Right-Sizing Safety Stock, One Item at a Time: A Field Checklist
A practical, item-by-item checklist for setting safety stock that matches each part's demand swing, lead-time risk, and the cost of running out.
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XNM Blog
Practical guidance on capital projects, governance, financing, and delivery for Indigenous and public-sector leaders.
Articles
Running DMAIC End to End: A Checklist for Your Next Improvement Project
DMAIC fails when teams jump to solutions before defining the problem. This phase-by-phase checklist keeps a Lean Six Sigma project honest from Define to Control.
Read more →A Sprint Planning Checklist for Teams That Want to Finish on Time
Sprint Planning runs long and Sprints overrun when the Backlog is murky and capacity is guessed. Here is a practical checklist to plan a Sprint you can actually finish.
Read more →A Risk Register That Earns Its Place: A Checklist for This Week
Most risk registers are graveyards of unowned line items. Use this field checklist to turn yours into something that actually changes what the team does next.
Read more →Dual-Sourcing Without the Disappointment: Where Resilience Plans Go Wrong
Adding a second supplier feels like insurance, but most resilience plans fail quietly. Here are the common mistakes and how to build sourcing that actually holds.
Read more →Scope Before You Solve: Avoiding the SIPOC Mistakes That Derail DMAIC
A SIPOC drawn well keeps a Lean Six Sigma project from boiling the ocean. Drawn badly, it sets you up to fix the wrong thing. Here are the traps to dodge.
Read more →Why So Many Sprint Goals Are Worthless — and How to Write One That Isn't
A Sprint Goal is meant to give the team something worth committing to. Most are vague or just a backlog summary. Here is how to fix the usual mistakes.
Read more →The RAID Log Nobody Updates: Common Failures and How to Avoid Them
A RAID log is only as good as the habit of keeping it current. Here are the mistakes that turn it into dead weight, and how to make it a living tool the team trusts.
Read more →Seeing Past Your Suppliers: Where Tier-2 Risk Mapping Goes Wrong
Most disruption in 2021 came not from the supplier you know but from the one behind them. Here are the mistakes teams make mapping tier-2 risk, and how to fix them.
Read more →Improving a Process When You Barely Have Any Data
You don't need a clean dataset to start improving. You need a clear problem, an honest baseline, and the discipline not to fool yourself while you gather what you can.
Read more →What Skipping Backlog Refinement Really Costs Your Team
Refinement is the quiet work that makes Sprint Planning fast and predictable. Skip it and the cost shows up later, usually mid-Sprint and at the worst time.
Read more →Why Variance Reports Mislead: Reading Baseline-Versus-Actual Without Fooling Yourself
The everyday errors that make schedule and cost variance look better or worse than reality, and how to read the numbers honestly.
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