Everyday Kanban

Discussing Management, Teams, Agile, Lean, Kanban & more

Month: July 2015 (page 1 of 2)

The “gratuity included” paradox

Trust your team

In American restaurants, gratuity is not included in menu prices. It is left up to the patrons to leave what they think was deserved – 18-20% is standard these days. So, I experience a vague irritation whenever I see “gratuity included for parties of X or more” on an American restaurant menu. It smacks of a lack of trust in me to treat the server with the respect they deserve. I assume that policies like this spur from being wronged in the past. I understand that thinking and know that it happens everywhere, though its not always as obvious.

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Taming the Chaos for Managers: Baby Steps to Awesomeness

improveIf you’ve been reading the “Taming the Chaos for Managers” series thus far, you’ve read about the key concepts of visualizing work, making policies explicit and limiting your work-in-progress. You’ve also learned about helpful ideas such as scheduling focus time and identifying different classes of work. What have you done with that information so far? Take a moment to reflect what you’ve learned from trying to implement these concepts. If you haven’t been able to, ask yourself “why not?”

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Taming the chaos for managers: Learning to swim

working and focusedAs I noted last week, managers regularly help their teams tame the chaos that faces them — good managers, at least. However, they rarely ever think to apply the same concepts to their day-to-day work. Hijinks ensue. In Getting Started, I wrote about scheduling focus time, visualizing work and limiting your work-in-progress (WIP). Now, that you’re in the pool and treading water, you need to take back some control and learn how to swim.

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