Yikes, I just used, "bits" in the title just like my mother-in-law does in conversation. Nothing to do with computers.
Mark Graban at the Lean Blog had LEAN or LAME about a week ago in which he rightly complains that all the "LEAN doesn't work" stories seem to be about mis-implementations of LEAN (which frequently become LEAN = "less employees are needed"). He's come up with LAME: "LEAN as Misguidedly Executed" but that sounded lame, so he asked his readers for help. One created "Lacking Any Management Ethics," which may be a bit harsh. [via On Pharma]
I like the sense of the complaint. It's easy to blame the method, when it is the implementation. The struggle with many improvement efforts is that if there is no follow-through, it often looks like the method is at fault. Do this enough times at a company, and EVERY method appears to be wrong. Maybe it's not the methods...
The other thing that tickled me today was Derek Lowe's In the Pipeline article on Writing it Down, where he talks about attempting to make the often-dry scientific interesting. Here's a tip:
As for writing style, I recommend a difficult one: the kind that you hardly see at all. Keeping someone reading along while you deliver the dry, concentrated, chewy news isn’t easy to do, but it’s a goal worth struggling for. Most papers scan as if they’ve been sprayed with light coating of eye repellent: you slide right off of them after a paragraph or so. If you can avoid that, you’re already well out from the pack.
Enjoy!