MacGyver it.
As a kid there were an abundance of T.V. shows and characters for me to admire. From Knight Rider to G.I. Joe and D.C. to Marvel, I had a fantastic choice of heroes to admire. However not one of them has left the long-lasting mark that Angus MacGyver did. For those unfamiliar Angus "Mac" MacGyver is a fictional television character who uses his resourcefulness and a Swiss-Army knife to solve almost any problem. In 1985, Richard Dean Anderson brought to life a character so amazing that to this day the greatest compliment anyone can give me is to say that I'm "Like MacGyver". But what does "Mac" have to do with my consulting business?
As a consultant my job is to help you solve problems using the best resources available. In some situations that will mean helping to create improvements with nothing more than some excel tables, a few post-it notes and a ton of stakeholder management. On the other end of the spectrum, it's possible what's required is a more robust service making cost less important than ease of integration with current tools and systems. The fact is that there may be some standard systems you can use to drive improvement, but each company, team, and project is unique. The same approaches I took to problems at Raytheon did not work the same way they did at Microsoft. Yet my ability to "MacGyver" solutions that utilize the resources available, created a starting point to implement processes for continuous improvement. The character Angus MacGyver as noted does have a standard tool he uses, his Swiss-Army knife. In practice my "Swiss-Army knife" contains Lean Six Sigma and Project Management Institute models and processes I learned while employed at Raytheon and as a Technical Project Manager on contracts at Microsoft.
In my career I've had fantastic challenges placed before me. As a service member I was provided ample opportunities to come up with creative solutions where the tools of choice were literally very special tape and standard bailing wire. I've travelled to 3 continents for work, each requiring adaptation and adoption of local customs and therefore solutions. And in recent years, like MacGyver I've found my work being related to reducing our environmental impacts. I decided to create Frequency Continuous Improvement Solutions because unlike the T.V. series, my time in syndication is not over. With over 15 years of experience managing projects in datacenter, infrastructure, and defense it's time for the next season to begin. If you're looking to get the most out of the resources you have or just need someone to help you figure out which solutions are best for your situation, please schedule a consultation to discuss how FCIS can help get your teams on the right wavelength.
