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No matter what side of the political fence you fall, BP failed to take the proper quality control measures. As the weeks pass more information is coming to light how the organization cut corners with safety to keep costs down. Safety is not the place to take short cuts. In the long run this can cost you thousands of dollars and possibly your business. In BP’s case it is running in the billions not to mention what it is doing for their stock value. The ramification of poor quality control is costly. So how could a corporation
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No matter what size your organization doing things as efficiently as possible is not only ideal it is necessary in the new world economy. One area that can be significantly improved is the office. In fact, 60 to 80% of costs associated with providing a service or product to market is administrative. If you were able to reduce these by one third how much could you increase your cash flow?
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Planning is the backbone of success. Not doing it can cost thousands of dollars, man hours and resources. Proper planning can save you money, increase your cash flow and help fulfill your mission. Here is a simple tool to aid in ensuring your success.
- Working Between Departments Means Faster Cash Flow
When you look at a traditional organizational chart it has silos which contain various departments and the people overseeing and working in those departments. In today’s business climate where information is your company’s gold this can be troublesome. Why, because the right hand may not know what the left hand is doing. We have all [...]
Mind Mapping and Efficiency
I recently did a speaking engagement for the Orange County Youth Bureau and exposed the young adults to the concept of mind mapping. If you have never done this technique it is very useful and efficient. In a matter of less than 5 minutes, we were able to create a mind map for a paper this young man took two hours to get done. You can use software for this or just a simple piece of paper.
When I am developing a seminar it is much easier for me to mind map what I would like to discuss. I draw a circle in the center of the paper. That is the name of my seminar. Then I draw a line (leg) from the center and that is one of my main topics. I do this for all the main topics. From the main topic leg I then draw little lines with the sub-topics. If you break it down further than this it is time to add a new leg. Your mind map ends up looking like a spider. Now prioritize which topic you want to go first, second, third, etc.
This would also work with a project. If you are procrastinating there is a good chance you are doing it for a reason. The young man I described above procrastinated over an hour because he did not know what to write. When we got done mind mapping his paper he knew exactly what he should write about. He told the group it would have taken 30 minutes if he had used a mind map.
What ever the name of your project put that in the circle. Then just write down on the legs what pops into your mind that needs to happen. Do not worry about prioritizing. Just let you mind formulate a plan. Then you can expand on each of the legs the sub-tasks. Now prioritize what order to do the tasks. When you let your mind flow freely it will give you the information you need and help you get where you want to go.
If you have a more complex project you can use software. Wikipedia has a great list of mind mapping products. Complements of Criss Ittermann, Eclectic Tech - there is free mind mapping software available at freemind.sourceforge.net. Use the version that works best for you.
Let me know how you use mind mapping.
I use FreeMind (http://freemind.sourceforge.net) for projects, for website structure diagrams I can pass to clients, for organizing workshop or seminar data, and even for preliminary business plans.
I prefer software, though I could use paper, because it's easy to move items from one branch to another, and to collaborate with others since FreeMind is a cross-platform application (Windows, Mac, Linux).
Here's an example mind map courtesy of Wikipedia: