Management Speak / Talking Bolleaux

[An Teallach]

Well chaps and chapesses, sad to say but things are a bit LEAN up here in God's own country. Upshot is: AT is considering getting back on Auntie Betty's payroll.

Sufficient grey matter appears to have survived the onslaught of Guinness and Islay malt that I can actually remember how to do the actual military stuff. Whoopee!

Question is, it appears from the LEAN thread that MOD hasn't learned yet that most of these management fads are just repackaged / bureaucratized crap sold by some charlatan who's read the principles of war, Sun Tzu, Adair, Slim et. al. without really understanding any of them.

All of the civvy companies I've worked for ran a mile from this kind of tosh. I'd therefore be most grateful for a crash course from fellow ppruners so that, should I go through with it, I will be able to talk bolleaux with the best of them, or at least understand the bolleaux that they are talking to me! :ok:

I see LEAN has been bought in to. Is IIP (expensively packaged and bureaucratized common sense) still on the go? What about TQM? any other TLAs or FLAs I should be aware of?

[flipster]

If your TLAs are AOK you get an OBE (Other Buggers' Efforts) -while your NCOs get NFI OOA and PVR when they RTB because....................................................?

[An Teallach]

Cheers, Flipster. But as I said, the mil stuff is still with me. It's the latest imported civvy management fad bolleaux that I'm after.

[Tuba Mirum]

This thread (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=187108&highlight=management) may prove useful. :rolleyes:

[An Teallach]

Tuba

Ingemisco, tamquam reus:
culpa rubet vultus meus:
supplicanti parce Deus.

That was tongue in cheek. My question is specific to the RAF so your thread is less than useful. Thanks for the effort, but may I respectfully suggest that you take your :rolleyes:, and your trumpet and spargens sonum mirum elsewhere.

[Impiger]

AT

If you can still remember all the old military bolleaux then you should be OK. IIP is still with us; as is the unbalanced scorecard. EFQM seems to have been put on the back burner but we're still talking 'outcomes' and 'matrix management' as well as my old favourite the 'functionally integrated but geographically separated staff' = I don't care where you are you do as I say!

We're also big on 'efficiency' but most horrendous of all is the sway that civil servants who couldn't organise, let alone fight, their way out of a soggy paper bag hold over defence policy.

Oh and the latest management speak is all about 'work - life balance' which I think is the modern version of QOL.

But all that aside its still a hoot and roar and where else do you get paid good money for flying aircraft, shooting the sh1t and turning money into memories via a bucket of beer? (well 2 out of 3 ain't bad!).

[An Teallach]

Cheers Impiger.

Balanced Scorecard was a new one on me. On superficial (interweb) reading, would anyone be able to differentiate it from properly conducted combat appreciation with due consideration of Adair's Team / Task / Individual intersecting circles?

[Roland Pulfrew]

AT

Sadly Investors in Paperwork is still in being and is shortly to be joined by the latest bolleaux.....that of Investors in Excellence!!! EFQM is still with us so that we can get an ISO Award. Just what ISO we get for invading countries, winning wars (large and small), NEOs etc etc is not explained.

But I have seen the light. All of these innovations are created by the latest company out to make money, the British Quality Foundation IIRC in the case of IiE. So I am going to start a new 'Chartered' company, perhaps Military Business Excellence (MBE) or the Organisation of Business Excellence, then I am going to rate civilian companies and the civil service against 'military best practice' and charge loads of money for visiting them and assessing them!

I get rich, they get loads of Investment in Paperwork and a flashy new logo to hang on the walls of their offices. Win, win!!!

[An Teallach]

Yes, Roland. I've yet to find one of these fads that says anything new that I hadn't learned in the military (brown and light blue).

I've yet to suss why the MOD 'buys back' watered down versions of what military leadership did far better, but jazzed up with incomprehensible 'management' buzzwords.

However, as a professional desk-flyer I feel I'd better get my head round it, or at least be able to translate the latest 'management' bovine excrement into the original leadership principles I was taught.

[BEagle]

I hear what you say, but you need to appreciate the holistics of the big picture in the context of blue water thinking.......

Roly, your innovative, customer focused management initiative shows out of the box thinking.

Can't believe that no-one has seen through the utter nonsense of IiP yet - it is TOTAL bolleaux and wastes a lot of time for absolutely no tangible benefit. Or should that be that it represents an adverse gradient temporal added value situation?

[teeteringhead]

There's a couple that I can see approaching that are used on the periphery of MoD. One is called Six Sigma , and (no I'm not making this up) practitioners get awarded judo style belts .... :rolleyes: , so you can aspire to be a Six Sigma Black Belt!! having progressed through white yellow and green!!!

There's another one called Corporate Governance .... not sure if that's an award or just another bit of yuckspeak...:yuk:

[Safety_Helmut]

TH

There's no need to make this sort of bolleaux up, someone's beaten us to it:
"Product and process complexity and fast-paced marketing schedules demand that DFSS becomes a computer-based methodology."
"An approach to solving the problem created when root causes are found outside the limited scope of a Six Sigma project.
Six Sigma project debunks myth that output variability cannot be improved because of variability of input and human skills."
"Green Belts are sent out to solve business problems with two weeks of intensive training and a pat on the back. The results usually are not stellar. Learn what you can do about it."

"You may not like the words, but Corporate Governance is not an option."

Safety_Helmut

[BEagle]

"Six Sigma is a process-focused methodology designed to improve business performance through improving specific areas of a strategic business processes."

Well, actually it just means that a 'six sigma' organisation will strive to please all its customers (or technically 99.9997% of them) rather than just most of them (50.0001%).

The stupid 'six sigma' buzzword comes from the fact that 6 times the standard deviation (sigma) of a normal distribution curve pretty well represents the extreme limits of that curve. But any company spending resources to achieve 'six sigma' results would need to explain why 'three sigma' (or 99.73%) wasn't entirely sufficient....

But a handy spoof w@nkword to toss (sorry) in to conversation: "To attempt to achieve six sigma results would yield an adverse profit stream due to nugatory infrastuctural investment requirements. We can achieve three sigma results without such exposure risk whilst maintaining our customers' performance expectations"

Or "FFF's stop pi$$ing money away on worthless cr@p when we can do just as well as we are!"

Which is what we should have said to the IiP bull****, for example!

[An Teallach]

I have to confess, I took my last company but one through IIP. Was persuaded by 'special offer' from Scottish Enterprise - only £1375 to get tick in the box!

It involved 4 'consultations' with an expert followed by an exam (an interview with me then all the staff individually to see if I'd been lying!).

Our HR systems were approved (standard policies & procedures governed by employment law anyway).

Our appraisal system got a tick VG - EE writes own assessment based on strengths / weaknesses and needs for further trg etc., commented on by manager and director.

Our personnel development system got a tick VG - EE submits wish-list of courses, management team prioritise in terms of benefit to the company and we send them off as time / money allow.

We had changed absolutely nothing. However, we got our little plaque at a fancy dinner complete with Z list celeb where we were all congratulated on our hard work and committment to the principles of IIP. Not all was a waste of time, we had a good company p1ss-up and I made contact again with an old school mate whose hotel had 'won' the award.

Later found many IIP consultants were 'wives of' SE civil serpents (or 'permanently engaged consultants').

Cost of SE annually = £0.5 Bn
Amount raised in business rates in Scotland annually - £0.5Bn

3 guesses as to my preferred solution for encouraging economic growth in Scotland.

Oh well, better find out what the hell Sigma Six is :confused: Many thanks for contributions so far and keep them coming, chaps.

My successor as treasurer of a club was instructed at the AGM to remove the club's accts from HBOS after this (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20050814/ai_n14881285) piece of management motivational brilliance.

[Dunhovrin]

Outstanding Thread! I haven't laughed so bitterly since my last pay slip.

But my big quesion is...

Why is FLA a TLA? Shouldn't it be a FLAP(hrase)?

[BEagle]

Ah - but you don't appreciate the big picture surrounding the TLA origins of FLA:

A400M was once Future Large Aircraft (FLA); FLA was supposed to replace all large a/c. That proved unfeasible, so the tanker/transport requirement became Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) and another fight arose between A400M and C130J as the Future Transport Aircraft (FTA). FSTA then became a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) project; the preferred platform became the A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) offered to the rental Air Force (rAF) by AirTanker. Meanwhile, A400M which had been the FLA was given the go-ahead to be the FTA; however, to fill the gap, a Short Term Strategic Airlifter, STSA, was needed and that became a fight between the An124 and the C-17. The rAF decided upon leased C-17s as STSA to fill the gap before FTA became reality; however, the C-17s will now be bought and the STSA will become another FTA, but not the sole FTA as that will still be the A400M. Which, of course had once been FLA and rejected as FSTA. Nevertheless, the Common Standard Aircraft (CSA) A400M does have a requirement to have an AAR role, but not as a strategic tanker as that will be the job of the FSTA, presumably the A330 MRTT.... Although there is, of course, the A310 MRTT in service with other countries but not offered by any of the FSTA bidders even though it had been studied under an earlier project by MoD Department of Future Systems (DFS) as it then was...

So:
C-17 which was the STSA but wasn't an FSTA will be an FTA.
A400M which was FLA, then rejected as FSTA will become the 'official' FTA.
A330 MRTT will probably be the FSTA under PFI.
A310 MRTT was looked at by MoD DFS as a FSTA before PFI.

Easy, innit?

[wub]

My favourite definition of 'thinking outside the box' is to actually have an idea during the meeting, instead of in the toilet afterwards.

[uknasa]

Beags/TH
Totally agree with your comments about IiP - complete waste of money.

Ref 6 Sigma - I am afraid i disagree. Since leaving the RAF several years ago, I have worked in a couple of companies (my current one included) where 6 sigma has generated genuine and significant savings in the right places without reducing our performance. 6 Sigma was, as I am sure you know, the brainchild of Jack Welch at GE - a genuinely world class company. Given the Services propensity to consistently over spend on a meagre budget, 6 sigma may be a useful tool.

"Well, actually it just means that a 'six sigma' organisation will strive to please all its customers (or technically 99.9997% of them) rather than just most of them (50.0001%)."

Not true - 6 sigma is about consistent processes/acceptable risk and reducing errors.

[Krystal n chips]

BEagle, superb summation of Sick Sigma ---a slight problem with your hypothesis however. First, a significant percentage of the population ( or the self styled "management" t££sers if you prefer ) would not have a clue as to standard deviation let alone the normal curve--well possibly the latter I suppose. They may be superb at showing performance histograms with lots of pretty colours etc and can "talk" statistics with ease--but one simple question that invariably causes a "lets move on now" moment is the one concerning "What confidence level did you test to ?".

To return to the orginal thread however. Not so long ago, a certain "well known South-east based large airline" decided with all their well publicised self-flagellatory zeal to embrace TQM--and duly dropped it very quietly--because along came another spawn called BPR--or Business Process Re-engineering. Now for those who haven't encountered BPR, on the surface it is a brilliant concept--now dig about 0.00001mm below the surface and all the major flaws quickly appear. It was very much a mid / late 90's fad but I suspect it is still around in one guise or another. And yes, said airline did indeed embrace it with a fervour----and nothing of benefit ever resulted of course.

The next part of my text may seem a little obscure--however--please be tolerant here and read what I have to say. I have been following the threads on Centralised Engineering. / LEAN / LYH etc with interest and here is my perception of matters.

Somebody, somewhere, has decided to embrace the holy grail of management consutants---Change management !. Why ? Because the Air Force is changing and thus a major culture change is also needed. As I understand matters, once the various tranches of redundancy have been completed, then some of these people will have to be replaced---but NOT on the terms and conditions that were previously in place. The objective is to save the ££'s after all. Thus, whilst you will still have the core of the Air Force based around crews / types--you won't need the same for the support functions. The Air Force will not then be a career--other than for a select few--and all the rest will be on a short term contract basis---in effect--"factory fodder". But to ensure this is a success, first you have the difficult part to overcome--culture change. So, why not carry out a little experiment to see how this can be achieved and the reactions to it--why not select a Station that is scheduled to close anyway--and test the theories out there--once proven and evaluated--the whole process can then be applied across the RAF per se. Far fetched some may say--possibly--but have a think about what is happening and how it is being implemented whether directly or by stealth. I could be totally wrong of course, but I wouldn't mind betting I am also close to the truth in parts.

[Tigs2]

One very famous hotel chain recently spent $30 million Dollars implementing 6 Sigma. It quadroupled the amount of time managers spent at their computers filling in spreadsheets. After 14 months the group dropped the whole thing as a load of Bolleaux.

Talking of bolleaux can we have a ban on the word 'methodology'! what the hell is a methodology? Often incorporated as 'please explain your methodology', what does this mean? 'please explain the science of your method' perhaps ? Bolleaux!. Surely in plain english we mean to say ' what is your method'! stop using an unnecessary 'ology'.

[BEagle]

"What is your methodology?" = "How do you do that?"

"But surely the neo-asymptotic region of the normal distribution curve at the 6-sigma extreme would indicate that extrapolation of our core-business methodology beyond a 2- or 3-sigma level would prove both nugatory and financially imprudent?"

Go on - try that the next time someone quacks up with the 6-sigma w@nkword!

Summation of sigma - wouldn't that be sigma sigma?

I hated statistics at university about 35 years ago. But I remember on economics session in my final year when the lecturer said "Let's say it costs £N to get something 90% right. OK for car engines, not OK for nuclear power stations. It'll probably cost as much again to make it 99% right, the same again for 99.9% right. So the economist has to advise the manager about how much his strive for perfection will cost and not waste money on trying to make cars as reliable as nuclear power stations!"

OK - so this was long before Chernobyl. But it was the era of the Austin Allegro - the only car ever sold with a square wheel!

[plebby 1st tourist]

To "blue sky" it for a moment...

Job title inflation is also amusing. Have you noticed how there are no secretaries anymore, just PAs? Trolly-dollies are PR executives. Blokes who paste billboards? Marketing consultants. Plumbers are hydraulic systems engineers. As a 16 year old I got a job in Burger King, telling them that my previous employment had been as a journalistic material distribution engineer. They seemed quite impressed.:ok:

[An Teallach]

OMG - Don't tell me 'Blue Sky' has become a verb? :yuk:

I blue sky
You blue sky
he, she or it talks bolleaux :*

[Airdrop Charlie]

The problem is, none of you are adopting a holistic methodology to underpin your strategic vision. We require crunchy granularity across the piste to ensure management processes overcome the perma-frost of resistance to change. Once core outputs have been identified and the POR has LEANED the HQ, we can employ SMART pull LEAN push to engender a minimised deployability footprint whist maximising output efficiencies! Rustication will allow key enablers to empower staffs at the lowest levels thus ensuring line managers employ direct filtration methods to enhance business processes!

[BEagle]

But only in a blue sky environment.....

Wonderful w@nkwording!

[An Teallach]

Airdrop - Classic

Having the 'second sight', I see a fast track to the heights of MoD for you. You'll be able to engage consultants by the dozen so that you can collectively baffle lesser mortals. ;)

Just remember that the value of a consultant's advice is in direct proportion to the size of his fee. I kid you not - once had a consultancy produce a report into a problem advising the same solution that every swinging-dick, from the PSA technician to the Stn Cdr, could see was the only practicable solution. Cost of report: £1.5K. MoD's response: Report discounted - "We would expect a valid consultation on a project of this size to cost at least £40K"! :ugh:

I wonder when some junior exec / jnr offr will actually point out that the Emperor's bolleaux are on show, perhaps at some grand briefing, and ask for an explanation in demotic Anglo-Saxon. I imagine the silence and coughing could win a cheating Major a million quid.

[1.3VStall]

Oh what a wonderful thread!

I can wholly recommend a visit to this site: www.potfire.com.au/entertain/wwbingo.htm (http://www.potfire.com.au/entertain/wwbingo.hm) .

[teeteringhead]

stop using an unnecessary 'ology'.

"...an -ology! You've got an -ology! You're a scientist!!" (Beattie in the BT adverts)

.... glad I mentioned 6 Sigma then .......

:rolleyes:

[Bunker Mentality]

Chaps,

I pinched this from ARRSE, where it was posted by 'GROWNUPS_BEWARE'. It is an absolute classic.

STAFF GUIDANCE ON DEFENCE RESTRUCTURING


1. This guidance is being issued to remedy a perceived difficulty experienced by Staff at all levels in understanding the rationale behind recent Defence re-structuring. In particular many Staff Officers seem not to understand how reducing the numbers of aircraft, ships, tanks, artillery and soldiers results in a more flexible, robust and effective fighting force.

2. In particular it seems that much of the confusion stems from a systemic misunderstanding of the correct use of military terminology. A list of common terms and actual meanings follows.

3. In addition there follows an explanation of the key assumptions embedded within the Defence Review. All Staff Officers are encouraged to seek clarification through their Chain of Command if they still have any questions.

4. Staff Terminology used in the new Defence Plan;

Term MOD meaning

Flexible- a. Smaller
b. Unable to operate unless under US protection

Robust- a. Smaller
b. Lacking reserves or regeneration capability

Networked- Smaller, but still unable to talk to each other

Capable- Smaller

Agile- Really, really small

Deployability- Method of making the Forces, primarily the Army, able to send higher percentages of their manpower to a distant location. This is achieved by reducing the overall numbers involved, i.e. ?In future the Army will be able to send 50% of it?s manpower to Africa in the back of a Cessna, thus achieving greater deployability?.

Reach- The distance the American?s are willing to fly us

Efficient- Much, much smaller

Streamlined- Just unbelievably small

Just in time- For the funeral.

Integrated- Process by which all three services get to brief against each other in public leaks, attempting to justify and defend their own budget against cuts, thereby doing the Treasury?s work for them. Taken to extremes by the Army in which Corps and Regiments fight each other, and perfected within the Infantry.
Technically ambitious- a. Slang, as in ?He was being a bit technically ambitious when he tried to drive that car through the wall? (cf, ?To propose a Bowman?)

b. Description of the far future

Reserves- Integral part of current Operational Manning.

Rationalisation- a. Cuts

b. Psychological term, meaning to use complicated arguments to avoid facing unpalatable truths, i.e. , ?we don?t need to pay for both expensive servicemen and equipment, because we will be networked, agile, and technically ambitious? .

Rapid- Used in a comparative sense, as in ?The rapid erosion of the Himalayan Mountains??

Modernisation- Cuts

Radical- Deep Cuts

Transformation- Really Deep Cuts

Sustainable- Assuming zero casualties, no leave and no emergencies.

Sentences such as ?these proposals capture our aim for a speedy deployable, agile, joint and integrated, technically ambitious defence capability? will make more logical sense to the experienced Staff Officer once the above definitions are applied.

4. It will also help if Staff Officer?s bear in mind the following Planning Principles. Point C will be of particular relevance in explaining the rationale behind restructuring to Junior Staff.

a. Use of Special Forces. No one in the general Public has a clue how many there are, so they can be announced as deploying to every country in the world.

b. Aggressive use of terminology can compensate for lack of actual forces. For example in the past effective deterrence of a reasonably capable Maritime threat would require the despatch of a task force, consisting of destroyers, frigates, submarines and possibly even a carrier. In the future this task will still be achieved by a task force; but task-force will be the new description for a mine-sweeper.

c. The new Defence Plan was not resource driven. A comprehensive strategic estimate was conducted, from first principles, identifying the current and potential threats to the UK and it?s interests, allowing a reserve for the unexpected, and also allowing for recurrent non-warfighting tasks such as Fire Strike cover and Foot and Mouth disease. Against the tasks identified an ideal manpower establishment and Task Org was then identified. By an amazing coincidence it happened to fit almost exactly within current Treasury MOD expenditure plans, and even allow the MOD to carry half the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan.

d. Much of the current crisis in Defence Spending can be directly traced to the high costs of legacy equipments. These were ordered at a time of ignorance in the past when Planners naively seemed to believe that the threat they identified as imminent would remain the same for the 20-30 year service life of the equipment they were ordering. The assumption in the 1980?s and 90?s that tanks, artillery, and aircraft would be needed in the future was ridiculous, as none of these equipments have been used by the British Armed forces to any degree since the Falklands war.
However, current planners possess better foresight and are able to predict future threats for at least the next 40 years. We are therefore able to be certain that Britain is unlikely to need any tanks, aircraft, submarines etc. past about 2015.

e. Britain no longer needs a significant anti-submarine capability. No other nation possesses submarines in any numbers, submarine technology is unlikely to advance at all over the next few 30 years, and should anti-submarine technology or skills be required at any point in the future they can be reconstituted overnight from the reserves. (Once the reserves have been reconstituted). In any case by 2020 the UK will be fully integrated into mainland Europe, and will therefore no longer have a coastline to defend or be reliant upon sea-supply.

f. Similar arguments apply to air defence.

g. The Regimental System. In the past the Regimental System has been seen as the corner-stone of British Military success, creating a system in which the individual is made to feel part of a greater family, often stretching back hundreds of years, in which he is nurtured and developed, and to which he feels such great loyalty that he is inspired to sacrifice himself if need be for his Regimental comrades. However, the British youth of today are so naturally self-sacrificing and community spirited that additional incentives are now unnecessary, and in any case the threat to soldiers on the ground has been assumed away. There is therefore no further need for a system whose main purpose is to generate fighting spirit, and it can be safely emasculated to achieve administrative efficiency (see ?Efficient? above).

h. High divorce rates within the Services will solve manpower crises, by ensuring all service personnel will be happy to conduct back-to-back tours forever, as no one will have any families or friends to miss.

i. Savings will be ploughed into the purchase of large numbers of hats. This will be essential as in future everyone will be at least treble or quadruple hatted. Wars will be fought in rotation on a strict ?first come, first served? basis.

k. Future savings will be made by abolishing all training for the Chiefs of Staff. After all they haven?t proven remotely as effective at manoeuvre warfare, disruption, dislocation or divide-and-rule as the Treasury.

l. Successive efficiency measures can be made to reinforce each other. For example, each time troop numbers are cut, a unit can then be tasked to conduct the same jobs as before. Provided there are no actual massacres of Friendly Forces, the new troop numbers can be seen to have been fully as effective as the previous numbers, and so can form a baseline for achieving efficiency cuts to new troop numbers. Savings can then be invested in new equipment, in the same way that British Airways fires half its pilots every time it needs to buy a new plane. The ultimate aim is to have one man, but equipped like Dr Octopus. He will sleep with one eye open at all times to replicate full manning.
m. Key Assumptions: Current levels of operations are an aberration, will never be repeated, and should form no guide to current manning requirements, let alone future ones. Gerry Adams has embraced peace, there is no more requirement for crowd control in Northern Ireland, the FBU have forsworn strikes along with all other key public workers, Osama Bin Laden is about to hand himself in and the Easter Bunny will be providing Area Air Defence for London.

5. More detailed guidance can be found in JSP 4708- ?Magic Mushrooms, their consumption, effects and results in the MOD? and Minister Hoon?s Autobiography ?What Colour is the Sky in My World??


{CHOtS SIGNED}

I M Promoted
SO2 Spin
Ministry of Truth
Orwell Bldg
MOD 1984

Regards

BM

[Tigs2]

BEagle

"What is your methodology?" = "How do you do that?"


No No No!

'What is your Method ?' = 'How do you do that?'

'What is your methodology?' = 'Bolleaux!

[EESDL]

Tony D mentioned that all the Bolleaux was to weed out the imposters...a kind of management secret handshake.....but it appears that talking Bolleuax has replaced actual management and, the more bolleaux spoken - the less original thought of the originator.

I now work for an expanding Yorkshire company who have headhunted some high-flying players from big corporate firms......suffice to say, they get the urine extracted by the yorkshire folk everytime an idea is hoisted up that flagpole.

I'm considering putting a 'management speak' swear box in the aircraft - which should go someway to helping me celebrate Christmas!

[An Teallach]

I've just read How a Public Sector Agency Re-invigorated its Balanced Scorecard (http://www.2gc.co.uk/pdf/2GC-C0411.pdf) (PDF). I found it by googling for "Blue Sky", Methodology and Military.

When you read it, the first thing that screams out at you is Selection and Maintenance of the Aim, the first principle of war. A few pages of w@nkwords can be summed up as Co-operation, another principle of war.

The whole process can be summed up as Military Appreciation and all of the above should be understandable to any Sub Lt / 2Lt / APO walking out of the gates of Dartmouth, Sandhurst or Cranwell.

Surely:

Just because the objective is not taking / destroying / conquering something doesn't mean the organisational principles are necessarily any different?

Just because you move up to the strategic level from the tactical, doesn't mean you operate on different principles?

Just because you're called a Director of an Agency instead of a Commander doesn't mean you should have to learn a whole new w@nkword language rather than just apply sound military leadership principles?

Surely achieving a healthy Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Account or financial failure is perfectly analogous to victory or defeat and the same leadership (or management if you must) principles can be applied?

I offer a deep-fried Mars Bar to anyone who can post something meaningful from the linked document that isn't covered by the principles of war, military appreciation and the orders and operational review process; i.e. standard military organisational leadership. :confused:

[Maple 01]

An Teallach,

In the words of the old post office add
'I saw this and thought of you'
More corporate bolleux for the collection

Doing a little light job hunting today I received an email from CwJobs looking for the following


A major Insurance Financial services company is looking to recruit a Six Sigma Black Belt candidate to work within a team that is currently involved in a variety of business critical workstreams, including training, technological change, business transition to e-claims handling and also playing a significant part in delivering the changes required as part of XCS 2005 Claims strategy. You will be responsible for identifying and engaging key stakeholders, identifying the most appropriate approach to tackle risks and issues and being advocate for the Six Sigma approach within the company.

I call 'Bull*hit managment'

[An Teallach]

Yep, Maple

Excellent understanding of IT architectures & technologies, strong strategic planning skills, able to craft a visual driven from business need, technology capability and cost effectiveness. Good understanding of accounting & finance.

If you can tell me what "able to craft a visual driven from business need" from that job ad means, you're a better man than I, Gunga-Din! Job hunting in the age of the w@nkword makes six months as a flt cdr @ Basra International look attractive!

[Fake Sealion]

EESDL...

Like the idea of the "swear box" in the cab....

However, think you'll have a lean Christmas, as the box will surely remain empty......your PAX will be too busy thinking outside of it.

Regards

FS - Honorary "God's own" subject - in 24th probationary year !

:ok:

[Yeller_Gait]

So what are the odds on the military taking up this "Six Sigma" mularkey?

Within the next month 10/1

2-4 months 3/1

4-8 months 2/1

8-1 year evens

1-2 years 2/5

etc


U (will) Need To know ....(eventually)

[Data-Lynx]

Still seething from the amount the public purse has probably paid for the 2cm thick docket of paper in front of me. With the staggering selection of consultants walking the Capability corridors of MoD, it's time for this thread to get some fresh air if this is what might be on offer for at least one Mission Planning Aid:It is a reference work in the first instance, aiming toward the end deliverable of an End to End XXXXX scheduled for delivery by end of Q1 06 to enable and inform the Request for Change associated with the delivery of version 2.

Donald Rumsfeld clearly still has influence:

The detail contained within the document is firmly based on what we know 'now' and what we expect 'in the future'.

Rest assured that, on this occasion at least, it was sent back with its passage greased by constructive criticism like 'rambling', 'incoherent', 'even worse' and 'not fit for purpose'. But, what else is out there?

[Two's in]

AT - It's all covered in one page here:

http://www.fatalexception.org/action_item.html

[tonkatechie]

Uh.....I think I've got a headache from this......or my brain's imploded:confused:

I did a LEAN VSA at Marham - even though no-one at work knew what VSA stood for. Turns out it means 'Value Stream Analysis', which in English means 'Look at how to effectively carry out a task, then describe that task by wasting hundreds of pounds worth of post-it notes stuck on the wall in a haphazard manner'.