Reminding You of the Most Often Overlooked Risk in Your Energy Supply Chain

It’s not volcanic eruptions, which could bury or clog your production facilities with ash, as these generally only occur every few years to every few hundred years.

It’s not an unpredictable terrorist act that could blow up a pipeline in North America.

No, it’s suicidal Sciurus Carolinensis.

Last December, when I first told you about the most often overlooked risk in your energy supply chain, I told you how one little squirrel in one little circuit breaker in one little substation can knock out power to 9,000 homes, as FirstEnergy customers in North Royalton (Ohio).

Now, it seems another squirrel has went on the offensive in Florida where it caused a power outage in central and westin Destin (Florida) [NWFDailyNews.com], affecting both Gulf Power home and business customers.

Squirrels are on the attack! Are you ready?

An 11-Gun Salute for Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster

I was thoroughly impressed when I saw this recent article in the New York Times on how we have met the enemy and he is PowerPoint which contained a quote from Gen. James N. Mattis that said that PowerPoint makes us stupid.The article pointed out that Brigadier General H. R. McMaster, who led the successful effort to secure the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005, banned PowerPoint presentations in his campaign and, in a follow-up military conference in North Carolina, likened PowerPoint to an internal threat.

According to General McMaster, it’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable. According to General McMaster, PowerPoint’s worst offense is not the spaghetti graphics which are becoming increasingly common (like this graphic that tops the article), but rigid lists of bullet points that take no account of interconnected political, economic, and ethnic forces. If you divorce war from all of that, it becomes a targeting exercise. The program stifles discussion, critical thinking, and thoughtful decision making … and it ties up the junior officers — referred to as the PowerPoint Rangers — in the daily preparation of slides. Think of all the time that is wasted in slide production instead of on data gathering and analysis! It’s scary!

When we’re talking about PowerPoint, the only time it comes in handy is when the goal is not imparting information. In other words, the only time PowerPoint is useful is if you want to hide something … because there’s no possible way to disclose any information with the tool. (And that’s why the doctor has strict rules when it comes to PowerPoint. He has no interest in going dumb before his time.)

Thus, in my view, H.R. McMaster deserves an 11-gun salute* for leading the battle against what, in my view, is the biggest enemy the US Military has: PowerPoint. I hope it wins the battle before it costs them a war.

* The tradition in the United States is to give the President a 21-gun salute, a deputy head of state and five star general (of the army, airforce, or navy [fleet admiral]) a 19-gun salute, a four star general a 17-gun salute, a three star lieutenant general a 15-gun salute, a two star major general a 13-gun salute, and a one star brigadier general an 11-gun salute.

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For Efficiency, Find a Software Vendor That Uses the Three Minute Rule

A recent post over on the HBR blogs documented Cue Ball‘s “three minute rule” that they encourage their portfolio companies to adopt. According to Cue Ball, the best way to not only develop a customer-driven approach, but to truly develop customer understanding, is to use the three-minute rule where you ask your customers what they are doing three minutes before they use their tool and three minutes after.

The example they give is that, at Thomson, one of the products provides investment analysis of financial earnings data. What Thomson hadn’t fully appreciated — until they applied the three minute rule — was that immediately after accessing the data, a large number of analysts were painstakingly importing it into Excel and reformatting it. This led Thomson to prioritize developing a more seamless Excel plug-in with enhanced formatting capability. The result, an almost immediate and very significant uplift in sales.

If your software vendor uses the three minute rule, then they understand how you use each of their various modules and the integration will allow you to flow from one to the other without having to manually cut and paste data, wait thirty to ninety seconds for new modules to load, or load up Microsoft Office to complete a basic task. Furthermore, they’ll understand what applications you’re using before and what applications you’ll be using after and include easy import and export features that make importing data from the predecessor application a single click and make exporting data to the next application a single click. If switching modules is a pain, or importing and exporting is a nightmare, your vendor does not follow the three minute rule and it might be time to reevaluate your platform choices.

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10 Best Practices for Software Selection from Software Advice

Industry Week recently published “10 Best Practices for Software Selection” from Software Advice that were pretty good. In brief, they were:

  • Take Ownership of Selection ProcessDon’t delegate to a subordinate or IT. It’s your process that you’re trying to automate and improve, so make sure you get the software that you need.
  • Determine Your NeedsKnow exactly what you need before you even issue the RFP. As I previously wrote, you don’t want to fall for a fliggle-flaggle-floogle sales pitch.
  • Get the Right Software for Your IndustryWhile there are many products out there, some will be tailored to specific verticals. If it’s tailored to yours, it could be a good thing. But if you’re an automotive component manufacturer and it’s tailored for a bottler, it might not be the right software for you.
  • Integrate the Enterprise over TimeBuying a suite that integrates the majority of your back office functions under one umbrella might be the right decision, but the last thing you should do is a big bang implementation — unless, of course you want your operation to go out with a big bang. Remember Foxmeyer? They were a 5 Billion Dollar company until they tried to do a big bang update of all their hardware and software systems, which went up in a bang that resulted in Chapter 11 and a fire-sale to their arch rival for a mere 80 Million.
  • Assess Ease-of-use CarefullyEven if the system does everything you ever wished for, it’s not a good investment if it’s hard to use, because it will just end up being bypassed. It’s much better to have an 80% solution that’s easy and pleasant to use than a 100% solution that requires a team of PhDs and magicians.
  • Ensure Strong Support and MaintenanceThere’s no such thing as bug free software. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Some software will be more bug-free than others, but all systems go down eventually. Make sure the vendor offers great support, because you will need it.
  • Pay Close Attention to Vendor ViabilityThis doesn’t mean that you should buy from the biggest, because even the mighty can fail. It just means the company should be stable with a sizeable customer base that can support it for years to come.
  • Be Realistic About Your BudgetIf you only have 200K, don’t look at software in the 1M range. Don’t even look at software in the 500K range. Focus on finding a solution you can afford, even if it’s not perfect. If you can find a point solution for 100K that has a 5X ROI, then you’ll have a 500K budget next year to fill in the gaps.
  • Understand your Deployment OptionsIf you don’t have a solid IT department, or they’re overworked, you probably should not be looking at on-premise. Similarly, if corporate policies prohibit certain data from leaving your four walls, you might be forced into an on-premise solution.
  • Plan your platform technology needsUnderstand your current platform and the options you are able to support. If you’re a Microsoft Shop, you should probably be looking at .Net solutions. Similarly, If you’re a Linux or Unix shop, a .Net solution should be immediately crossed off the list.

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Extracting Great Performance from Great Strategy

Back in 2005, Mankins & Steele wrote a great article for the Harvard Business Review on “Turning Great Strategy into Great Performance” that outlined seven rules for successful strategy execution that fit nicely within our strategy development and execution framework. Since the article has probably faded from collective memory, here are the seven rules and why you should revisit the article.

  1. Keep it SimpleClear goals. Clear actions. Clear boundaries. If an average high school student can’t understand the plan, it’s too complicated.
  2. Challenge AssumptionsIt’s important to ensure that the assumptions underlying the strategic plan represent real market economics and actual organizational performance relative to industry peers and rivals. An organization should continually analyze market profitability, costs, and pricing relative to the competition, for starters.
  3. Speak the Same LanguageOperations, marketing, and finance must agree on a common framework for execution and performance assessment.
  4. Discuss Resource Deployments EarlyExecution requires people, who have to be trained, geared up, and ready to go.
  5. Identify PrioritiesMake sure that strategic priorities are explicit and focussed on.
  6. Continuously Monitor PerformanceTrack real-time results against the plan, reseting assumptions and reallocating resources as required.
  7. Develop Execution AbilityMake selection and development of leaders and trainers a priority.

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