualizing queues and bottlenecks, and constructing and using a kanban board.
Written for all members of the development team, including leaders, coders, and business stakeholders. 
No experience with kanban is required.

What's Inside 

•     How to focus on work in process and finish faster
•     Examples of successful implementations
•     How team members can make informed decisions

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com]

Goodreads Rating - 4.19 out of 5 (79 Ratings, 20 Reviews)
My Rating:  4 out of 5. 

Buying Options 
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What Works for GE May Not Work For You - Lawrence Solow and Brenda Fake

Using Human System Dynamics to Build a Culture of Process Improvement
This book provides new tools for managing and sustaining process improvement in today’s complex non-linear environments and helps readers apply new, relevant theory to their own management practices. 

With more than 50 combined years of change management and process improvement consulting experience, the authors offer valuable practical insights for creating dynamic organizational change. The first section of the book describes the key bodies of knowledge and process improvement processes (Lean, Six Sigma, and Human Systems Dynamics) used throughout the text. 
The next two sections focus on the case story of TryinHard Marine. 
The authors first highlight the dynamics of a typical linear process improvement implementation. 
They then present ways to combat a range of complex, non-linear, and emergent organizational issues as they arise during the implementation of a Six Sigma initiative. 
The last part explains how to assess readiness to begin a process improvement initiative, select consultants and internal "Belt" candidates, and choose the appropriate tools for projects. The authors also introduce additional tools and concepts to enable adaptive action at all levels of an organization.
This book provides useful information for thinking and behaving in adaptive ways that can be applied to any organization. 
By using the concepts, models, and tools presented, readers can improve their own business improvement processes.

 [Source: www.amazon.com ]

Goodreads Rating - 3.0 out of 5 (2 Ratings; 0 Reviews)

My Review:
Being a process improvement professional for so many years has taught me that you cannot ignore the human element in any process improvement initiative. 
Nor can you take a cookie cutter approach of installing a methodology, model or framework without adapting it  to the needs of your own organization.
This book is a very good introduction on how to take into account the complexity of human interactions in an organizational level process improvement effort. 
Though the example given in this book is about Six Sigma the concepts are equally applicable for any process improvement initiative.  
Be it Agile, CMMI, Lean or any other flavor of the day.
A must read for all process improvement professionals !


Links:

• Book website
• Human System Dynamics Institute 

Buying Options 

Readers in India

 
Buy from Amazon.in  
Buy the Kindle book version
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Readers in Other Countries 
Buy from Amazon.com

Buy the Kindlle book  version
(Anybody can read Kindle books—even without a Kindle device—with the FREE Kindle app for smartphones and tablets.) 

High Performance Operations

Author:        Hillel Glazer
Published:    2011
Publisher:     FT Press
Hardcover:  272 pages

Buy from Flipkart

Acknowledgement :

I thank the author and the publisher for sending me a free pre-publication copy of this book  and seeking an honest opinion of mine through this blog post. It has been a privilege to have read this book before it was released.

Book Review:

Many organizations treat compliance requirements like SOX, CMMI , FDA, ISO 9001, which are imposed on them either by clients or regulatory authorities as a necessary evil or a dead weight which needs to be endured as a hygiene factor to sustain their business. 

But at the same time there are also some organizations (though in minority numbers) who have successfully leveraged the same compliance requirements to enhance their business performance and gained competitive advantage. The author Hillel Glazer has helped several such organizations to achieve this feat by creating process solutions that build compliance into the value stream using a system engineering approach.

This book provides the essence of this approach called Process Solutioneering (R) [ patent applied for by the author].

The key points regarding  effective handling of the compliance requirements as described in this book are:

• To effectively integrate compliance requirements into the operation one must tie in their expectations to performance requirements.
• Instead of focusing on the compliance practices specified in the standards, one should focus on the values from which these practices are derived. This will enable the operations to address these practices without unnecessary additional work.
• Any activity undertaken to meet the compliance requirements should contribute to TQ$ (Time, Quality and Money)
• Compliance requirements must be examined from the two perspectives - risk it is intended to avoid or/and the opportunity it intends to exploit. If an existing operation is already avoiding the expected the risk or exploiting the same opportunity, the effort required to achieve compliance is minimized.

The author has primarily aimed this book at managers and executives. And it has found its mark right on ! The book can be a real eye-opener for them when they realize how compliance issues can be effectively leveraged to transform their operations to a high performing one  provided they are willing to invest in terms of establishing appropriate leadership, culture, trust, autonomy, learning and communication system.

As far as the experienced and well read  business process management professionals are concerned they may be already  aware of many of  the concepts discussed in this book.

A few suggestions  to enhance the utility and popularity of this book - lesser repetitions of the same concept, more diagrams to support the explanations (for e.g. the analogy of  Lift, Drag ,Thrust in an aircraft), inclusion of real life case studies from the organizations where the author had been a consultants.

Look forward to a second edition or  a sequel which addresses these suggestions.

Useful Links:

• Author's blog about the book -www.hillelglazer.com
• Table of Contents, Sample Content

[Please feel free to leave your comments below or bookmark/share this summary]

Implementing Six Sigma and Lean - A Practical Guide to Tools and Techniques

Author:        Ron Basu

Published:    2009

Publisher:    Butterworth-Heinemann

Paperback: 376 pages

Readers in India

The author's objective is to provide a single source of reference tools and techniques commonly used in  any  quality initiatives especially - Six Sigma  and Lean -  in a comprehensive, user-friendly and hands-on book.
The book is divided in four parts:

• Part 1: The Foundations of Quality . Deals with some of the fundamentals and the perception of quality which varies significantly depending on the type of industry, economy and culture. 
• Part 2: Tools . Provides the definition, application, examples and training requirements of tools. It contains five chapters structured in the sequence of probable tools used in  Six Sigma methodology - DMAIC.
• Part 3: Techniques . Gives complete coverage of advanced quantitative techniques and team based qualitative techniques supported by examples, training requirements, benefits and pitfalls.
• Part 4: Implementation . This part provides a step-by-step approach of making it happen in all types of organization. Case studies are included to offer a practical insight of their applications. 14 Case studies are presented, however I wish at least one case study could have been from the software industry.

For more details on chapter wise coverage refer the preview of Table of Contents at Amazon.com 


The author makes a clear distinction between the terms "tools" and "techniques" which are interchangeably used in many books. 
He says "A single ‘ tool ’ may be described as a device which has a clear role and defined application. A ‘ technique ’ , on the other hand, may be viewed as a collection of tools".
The book describes:

• 38 Tools (e.g. SIPOC Diagram, Control Charts, SWOT Analysis, Value Stream Mapping etc.)
• 7 Quantitative Techniques - FMEA, SPC, QFD, DOE, DMAIC, DFSS and Monte Carlo Simulation
• 8 Qualitative Techniques - Benchmarking, Balanced Scorecard, EFQM, Sales and Operations Planning, Kanban, Activity Based Costing, QMS and Lean Thinking

For every tool and technique:

• Definition, application, basic steps and worked-out examples are provided.
• Training requirements , prerequisites and suggested duration are specified
• Both the benefits and pitfalls have been clearly stated so that a user can obtain a balanced view of the technique without being unduly influenced by its popularity, fashion or fad

This book also has an appendix describing in brief  14  popular Management Models, since they can help assess the 'big picture' of the business scenario and reduce the complexities involved in quality management.
The models described include - Ansoff's product/market matrix, BCG Matrix, McKinsey 7-S framework. 


The author also proposes his own methodology  FIT SIGMA which he claims will sustain Lean Six Sigma Implementation. It has  four additional features embedded in the Lean Six Sigma philosophy:

1. A formal Senior Management Review process at regular intervals, similar to the Sales and Operational planning process.
2. Periodic self-assessment with a structured checklist which is formalised by a certification or award, similar to EFQM award but with more emphasis on self-assessment.
3. A continuous learning and knowledge management programme.
4. The extension of the programme across the whole business with the shifting of the theme of variation control  of Six Sigma to the integration of a seamless organisation.


While I agree with the above points, I don't consider FIT SIGMA a very novel approach. It is just a branded common sense, found in several other quality programs too.


On the whole a very useful book for non-IT people ! Useful for IT professionals too, however since there are hardly any examples from IT industry, they need to put in some extra effort to see how they can map these tools and techniques to their day-to-day work.