How to Measure Innovation in Your Business
It may or may not have occurred to you how important it is to measure the innovation of your own business. However, if you do not look into the efficacy and processes within your company, there is no way for you to know how well your organization is truly running, and in which areas improvement is needed. Of course, if you want to measure the innovation of your business, you will need to have a technique to use to gauge the different elements to be considered.
Traditionally, these elements have consisted of counting defects, measuring costs, and tracking cycle times. Today, as we understand businesses processes better, it has become a bit more involved but no less achievable.
With improvement strategies such as Six Sigma – a set of techniques developed by Motorola that focuses on the process of improvement within a business – there are ample measures available to recognize if your business is achieving its potential, or if it is lacking on one or many levels.
There are primarily five areas of measure for innovation, which include:
1. Performance – your company’s ability to provide a total solution in relation to its requirements and its competition
2. Quality – the number of defects and the number and rate of delay
3. Timing – its speed to the market, including its schedule for internal development (also known as cycle time) and its external market timing.
4. Finances – revenue expectations, costs, margins
5. Development costs – for specific projects
Additionally, there are a number of sub-categories for measuring innovation within your business. These include:
Turnover of personnel
Percentage of product and/or service tests passed
Percentage of reuse (the number of tested items that were borrowed)
Number of specification or requirement changes needed
Percentage of new parts (the number of items that are untested)
Percentage of unique parts (potential areas for difficulty in integration)
Percentage of new vendors
Percentage of staffed to plan (including times of over-staffing and under-staffing)
Percentage of designated time lost to undesignated projects
As you can see, there is quite a bit to consider when you wish to measure the innovation of your business. This often explains the inclination for businesspeople to put off such measurements. However, by doing so, you are only holding back from the ideas, changes, and potential that you could be offered from the result of these measurements. The best time for you to measure the innovation your business is today.
Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions – Six Sigma Online (http://www.sixsigmaonline.org) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.
Discover the Secrets to Managing Your Time
Twenty-four hours. Each one of us has only twenty-four hours each day. Out of that, we need to eat, sleep, take care of our loved ones, have a bit of fun, and earn some money so that we can continue to thrive. Some people manage to glide through their day, accomplishing everything they want to with time to spare. Others spend their time racing from task to task, never quite finishing one thing before being called to start something new.
Each day we make dozens of choices about how to spend our minutes and hours. When we plan how to spend it, we are in control of our time. Without a working plan, we will use up all our time on whatever comes up, regardless of how important it is.
To gain control of your time, you should start by planning your priorities. Set aside a regular time each day for this. Some people prefer the end of their day, others use the first fifteen minutes of their day. Sit down with a pen and paper, and make a list of everything you want to accomplish for the day. Don’t worry about putting them in order; just make the list as complete as possible.
Next, look over your list and assign priorities to each task. A tasks are the most important; B tasks are the second most important, and so on. Now, look at all of you’re a tasks, and rank them in order of importance, with one being the most important. Do the same with your B tasks, C tasks, and so on. Now you have an organized, prioritized plan for your day. You’re A-1 task is the most important thing you want to accomplish, and you have a clear map of how to spend your time.
Often the C tasks will be the easiest, and most enjoyable to complete. The natural tendency is to finish the easy things first, and never quite get around to the important tasks that can really move your life and career forward. Using a priority list keeps you on track by helping you to focus on what is really important for you to spend time on throughout the day. When you finish all of you’re a tasks, and a few of your B tasks, you day will be much more productive than if you complete all of your C tasks and a few B tasks.
Planning your priorities is only the first step in gaining control of your time. Executing your plan can be a challenge.
In order to follow your plan, you will need to develop a few strategies to deal with all of the inevitable interruptions that will steal your time. Having a pre-determined strategy to deal with unimportant phone calls and constant emails will help you regain control of your time.
Make a commitment to yourself that you won’t answer any unimportant calls until after all of the A tasks are finished. Using caller ID and voice mail make this a simple commitment to keep. You can set up your email account to automatically sort your email into folders as it arrives. You’ll easily be able to find important messages without being distracted by the unbelievable claims that seem to get through even the best spam filters.
You can set aside a specific time each day to sort through the non-urgent email folders. This way they do not steal time away from what is really important to you.
Once you have mastered gaining control of twenty-four hours, you can try managing your priorities by weeks, months, and quarterly segments. You will be amazed at how much more productive you will become, and at how simple it really is to become the master of your time.
Gerri Stone publishes time management articles and tips at http://www.tipsfortimemanagement.com.