^The APQC Blog

As we head into the last quarter of the business year, financial analysts are surely keen to see how useful their forays into data analytics will look when the final buzzer goes off. Have these efforts to buoy business performance paid off? What are CFOs planning to do to balance investments in new analytical strength with the imperative to control the finance budget? These are just two examples of the professional soul-searching now underway among finance leaders.

With Halloween approaching, we started talking about the ideas of fear and process management, which lead to someone posing the question, “what’s the scariest process management nightmare?”

A couple of years ago, I was introduced to this organizational development (OD) technique called Open Space Technology, originally created by Harrison Owen in the late 1980’s. Open Space is essentially a meeting facilitation technique that is much less scripted, and much more, well, open, than someone who is extraordinarily Type A, like me, typically desires.

It’s hard to believe it’s only been ten months since my first data and analytics pilgrimage, but it’s true.

I read on Facebook that October 13 is International Skeptics Day.

Or is it?

If you’re like me, you’ve probably learned to view a lot of what you see on social media with a skeptical eye. You figured out a long time ago that just about anyone can create a meme designed to convince you that aliens are coming, a politician is up to no good, or clowns are lurking behind every corner. And you’re not buying it.

What a strange phenomenon this concept of “adulting” is. Have you heard about this? Basically, avid social media users (read: millennials) are posting updates about or photos of themselves’ partaking in activities that are characteristic of adulthood and then tagging those posts with the term “adulting” (author’s note: on principle, I refuse to use that term without quotation marks).

Supply Chain Managers are often faced with several issues that they must deal with to ensure a healthy supply chain and minimize the number of fires that arise and the number that have to be put out. Yesterday, September 9^th was Fire Prevention Day. In honor of this special day, I would like to discuss how organizations can go about preventing a supply chain fire. If an unexpected spark happens in your supply chain, are you prepared to prevent a fire from starting?

Amazon.  The Behemoth of Booksellers.  The Disruptor of Retail.   The Patron Saint of the US Postal Service (their Prime saved USPS’s bacon).

Amazon. The Paragon of Predictive Analytics.  The Role Model of Recommendation Systems.

Given Amazon’s obsession with data and analytics, I was blown away when I saw this video of how Amazon arranges their Prime Now warehouse.

It feels like I can’t open a browser these days without encountering a sweeping statement about the future of work. A lot of the headlines are intentionally over the top, from robots coming to take your job to Millennials not wanting to work. But beyond the clickbait, people’s relationship to work is changing.

As many of you know by now, I’m the proud parent of a high school student, with all the joys and frustrations that entails. I was recently struck with how much being a parent is like managing a business. Think about it. There are:

• performance measures to monitor—grades and standardized tests,

• workflows to manage—time management and study habits, and

• employees to engage—celebrating successes, keeping morale high, and working with my son to embrace changes to study habits and prioritizing assignments over video games.