"The advantage which a commander thinks he can attain through continued personal intervention is largely illusory. By engaging in it he assumes a task that really belongs to others, whose effectiveness he thus destroys. He also multiplies his own tasks to a point where he can longer fulfill the whole of them." (Helmuth Von Moltke)

A couple of days ago I posted some voicemails from Eliza so I thought in honor of that I would post a voicemail from Claire that Noel left for me today.

Claire’s Voicemail – click the link below and then click on the note again to download the file to play it.

   My Dad and Mom did date nights with us kids (or at least my aging memory remembers it this way).  Perhaps it was a couple of us at a time because there were seven of us, but nonetheless the importance of spending good quality time was taught.  So we try to do this with Eliza – we aren’t as regular with it as we want to be, but we are trying nonetheless.  I asked Eliza on Sunday what she wanted to do and she replied that she wanted to go to Chuckie Cheese.  This likely had to do with the birthday party she had just attended that went there.  We had left over tokens from her birthday party almost two years ago and so I was game anyway.  We played Skee Ball, Pop-a-Shot, video games, all sorts of games to give you tickets, and had our pictures taken a few times as well (see below).  Of course the night was completed with a visit to redeem our tickets for a new play jewelry bracelet for Eliza and then a trip to McDonalds on our way home for some ice cream.  Eliza loves M&M McFlurrys.  McFlurrys always remind me of the experience Noel and I had in Israel ordering Blizzards from McDonalds.  It was amazing that they knew to give us McFlurrys.  Anyhow it was a great evening with our princess, Eliza!

2009 has been quite the year and for whatever reason that meant not blogging very much at all!  I had the intention to be better in 2010.  To start that off I thought I would include two audio clips that are voicemails left by Eliza to me.  They are precious and somewhat funny as well as I listen to my daughter learning to use the phone and leave messages.  It is so fun to see kids grow up and all the things that they learn!

click the links below and then click on the note again to download the file to play it.

These are notes that I took a while ago while reading the book.  They have been housed in my OneNote notebook long enough – pushing them to the web where they are more accessible.

1. Eliminate Waste
   1. Seeing Waste
      1. Partially Done Work
      2. Extra Processes
      3. Extra Features
      4. Task Switching
      5. Waiting
      1. Motion
      1. Defects
   1. Value Stream Mapping
1. Amplify Learning
   1. Feedback
   2. Iterations
   3. Synchronization (CI)
   1. Set-based development versus point-based (multiple options - I am available from 9 to 12 versus can you do it at 9)
1. Decide as late as possible (Concurrent Development)
   1. Options Thinking
   1. Last Responsible Moment
   1. Making Decisions
      1. Breadth-First versus Depth-First (Breadth first is delaying commitments)
      2. Intuitive Decision Making
      3. Simple Rules
1. Deliver as fast as possible
   1. Pull System (Kanban)
   1. Queuing Theory
   1. Cost of Delay
1. Empower the team
   1. Self-Determination - allow people to define how to fix things and then make them responsible for implementing the changes (you have to give them the time to do it)
   1. Motivation

3M example - small, self-organizing groups that become passionate about a possibility and are allowed to make it a reality. McKnight one of the early company leaders said such things as "Hire good people, and leave them alone.", "If you put fences around people, you get sheep. Give people the room they need.", "Encourage, don't nitpick. Let people run with an idea.", "Give it a try - and quick!". 3M had slack time (15 percent) like Google

1. Leadership

An organization has to value leadership in order to develop leaders

1. Build integrity in
1. See the whole

Systems thinking - looking at organizations as systems and analyzing how they interrelate and perform based on the rules. System dynamics is when this analysis is done through computer simulation. Basic Patterns in systems thinking are: 1. Limits to Growth (theory of constraints) 2. Shifting the burden 3. Suboptimization

1. Measurements
   1. Be very careful about what you measure as it can easily lead to suboptimization. Try to measure one level up rather than one level down
1. Contracts (Trust)