iSixSigma features an interesting article on communicating processes through Business Scenarios. As people are pattern-matching, narrative-absorbing animals, the tool is very effective:

If you start with the simplest scenario where nothing goes wrong (sunny-day) then you can rapidly walk the whole process. You can add complexity as you need to….This approach really opens up the discussion as you are talking to people in the language they relate to. You get to see the true degree of variation required of the process which allows for more robust solutions.

I heard about France Telecom’s nth employee suicide, while reading Industry Week’s article on innovative management approaches by Nucor and Costco. On the one hand you have 80s style corporate re-organization of a behemoth, which takes its toll on employees brought up on french public-sector work ethic. On the other hand, you have two companies whose innovation efforts are focused on empowering the workforce. They achieve this by promoting an ethic of egalitarianism, which aligns their goals with those of the company – the secret behind Toyota’s success (In 2005, Toyota’s top executives earned only one-tenth as much as Ford’s – Takeouchi et al.,2008).

Takeouchi, H., Osono, E., Shimizu, H. (2008) The Contradictions that Drive Toyota’s Success. Harvard Business Review, June 2008.