Scott A Whitmire July, 2019 In the long run, all costs are variable; in the short run, all costs are fixed. Part 1 of this series introduced and briefly described five measures that are common to nearly all business processes and indicate a process’s inherent capability to perform: capacity, activity cost, defect rate, cycle time,…
Scott A Whitmire July, 2019 Part 1 of this series introduced and briefly described five measures that are common to nearly all business processes and indicate a process’s inherent capability to perform: capacity, activity cost, defect rate, cycle time, and fixed/variable cost mix. This installment goes into the details of cycle time Cycle time is the…
Scott A Whitmire June, 2019 Part 1 of this series introduced and briefly described five measures that are common to nearly all business processes and indicate a process’s inherent capability to perform: capacity, activity cost, defect rate, cycle time, and fixed/variable cost mix. This installment dives into defects and the defect rate. The defects generated…
Scott A Whitmire May, 2019 Part 1 of this series introduced and briefly described five measures that are common to nearly all business processes and indicate a process’s inherent capability to perform: capacity, activity cost, defect rate, cycle time, and fixed/variable cost mix. This installment dives into activity cost. The basic unit of process cost…
Scott A Whitmire May, 2019 Part 1 of this series introduced and briefly described five measures that are common to nearly all business processes and indicate a process’s inherent capability to perform: capacity, activity cost, defect rate, cycle time, and fixed/variable cost mix. The next few installments will go into each of these in…
Scott A. Whitmire April, 2019 Part 1 of this series on measurement began near the middle and described several structural performance measures that can be used to measure just about any process. We’ll take a closer look at one of them in this article. Part 2 circled back and gave the motivation for why we…
Scott A. Whitmire March, 2019 Part 1 of this series on measurement actually started near the middle and described some structural performance measures that are common to all business processes. Part 2 discussed why we need to measure in the first place. In this article, we explore some of the ratios used by business leaders…
Scott A. Whitmire March, 2019 Part 1 of this series on measurement actually started near the middle and described some structural performance measures that are common to all business processes. Here, we circle back and ask: Why measure in the first place? It’s a good question, and to answer it, we need to explore the…
Scott A. Whitmire March, 2019 Let’s get one thing clear right from the start. Ok, two things. First, when it comes to changing a business, whether to improve its performance, enter a new market, increase market share, or just making sure you keep up with the competition, you always end up changing a business process.…
Scott A. Whitmire March, 2019 Karen, the leader of one of our major business units, stopped me in the hall the other day. “Can I ask you a question? Frankly, I think I should know this, but I’m just not sure.” “Sure,” I replied, not knowing what to expect. Karen pulled out a diagram that…
Scott A. Whitmire October, 2017 A few months back, I wrote about the three questions everyone faces trying to transform their business in pursuit of business goals. To review, the three questions, from Eli Goldratt’s The Goal, are: What to change? What to change it to? How to change it? Part 1 addressed how to…
Scott A. Whitmire October, 2017 Over the years, I’ve had the honor to mentor talented architects. We’ve been through architecture reorganizations, new managers, new jobs, ups, downs, and everything in between. One of them has learned first-hand how difficult it is to lead business change, regardless of the presence of executive support. Business people are…
Scott A. Whitmire September, 2017 Recently, an article was posted on LinkedIn (Daniel Lambert: Bridging Business Model Canvas and Business Architecture) about linking the Business Model Canvas (BMC)[Alex Osterwalder] to the business architecture, as if the BMC was not part of that architecture. The truth is, the BMC is the very foundation of your business…
Scott A. Whitmire May, 2017 For whatever reason, your business isn’t performing as well as you’d like. Perhaps your gross margins are too low to sustain the investment needed in new products. Perhaps your customers seem reluctant to buy in the current economy. Perhaps there is a new competitor on the horizon. Perhaps an activist…
Investment vs. Cost When times get tough, revenues have a way of disappearing. Expenses, however, tend to stick around without deliberate and often painful action. The mantra is to “cut costs” or “drive costs out of the system” (these are not the same thing). During this cost-cutting process, the distinction is often made between a…
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