- Listening to demand is exciting, enjoyable and worthwhile
- I thought I knew about Systems Thinking, turned out I had just memorised content from books.
- People like looking at control charts
- You don’t need to follow good design when putting data into a graph, just a good measure.
- Not everyone will get it.
- Ask questions, don’t tell answers.
- It’s the thinking not the tools.
- Don’t spend too long mapping the current system, you are changing it anyway.
- Effectiveness trumps efficiency every time
- Measures of purpose in the hands of staff will blow your mind with how useful they are compared with how indicators are normally used.
- Customers will be delighted, not satisfied.
- Change really is emergent.
- The size of the gains you will get will dwarf any target you could conceivably have set.
- Not everyone is interested in the theory.
- Once people “get it” they still have just started “getting it”, and still need to learn a whole lot more, as do you.
- You really don’t learn about systems thinking in a lecture room or from a book.
- You do not talk about Systems Thinking.
- You DO NOT talk about Systems Thinking.
- The best advert for Systems Thinking is a customer
- The second best advert is a member of staff
- A distant last is a number in a graph.
- People won’t believe you when you tell them the results of systems thinking. “Impossible” they will say.
- Once you start experimenting with design, that’s when the real hard work starts.
- Teach the thinking about control charts, not the tool or the maths.
- Don’t underestimate what people can understand.
- Check is a normative experience. It hasn’t worked unless it is.
- Not all people will turn up for planned sessions. There are reasons why and it doesn’t matter, things will happen when they can happen.
- Propaganda is not a bad word. It is about quickly selling an idea.
- Change in a service does not require permission asked for in a report through a hierarchy. Change and improve, then tell them afterwards.
- Demand varies in a “simple” service even within a few miles.
- If you are stuck hire a consultant to move you on a bit.
- No, really, people just won’t believe you when you tell them results. “has this been audited?” they will disbelievingly say.
- The washing machine repair man exercise works. And sometimes it doesn’t
- People not involved can feel isolated.
- People involved can feel isolated.
- Never mention the Taguchi Loss Function in an after lunch session.
- Go to the work!
- It really is Thinking–>System–>Performance
- You will have a grammar for work and find you can speak about work usefully with people for the first time.
- Rich pictures are more useful than complex traditional process maps.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate!
- Systems Thinking is a dull name that doesn’t mean anything to most people.
- Never use a Japanese word when an English one will do.
- Reading about other places that have done Systems Thinking is comforting and tells you when you are doing it right.
- The method works, the closer you stick to it the better it works. And vice versa.
- At the start of a workshop session ALWAYS do an ice-breaker as there is always ice to be broken.
- Never be more than one inferential step ahead.
- Don’t bother with people who don’t get it, they just aren’t ready right now, as I wasn’t at some point too.
- It is harder than I thought
- There’s no such thing as an expert.
- It is much more fun than first thought.
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