Operation Improvement Inc.

THINK AND COMMUNICATE CLEARLY

Practice and encourage the policy of only using words and acronyms you are prepared to define. You needn’t be a surgeon to discuss brain surgery, but you should be able to define brain and surgery. If it is true that you can´t effectively manage without measuring, then you surely can´t manage what you cannot define. Define your acronyms!

BE DECISIVE
The time for action and the decision to act are two different things. The difference between Decisiveness and Impulsiveness is patient and prudent timing of action. Decisiveness is the ability to mentally adjudicate a matter so that it no longer consumes your most precious resource – your focus.

DON’T BE A BOTTLENECK
Successful follow-through takes a network of key individuals and massively parallel and well organized activity. If you try to do everything yourself, then you will limit managed work to your personal ability to process information and make decisions.

HOLD PEOPLE ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE THINGS THEY CAN CONTROL
Properly apportion work and responsibility. An objective division of labor is based on product, process, decision-role and human factors. Holding people accountable for the wrong things is self-deceiving, self-defeating and the biggest destroyer of productivity and morale. Make sure you understand the difference between accountability and blame.

BUILD REAL PROCESSES AND ITERATE

Processes are intentional methods of achieving repeatable results at a predictable cost. Many operations claim to have processes but upon examination they obviously don´t. If every little undertaking is approached as a first-time initiative, then a company only achieves a fraction of its potential for productivity.

PAY ATTENTION AND MAKE EVERY DAY A DAY OF REAL JOB EXPERIENCE
When we were young, we were told to “pay attention in school”. However, at any skill level, the essence of work is attention. Learn and encourage the policy of learning something new every day. Evaluate what you learn. Call a bad theory just that; not a “good theory that doesn’t work in practice”.

All rights to the content of this site are retained by Ron Parker and Operation Improvement Inc.

Ron Parker is a Service and Manufacturing Industry Operations Improvement Consultant with years of experience in the integration of People, Processes and Data.

Tactical Management Principles For Project Managers 

1. Goals (strategic management) provide purpose; without clear goals, objectives and projects lack direction. 

If there is no clear objective, then everything else fails. 

2. Everything ASAP makes projects late.  

Treating every task as ASAP dilutes priorities, triggers multitasking chaos, and makes projects late. 

3. Prepare to accept varying risk tolerance across projects. 

Projects have varying risk tolerances—some must not fail, others deliberately accept failure for learning, reward, or de-risking critical ones. 

4. The Iron Triangle is a myth (“any two: fast, cheap, good”). While generally true for tasks, it’s wrong for projects.  

Project managers optimize time, cost, performance, and acceptable risk. If we can always do worse, doesn’t that imply we can often do better? 

5. Waterfall versus iterative project management is a false choice.  

Waterfall suits projects with well-established processes and predictable capabilities; iterative approaches excel when essential processes require discovery, creation, and refinement. 

Project Management is more than just being an administrator; it’s an engineering task that involves people, processes, and data. 

When I talk to clients about business processes and the importance of process knowledge, they often confuse process with procedure. The mix-up is understandable—both involve intentional ways of doing business, and procedures are far more familiar than true processes.

Procedures are more common likely due to lower cost and skill requirements. Building them is akin to on-the-job training: designate a top performer, observe their actions, and have a technical writer document steps for others to replicate.

In contrast, process-building is an engineering endeavor. It starts with the objective, then explores means to achieve it. Drawing on scientific principles, available tools, alternatives, costs, and quality, it outlines a cause-and-effect-based method that’s tested and then implemented.

Often, no current worker meets the ideal standard before a true process is designed. That’s why approaches that begin by mapping “what we do now” are inferior to a genuine process mindset, which asks: “What result do we want, and what activities does it depend on?“

Procedures preserve the status quo by replicating what works. Processes aim higher.

Procedures

Procedures are activity-focused. They provide step-by-step instructions on what to do, with little explanation of why. Essentially, they say, “Trust me,” and the good operator is one that obeys!

In manufacturing, procedure sheets or “recipes” are common. Years ago, I worked with a client producing cast aluminum parts. They had thousands of recipes detailing mold numbers, fill pressures, times, and cooling durations.

Operators followed these faithfully, but yields worsened over time. The facility’s thermal and mechanical traits evolved with age, maintenance, and repairs—it was no longer the same machine.

Each year, more recipes became outdated, forcing operators to run trials and errors to identify the remaining formulas that produced acceptable parts.

Processes

A Process approach made it possible to involve the operator’s judgment, and to account for the change in the machine over time. The good operator is one that thinks!

By grounding methods in cause-and-effect relationships and process knowledge, we enabled operators to detect and correct recipe errors before casting, thereby preventing waste.

Within a work center, a business process is a designed baseline for roles, stations, tasks, and targets. It’s organized knowledge of who does what, where, and when.

Regular measurements check if the process aligns with the baseline or if something has shifted.

Understanding the process’s anatomy—its cause-and-effect links—helps interpret variances and pinpoint corrections.

Need an Example?

A simple analogy clarifies the distinction. It occurred to me while figuring out our last digital camera.

The procedure for a quick start: 1) Turn on the power. 2) Set the program dial to P. 3) Frame your subject in the viewfinder. 4) Press the shutter button. This got me my first photo but didn’t make me a photographer.

For over a century, photography’s science has revolved around light, lenses, focal points, and image planes. Photo-experts understand that the process begins with the end in mind: a captured image controlling illumination, color, contrast, depth of field, and motion. Key metrics include light sensitivity, grain (or megapixels), aperture, exposure time, and filtration.

From Brownie box cameras to advanced digitals, the core process remains stable, even as procedures vary by model and setting.

Professional photographers leverage this knowledge alongside real-time observations—like lighting, motion, colors, and backgrounds—to adapt and excel.

Process knowledge is the pro’s edge. Without it, you’re just someone with a camera.

Conclusion

In modern business, it’s unacceptable for gauges, controls, metrics, and adjustments to be mysteries to operators who merely follow recipes. This leads to a gradual erosion of competitiveness that may go unnoticed until it’s too late. You can avoid this by capturing, organizing, and sharing process knowledge. The outcome? A robust, consistent operation that thrives amid change.

September 17, 2025

“If you attend my class,” the professor said, “you should be able to pass the test.” The law students perked up immediately.

“What do you mean by attendance?” they asked. “If I arrive late and leave early, is that okay? What about sick days? Can I tape the class? Does community service count?”

It amazes me how much effort people pour into seeking loopholes for compliance. Instead of simply accepting that attendance means showing up and engaging, the legalistic mind hunts for ways to collect and cash in behaviors, credits, certifications, and even frequent-flier miles—anything to earn that compliance checkmark.

“I met the attendance requirements. I did what you said. Why didn’t I pass?” they’ll ask.

The honest answer? When it came to attendance, they were desperately searching for ways to skip it altogether while still claiming credit.

Box-Ticking Management

This mindset truly alarms me in the workplace. In top schools, students pass by mastering the material—not through mere compliance, but through proven performance. Attendance and grades reflect real achievement.

Graduates of what I call the “Let’s not and say we did” school of management appear at every business level, becoming the biggest barrier to true operational improvement.

Box-ticking managers will declare a meeting “held” even if no one attends. They’ll deem operators “trained” simply because the company bought an instructional video.

They mark project tasks complete not based on actual work, but because the deadline has passed. For these managers, a Quality Initiative boils down to certifications, awards, or any other compliance badge.

Root Cause

Ideally, a business’s decision-support function delivers a complete, clear snapshot of its current state. Yet, most internal reporting and analysis falls far short.

Instead, metrics often get twisted into justifying managerial pay. We aim to reward salaries, bonuses, and promotions for performance, but compliance ends up stealing the spotlight.

If bonuses hinge on ticking off three quality improvements and two cost-savings initiatives, a box-ticking manager naturally wonders, “How can I qualify?”

Misguided metrics and incentives can divert management attention from performance to compliance. Once the precedent has been set, it is very difficult to turn metrics from the comfort zone of compliance back to their proper role of monitoring process health and product performance.

The “ask-the-user” approach often taken by programmers results in automated metric reports that reinforce this negative business culture.

Solution

To cultivate a performance-driven culture, begin by redefining excellent operational performance.

For tactical managers, it means running facilities correctly and consistently. For strategic leaders and engineers, it’s about optimizing capacities, capabilities, and costs.

Metrics must mirror the business’s real-time state and guide improvement. Great metrics are designed around Better Decisions, Better Products, and Lower Costs, not bonus plans!