Terminology

Like any industry, my world is full of terminology, acronyms and other references. Hope the following list helps!

ABC Inventory

Division of inventory into A (most current, highest value), B and C (least current lowest value) items

ADKAR

Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. Model for personal change.

Continuous Improvement

Lean. A culture of continuously making incremental improvements to your processes.

DMAIC

DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control). Data-driven improvement cycle used for improving, optimizing and stabilizing business processes and designs.

Exit Strategy

Your strategy for making your business ready for a sale to a third party, or succession to the kids. This is about maximizing the Key Business Value Drivers

Ishikawa / Fishbone Diagram

Tool used for conducting structured Root Cause Analysis.

Kanban

Scheduling system for lean manufacturing. Term seems to have gathered multiple meanings for different people.

Key Business Value Drivers

Set of Financial, Product/Market and Operational / Organizational parameters that determine the value or multiplier for your business.

Kotter

John Kotter, Change Guru, author of Kotter's 8-Step model for Change

Lean

Continuous Improvement. A culture of continuously making incremental improvements to your processes.

NCR

Non-Conformance Report: an effective type of reactive Process Improvement

Org Chart

Organizational Structure: undervalued tool for confirming hierarchy and Accountability within an Organization

PDCA

Plan-Do-Check-Act

Peter Principle

The notion that people get promoted to their first level of in-competency

Process Map

Visually mapping the sequence of tasks in a chosen process, including the personnel or departments executing those tasks, media used (paper, software), handovers. Used to confirm how things are supposed to happen, identify weaknesses and improvements.

RACI

Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed: 4 levels with which individuals are involved in your processes

RCA / Root Cause Analysis

Tool to get to the root cause of a problem. Ishikawa diagram. 5-Why.

SMART

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timebound

SMARTER

SMART, + Evaluate, Revise to allow for regular adjustments. This is NOT the same as SOS

SOS

Shiny Object Syndrome: the deadly tendency of some people to continuously change a project scope, add features etc.

Structured Brainstorm

Group Brainstorm using some sort of structured approach to assist the gathering or organizing of ideas

TPS / Toyota Production System

Toyota is considered as a pioneer on Lean in what was later dubbed the Toyota Production System

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