Information Technology Reference
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surfaced during the week due to the continuous monitoring and constant
refinements the checkpoints provided.
The checkpoints were chosen in a way as to be as
nonintrusive
as possible
during the actual execution of the swing. Most of the checkpoints were in
preparation steps
, allowing the swing itself the freedom I needed to confi-
dently perform.
During the actual marathon golf week with my friend Bob, and his friends
Dave and Frank, I shot one round early in the week in the low eighties, and
after that all rounds were in the seventies, with my game and scores
consis-
tently
improving as the week progressed. I believe picking the right
checkpoints and implementing them in a disciplined way was key to the
project's success.
14
LESSON 10
Real consistency of results is the product of continuous small changes con-
stantly addressing specific weaknesses that never completely go away.
Steps to Finding the Right Checkpoints for Your Organization
To s u m m a r i z e t h e s t e p s I u s e d t o f i n d k e y c h e c k p o i n t s :
Step 1:
Ta l k t o t h e p e o p l e w h o u s e t h e p r o c e s s a n d t a k e n o t e s . E v e n i f w h a t
you are hearing sounds like nothing special, write it down, because expe-
rience has shown that over time, patterns emerge that are critical to
locating proper actions. Don't trust your memory or let yourself believe
what appears obvious is unimportant.
Step 2:
Ta k e t h e t i m e t o o b j e c t i v e l y a n a l y z e t h e d a t a , e x t r a c t i n g k e y r e p e a t -
ing weaknesses unique to your situation.
Step 3:
Identify and implement practical specific checkpoints.
Step 4:
Most importantly, for real improvement, timely action must be inte-
grated with ongoing real-time performance.
14. On the final day of our marathon golf week I shot a seventy-six* at the BlackHeath course at Ford
Colony. But Frank told me I needed to put an asterisk next to that score because in the middle of the round
I had to skip two holes (they gave me two pars on my score card) because I had to teleconference into a
technical working group meeting at NANO.
