Cutting Cycle Time: The Mistakes That Keep Processes Slow
Most cycle-time projects shave the wrong seconds. Here are the common Lean Six Sigma mistakes teams make when cutting cycle time — and how to avoid them.
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XNM Blog
Practical guidance on capital projects, governance, financing, and delivery for Indigenous and public-sector leaders.
Articles
WIP Limits in Scrum: The Kanban Mistakes That Stall Sprints
Bringing Kanban's work-in-progress limits into Scrum can sharpen flow — or quietly break your Sprint. Here are the common mistakes and how to avoid them.
Read more →The Quiet Risk: Where Project Assumptions Go Wrong
Unmanaged assumptions sink more projects than bad estimates do. Here are the common mistakes teams make with assumptions — and how to avoid each one.
Read more →Building a Supply Chain That Holds Up: A Practical How-To
A step-by-step guide to building a supply chain that survives disruption — mapping tiers, qualifying alternates, and designing for recovery, not just cost.
Read more →Smaller Batches, Faster Flow: A Practical Guide to Reducing Batch Size
Why processing work in smaller batches cuts lead time, exposes problems sooner, and frees up cash — plus a step-by-step way to shrink batch size without breaking things.
Read more →Flow Metrics for Scrum Teams: Putting Cycle Time and Lead Time to Work
A practical guide to measuring lead time and cycle time alongside Scrum, so your team can see how fast work really moves and where it gets stuck.
Read more →How to Keep a Decision Log Your Team Will Actually Use
A step-by-step guide to recording project decisions so that, months later, anyone can see what was chosen, why, and on whose authority.
Read more →What a Stalled Hospital Project Taught Us About Supplier Diversity
A composite story from 2020-21: how a public-sector buyer turned supplier diversity from a checkbox into resilience, and the practical moves that made it stick.
Read more →When the Warehouse Was Full but the Shelves Were Empty: A Pull-System Turnaround
A team buried in inventory it didn't need, short on the parts it did. Switching from push to pull untangled the mess.
Read more →Measuring Agility Without Counting Story Points: A Team's Turn to Evidence-Based Management
A Scrum team that was 'doing agile' couldn't say if it was getting better. Evidence-Based Management gave them an honest answer.
Read more →The Update Nobody Read: Building a Communication Plan People Actually Follow
A hybrid-team project drowned in updates yet left everyone uninformed. Here is how a simple communication plan fixed it.
Read more →Spend Analysis: How to Find Money Already Sitting in Your Purchasing Data
A plain-language guide to spend analysis — the practical first step that turns scattered purchasing records into real savings.
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