On My Mind
The 9th Annual Advanced Strategic Improvement Practices Conference will be held October 19, 2017 at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. The purpose of the conference is to assemble experts from various types of organizations in a beautiful setting to learn with each other how to improve organizations from a strategic perspectives. Twelve presentations will be delivered related to four major themes: Strategy, Analytics, Innovation, and Lean Six Sigma. There is another all-star presenter line-up again this year: Marshall Smith, MN DHS Direct Care and Treatment; Wayne Fortun, Hutchinson Technology (retired); Dr. John Olson and Dr. Ashley Stadler Blank, University of St. Thomas; Dr. Andy Van de Ven, Carlson School of Management; Justin Gilbert, IBM; Matthew Moore, Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation; Vern Campbell, Process Management International and the University of Manitoba; Kirk Burcar, New Flyer Industries; Michael Smith, Be The Match; Anthony Alongi, Judy Grew, and Laura Grunloh, MN DNR; Mike Kewley, Loram Maintenance of Way; and myself. I’ll be presenting on “Big Data in Hoshin Kanri” which will be on how to integrate big data into strategic planning-type processes.

Interesting Stories
Perform or else . . . continued! Last month I mentioned that Mark Fields was replaced as the Chief Executive Officer of the Ford Motor Company. This past month Jeff Immelt, Chief Executive Officer of GE, announced that he will retire. The performance of the GE stock price during Immelt’s tenure largely mirrored that of the S&P 500 except for the past few years when the performance gap widened. Immelt replaced the legendary CEO Jack Welch in 2001. Immelt’s successor effective August 1, 2017 will be John Flannery, President and CEO of GE Healthcare.

Company News
The public Continuous Improvement Green Belt course kicked-off June 28. A one day Creating Successful Standards is scheduled for August 31. The next public Strategic Improvement Master Black Belt course is scheduled to start October 10. The 9th Annual Advanced Strategic Improvement Practices Conference is scheduled for October 19. The one day Advances in Strategic Planning course is scheduled for November 9. The next public Strategic Improvement Black Belt course is scheduled to start January 9, 2018.

Intriguing Reads
I went back to the book “Hoshin Kanri: Policy Deployment for Successful TQM” when I was writing my research paper on “Big Data in Hoshin Kanri.” The book was edited and partly written by Dr. Yoji Akao. I still consider the book to be the definitive source on hoshin kanri. If you want to learn more about hoshin kanri, then I would start with that book.