When fans come together…

In the mid 80s, English football was in deep crisis. For years those in charge of the game and the clubs themselves had invested very little into the game. At the center of all of this were the fans, and being a football fan in 1985 was similar to admitting that you spent Saturday afternoons fighting dogs, it was something to be slightly ashamed of….

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Bosman revisited

In ’95 the European Court of Justice ruled that Standard Liege, the Belgium FA and UEFA had broken all sorts of EU employment rules when they refused to allow jouneyman player Jean-Marc Bosman to move to French club Dunkerque after his contract has expired. However Liege did not like the transfer fee Dunkerque offered and said no to the move. At this time (1990) players…

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Toyota and NASA, very different goal setting methods

In contrast to Toyotas and their often vague, but challenging goals NASA uses a very different requirement process. They break the goal setting into four distinct actions before authorizing a project. Need – every requirement for a program or project should be fully understood and how this requirement is needed to fulfil he project goal. The idea is clearly to stop unnecessary items (or work…

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Richard Dawkins reading at the UW

Last night evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins did a book reading at the University of Washington Hec-ed pavilion. Something over 5000 people turned up to hear him read from his latest book “The greatest show on Earth”. Dr Dawkins is something of a controversial figure to many people and is sometimes known as “Darwin’s Rottweiler” in the media for his staunch and often eloquent defence of…

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The singing NASA PM

A short Youtube video of a song about the ongoing Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission looking for water on the Moon. It was written and recoded by John Marmie one of the mission project managers. LCROSS PM sings about the mission

Plan-Do-Check-Act

Experimentation is a significant part of TPS and is one of the ways in which Toyota achieves the rather impressive targets it sets for itself. Organizations are encourage to test, learn from the results and out of the groups comfort zone. Using an iterative design and test philosophy it allows the company to meet the significant goals that Toyota sets itself through a series of…

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