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Review: Six Discplines for Excellence April 12, 2006

Some time ago, I was sent a copy of the book “Six Disciplines for Excellence”, by Gary Harpst, and asked to do a review when I was done with it. I’ve read it through twice now, and this is the review I promised. It’s a lot later than I intended it to be, and for that I sincerely apologize.

From the back of the book: “This book is NOT for those who are looking for a quick fix. Six Disciplines is a “long-term fitness program, not a fad diet”. I think that’s an excellent description. If you’ve been reading my blog here, you’ll know that I’m “into” ITIL, and process methodology as a whole, with a technical focus. Six Disciplines has made a very nice addition to my process skills arsenal with its focus on the business side of the house.

The Six Disciplines break down as follows:

and each of those major headings above breaks down into additional sections, which are then explained fully in the book.

For an overview, you can either go to the Six Disciplines website, or consider the image below.

Six Disciplines Mindmap Image

The thumbnail above will expand to a full-size MindMap if you click on it. In this instance, I’ve deliberately used an earlier-draft of the MindMap that I Was making as I read the book, rather than the completed version, and I won’t be making the actual MindMap available for download - that wouldn’t be fair to the book publishers, and would likely violate copyright as well. You should be able to see from the image, however, that this is a circular, continuous improvement methodology, with outputs from one section readily feeding into another, and that there are linkages throughout the methodology (the MindMap looks a little messy to show that; remember that if you’re working with one of them in the MindManager application itself, you get to filter and turn on & off as much detail as you need at any given moment).

Frankly, I wish I’d had this book a few years ago, when I was part of a project that DID create a global IS department, from several smaller departments, and set visions, mission statements, processes, and so forth in place, many of which are still in operation today. We got it done, but at times it seemed like we were winging it, as there was no central reference like this to go to, other than process steps we defined for ourselves. If I was in that situation again, this would be a process guide that I turned to. I’m honest enough to admit that I might not follow it to the letter - the curse of man is that he likes to change things to his own preferences - but it would definitely be a good starting point.

In reading the book, I’m struck that the author spends time focusing on HOW to achieve maximum benefit from each of the six interdependent Disciplines, and not just providing a laundry list without explanation.  There are plenty of “lists” and “summaries” out there, but getting a strong sense of the reasoning behind a recommendation adds to the value.
The book is subtitled “Building Small Businesses That Learn, Lead and Last”, and that’s a great focus; while it may not scale to a larger company in its entirety, there’s no reason individual departments within such couldn’t benefit as well.

I’ll be completing my note-taking of the book shortly, embedding it all into the MindMap that I started, and along with my ITIL maps, project management maps and so forth, the Six Disciplines will form a permanent part of my reference set that I use when I work as a manager.


Kitchen Sites

So, I’m in the market for a couple of new bits and pieces for my kitchen. Naturally, I go to the web to find what I’m looking for. There’s the blindingly obvious - purveyor of almost-everything-under-the-sun Amazon, or brick-and-mortar stalwarts Linen and Things, Bed, Bath & Beyond, or Williams & Sonoma.

But I wanted more… So I went exploring across the web, and here’s a collection of the sites that I found. Haven’t got experience yet of which is better, or how they compare against each other - they’re all stocking somewhat different items, which is good - but I wanted to save the list for the next time.

The list isn’t intended to be exhaustive; it’s just what I spent time wandering through recently. Any additions, or comments on the ones listed above, are of course welcomed, and encouraged.


A Family Post - Wedding Anniversary Pictures


Bill & Penny

Posted to give nice easy access to the flickr set that I uploaded of this, this particular photo is my mother (Penny) and step-father (Bill), at the combination birthday-party-for-Bill (I’ll be nice and not post an age here!) and 25th-Wedding-Anniversary-for-them party that I went back to England for at the start of the month.