Setting the Right Service Level Without Letting Inventory Costs Run Away
A practical method for tuning service levels against carrying cost, so you protect customers and cash at the same time.
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XNM Blog
Practical guidance on capital projects, governance, financing, and delivery for Indigenous and public-sector leaders.
Articles
Benchmarking Without Lying to Yourself: A Practical Method
How to benchmark honestly in Lean Six Sigma — comparing the right things, against comparable processes, without cherry-picking the numbers that flatter you.
Read more →Forecasting Sprint by Sprint: Using Your Own Data Instead of Guesswork
A practical guide to building delivery forecasts from a Scrum Team's own empirical data, so commitments survive contact with reality.
Read more →Buying Back Time: A Practical Guide to Crashing and Fast-Tracking
When a schedule slips, two techniques can pull the finish date back. Here is how to choose between crashing and fast-tracking — and what each one costs you.
Read more →The Pallets Nobody Wanted: What an Inventory Write-Down Teaches You
A composite story of a warehouse full of stock that quietly lost its value — and the practical habits that keep obsolescence from blindsiding your books.
Read more →Plot It Before You Police It: A Case for Run Charts First
A team chasing a quality problem reached for control charts too soon. A plain run chart told them what they actually needed to know first.
Read more →When Pressure Hits: What the Five Scrum Values Looked Like on a Hybrid Team
A recovering team learned that Scrum's five values are not posters on a wall. They show up in small daily decisions, especially when the work gets hard.
Read more →The Action Item That Vanished: Building Follow-Through That Actually Sticks
A hybrid project team kept logging action items that quietly disappeared. Here is how they turned a dead list into a discipline people trusted.
Read more →Why You Can't Buy a Car Right Now: A Plain Explainer on the Chip Shortage
The semiconductor shortage stalled cars, appliances and electronics through 2021. Here is what caused it and what buyers can actually do about it.
Read more →Statistical Sampling, Explained for People Who Don't Want to Count Everything
A beginner's look at why a well-drawn sample beats a full census, and how to size and select one without fooling yourself.
Read more →Distributed Scrum Without the Drift: A Starter's Guide
A plain explainer on running Scrum when the team is spread across kitchens and offices: keep the framework intact, fix the communication, not the rules.
Read more →A Beginner's Guide to Meetings That Don't Waste People's Time
Most meetings fail before they start. A simple, plain-language guide to running gatherings — in person or on a screen — that people don't dread.
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