Error-Proof Management

These questions are designed to help you decide if you have a valuable opportunity to use the Error-Proof Management process.

1. Is your organization losing ground in any of the following areas?

- Timeliness of introducing new products and services (for example, if you are trying to be the first to market by as much as possible, are you maintaining the time advantage you want to have?)

- Cost position in serving customers versus competitors (for example, if your objective is to be the low cost producer by two percentage points of sales, do you have or are you trending towards that in a timely way?)

- Knowledge of key markets, customers, or technologies (for example, if you want to know about new trends before others, is that how you are performing?)

- Making timely decisions (for example, if your key decisions had come sooner, what would that have been worth to you in recent years?)

2. If so, approximately how much will it cost your organization to lose ground in the same way in the future?

3. Do you have any critical projects going on now where you cannot afford to fail or be late?

4. If so, approximately what will be the economic effect on your organization if you are late or fail?

5. Are there places where you currently are not a leader in timely innovation where it would make sense for your organization to be first to make offer improvements in products, services, or distribution?

6. Estimate the potential value of making those timely innovations first.

© 1999 Mitchell and Company