The Collaboration Culture Change Blog
Jam-packed with actionable ideas for eliminating email overload and information chaos in your organization and personal work life.
How You Can Eliminate All Internal Email Next Week
“You’ve got to help us!” The man across the table from me practically came out of his seat as my single sentence resonated with him. All I had said at the Chamber of Commerce networking event last Friday was that we help organizations eliminate all internal email.
Such is the...
The Executive Weekly Report with Hundreds of Contributors
The Situation
Soon after the merger that doubled our company’s size in 2012, the Senior Vice President of Power Generation Operations informed his Regional Vice Presidents that he needed a “Weekly Report” by Sunday morning each week so that he could in turn, compile and present...
LOTO Requests - Standardizing for Safety and Efficiency
The Situation
In 2005, employees at our largest coal power plant (and the third largest in the country) used various, inconsistent means to request “Lockout Tagout” before working on equipment. “Lockout Tagout” is a process by which mechanics, electricians, and other...
Work Management Barrier Resolution - Radically Reducing Time Spent Tracking Improvement Progress
The Situation
One large generating station conducted a regular weekly meeting in which recent barriers to efficient maintenance work were discussed and actions planned to eliminate such barriers in future work.
These barriers were such things as mechanics getting the wrong parts due to incorrect...
Outage Reporting – Using Upward Reporting to Capture Lessons Learned
The Situation
Maintenance outages are a stressful and action-packed time for electric generating stations. It is not a small deal when a utility idles a large generating unit because if things go badly and return to service is delayed, that unit’s generation may not be available for peak...
Op Model Assessments - Reducing the Cost of Assessments by 50% with SharePoint
The Situation
We developed an Operating Model during merger transition work in 2005. The “Op Model” became the bible of generating station management at the new company. It prescribed detailed operating, maintenance, and financial management methods.
Adherence was expected of station...
Reduce Non-Value-Added Computer Time to Increase Time on the Shop Floor
A station manager recently confided to me that he was frustrated that he was mandated to get his supervisors out on the shop floor at least 50% of their days at work. "How can I do that when 70% of their work is on the computer?" he lamented.
I felt his pain; I thought the same when I heard the...
The Author
Arnie Howes
Arnie Howes has spent more than twenty years working with hundreds of organizations, using Microsoft collaborative technologies and Lean Office techniques to eliminate email overload and information chaos.
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