ByMatthew Arnold
I read a fascinating book recently all about Ross Brawn’s achievement in F1, how he sees the whole team as a system, and the similarities with running any large organisation. Ross Brawn has played a major part in many leading F1 teams, including the winning streaks at Ferrari, Brawn GP and Mercedes. Having semi-retired a…
ByMatthew Arnold
My last two posts have been about queues – I promise, this will be last one about queues for a while….! This one goes back a few years, but I see it time and again, in offices, contact centres, post offices, coffee shops… I was helping a council with their Housing Benefits claims, and spending…
ByMatthew Arnold
In my last blog, I discussed the queuing issue at low-cost supermarkets, and mentioned the difference between the way Starbucks and Caffe Nero make your coffee order. Did you spot the difference the last time you were in? As I mentioned before, if you wonder in without looking, you’ll come out a few minutes later…
ByMatthew Arnold
There was a interesting item in the news a few weeks ago regarding a plateauing of sales at the discount food stores, relating to the shopping experience, particularly the often poor queuing process. Call me sad (!) but I regularly look at the different queuing systems businesses use. The post office. The benefits office. Petrol…
ByMatthew Arnold
I’ve helped quite a number of Housing Benefit departments in the last 15 years, including helping Darlington move from 60th in the national league table to the top 10 – where they remain (based on customer end-to-end time). I also helped Milton Keynes reduce their end-to-end time from 60 days to 20. Likewise Middlesborough. And quite…
ByMatthew Arnold
I came across this little gem – a fantastic reminder of how people learn. I’ve seen many people (and experienced consultants) tell people how and what to change – and they always seem surprised when things don’t quite ‘stick’ in the weeks to come. Combining a “whole system” approach, together with an active “working-together” ethos during the change…
ByMatthew Arnold
It was a busy 2016, with a really mixed set of clients, including, amongst others: a London-based lightning-conductor design, engineer and install business a large southwest-based firm of solicitors, and preparing payroll systems for one of the world’s largest car rental business It couldn’t have been more diverse – so what do they have in…
ByMatthew Arnold
A New Year’s resolution is a tradition in which a person resolves to change an undesired trait or behaviour. We all know that – right? So why do so many of our New Year’s resolutions fail? Researchers have looked at success rates of peoples’ resolutions: the first two weeks usually go along beautifully but by…