YouTube Resource: Microsoft's next CEO - Who is Satya Nadella?

Today, Microsoft announced its next CEO, Satya Nadella. He becomes the third leader in the company's 38 year history, replacing Steve Ballmer. The video below is an interview Microsoft posted today on its website as interviewed by Microsoft's Steve Clayton.

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Webinar: Introduction to Lean Concepts - A Quick Primer Part 1

Today, I am kicking off on my blog a mini series on Lean Concepts. Recently, I have been asked to prepare such a webinar by some of my blog readers and my subscribers at my other website ShabanaWollin.com. Hence, I have prepared the 1st episode in a series of 3. It is my hope that you find it useful and that it gives you enough basic knowledge to follow along with the subsequent episodes with ease. As always, I welcome your feedback by posting in the comments below.

Watch this Introduction to Lean Concepts - A Quick Primer Part 1 by Shabana Wollin, PMP, Six Sigma Black Belt

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TED Talk Resource: Communication as an Art Form by Sangeeta Isvaran

For those of you that frequent my blog, you are familiar with my video postings from various resources around the web. Today, I am pleased to share with you a TEDx video clip presented by Ms.Sangeeta Isvaran. This is special for me, because Ms Isvaran was my senior in high school back home in India. She is an amazing artist and expresses herself through the traditional dance form of ancient southern India, Bharatnatyam. In this video she explains how she communicates with the people around her using non verbal facial expressions and how she utilizes this art form in the social work she is involved in globally. Hope you enjoy the clip and gain insight in to this art form. I would as always, love to hear your comments on this post below. Watch this TEDx Sairam Talk by Sangeeta Isvaran and share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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TED Talk Resource: The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar

This is a great video on the Art of Choosing. We have a lot of choices available to us and around us. How are we doing making choices? Is it easy? It is difficult? Why so? Watch this TED Global talk by Sheena Iyengar and be inspired and share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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YouTube Resource: Indian Companies Doing Business in USA - Foreign Direct Investment Success Stories

I have been away from my blog for a while now as I have been busy with a new project. Recently, I came upon a resource while researching for a project, that I wanted share with my readers. This video resource discusses how Indian companies are making a difference on American soil. As many of my readers know I am actively involved in strategic international business initiatives and specialize in helping American companies wishing to do business with technology & manufacturing companies in India and vice versa.  It is my hope you find this video insightful. If you are interested in learning more about how to get started, please feel free to email me directly or leave me a comment below.

This video clip is approximately 13 minutes long and is developed by the Confederation of Indian Industry.  The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) works to create and sustain an environment conducive to the development of India, partnering industry, Government, and civil society, through advisory and consultative processes.

To learn more on how to find a local chapter or to become a member, please visit CII Website.

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Shabana's Updates

***UPDATE 2/10/2013: I recently accepted a position with a global sales and marketing management consulting firm in Chicago, IL as an Enterprise Applications Project Delivery Specialist. My company is recognized as one of the world's largest business services firms specializing in transforming sales and marketing from an art to a science. The business helps its clients gain market share at lower cost by creating data-driven strategies that their clients can implement rapidly and by helping their sales and marketing operations to make them more competitive. They have 20 offices around the world, have worked with more than 700 companies in 70 countries across consumer products, energy, high-tech, insurance, medical products and services, pharmaceuticals and other industries.

I am excited to be part of this service oriented organization and grow my career further in a rich, innovative and inspiring environment. ***

***UPDATE 10/4/2012: You can hire me to work for your organization as an independent consultant directly for long term client engagement beginning in October 2012. If you are interested in learning more about Bluefrog Technologies's consulting services, rates, & our engagement process, please feel free to contact me directly via email. I look forward to hearing from you! ***

Check my profile page about this blog, my expertise and background.

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How a Commercial Photography Studio Successfully Applied Lean Principles to Tackle Waste: Part 2 of 2

In the Part 1 of this series, I introduced you to the basic lean principles and the three (3) major categories of waste and the seven (7) wastes. Today, we will look at how one organization successfully was able to implement lean and identify some of these categories of waste. Set production in the photo studio has multiple sub processes, but for the purposes of this blog post, I will illustrate the painting process. A photography studio for a large retailer is a very fast paced environment with many moving parts and lots of people and equipment involved. Multiple activities are occurring in parallel and it is almost is like a fine tuned orchestra.

The roles that you will find most commonly across many studios are:

·         photographers

·         art directors

·         photo assistants & lead assistant

·         lighting technicians

·         digital technicians

·         studio managers

·         models

·         hair & makeup artists

·         project managers.

There is a lot of workflow, many pieces of equipment and numerous processes. Everyone seems to understand what their role is, and how they work together to produce the end result. It is just amazing for an outsider looking inside.

The areas of improvement that the photography studio management wanted to focus on were:

i) efficiency in resource (people & equipment) utilization

ii) increase production capacity and

iii) avoid costly rework. In a photography studio, rework usually means a re-shoot or re-do of a photo shoot, which has a huge domino effect on multiple processes and a huge one is always cost.

iv)lack of consistency in process understanding

 Once the above areas were identified, the process areas responsible began their lean journey to address them. The following were some of the lean tools and how they were utilized in this scenario:

1) Value Stream Mapping: As a first step, the process owners for each of the processes were identified and documented. A value stream mapping workshop was facilitated under the guidance of a Black Belt for the process owners to understand how each of their processes pushed and pulled from one another. The value stream mapping also helped to eliminate any non-value added steps.

2) 5S: The next step was to use 5S to organize the work areas. The results from this tool were almost immediate.

 3)Identify & Eliminate Muda: Once this exercise was complete, the process owners were able to go back to their areas and identify the waste. As a result of this exercise the painting process owner was able to identify the following areas of waste in the photo studio:

a)Rework: a set that has been painted in the wrong color, lighting is incorrect due to lack of a diagram, lack of instructions to the photographer on the look for photo shoot, a product shot on the wrong background, and differing perceptions on final look by art directors.

b)Over processing: retouching an look or image more than required, gold plating, and over planning a photo shoot

c)Overproduction: doing multiple photo shoots with multiple looks that might not always be needed or required, done for insurance in case it may be needed, maximizing on the availability of a high-end model that might not be available to come back for a re-shoot, etc.

d)Waiting: lots of time lost waiting for a process to complete, people waiting for other people or people waiting on equipment

e) Motion: Photographers having to move (walk) to various photo "bays" for shoots that are not necessarily close by or props that are not readily available on the current photo set. Equipment that has to be moved from one bay to the next for subsequent photo shoots.

f)Inventory: Backgrounds for photo sets, paint, props, accessories, and other camera equipment that might be used just for one photo shoot.

4) Muri: People that were not required to be present at meetings, unnecessary overtime, lack of creativity

The next step for this group is to address the above areas by applying some of the tools available and track their progress. Currently the leadership team has adopted a daily morning team Gemba walk that helps them check on the progress and study areas for further improvement. 

I shall continue to remain in touch with the process owners at this organization to learn about their progress on their lean journey. If you have any comments or questions on this article, please leave them in the comments section below or feel free to email me.

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